Rebellion of a Kingdom: Black Hallows Book 3

by G N Wright

“I did the only thing I could do. I took this and I ran.” She sounds ashamed and I want to feel sorry for her, but I can’t imagine ever leaving a child defenseless against a monster like Elliot. She left Asher behind, left him to be surrounded in darkness and grow up to become who he is now. How different would his life have been if he’d have escaped with her?

  “My dad helped you, didn’t he?” Marcus interrupts my thoughts, and she nods.

  “I didn’t know who else to turn to. Michael was still in Black Hallows and I knew he had helped Sarah out years before, so I knew he would help me too.”

  “How did he help my Mom?” I interrupt, but she ignores me and focuses on Ash.

  “I watched your father for weeks. He was taking you boys everywhere. It’s like he knew what I was planning. I waited until you were all out of the house and I broke into the cellar.” She stops closing her eyes like the memories are haunting her, “what I saw I won’t ever forget. I found this.” She pats the box, “then I planned my escape. I knew Elliot would let me go, especially when he knows I have this. But I knew he would never let you or your brother go. So, I made the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I ran and left you behind.”

  “What’s in the box?” Is all he responds.

  She sighs pulling the lid off and pulling out a huge binder, “evidence.” She mutters before handing it over to him. He takes it flipping through it and all I see are newspaper clippings, missing persons posters, and what look like bank statements.

  “What is all this?” He questions as he takes in every page.

  “It’s everything I could find.” She shrugs, but I can see how long she has been holding onto this. “We moved around a lot, Elliot said it was for work and I guess for him it was. I didn’t realize it at the time, but whenever he felt the heat got too much, we moved. But he kept this box, like a sick little box of trophies of all the girls he’d sold.”

  Asher continues to flip through it but I can’t bear to look at it any longer, there are so many pictures in there. Elliot has kept track of every girl he’s ever fucking taken. I shouldn’t be shocked, but this is sick even for him.

  “These all look like girls without families or runaways.” Ash muses and I know we had already come to that conclusion, that prior to me, he only ever seemed to take girls that nobody cared about.

  “Safer that way,” she mumbles and then sighs, “from what I gathered he would use Greg to lure in the younger girls his age and they would do whatever with them and then they’d disappear.”

  I fight down the bile as I remember what they did to me and what has been done to hundreds of others. All without justice. I can’t ignore that. There is just too much to let it go and it’s worse now, before he got away with it because it was girls nobody gave a fuck about. Now he gets away with it because he found his people. Just as sick and fucked up as he is and with power like he wouldn’t believe. He thinks he’s untouchable.

  “So why ruin that by taking Elle?” Marcus wonders aloud.

  “That was personal.” Beth responds mindlessly before I see her eyes widen like she’s said too much. She knows more, more than I ever could have anticipated. Ash doesn’t miss it either and calls it out straight away.

  “Why do you think Elle was so important to them? She was just a fucking kid and a King. Taking her was reckless even for him.”

  She blows out a breath and I know she doesn’t want to tell us, but I also know she can see how much of a force her son is. He won’t let this go. “It was never about her,” she replies looking at me now, “this was set in motion before she was even born.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” I quip back.

  “Not to you. It all comes back to Elliot and Sarah.”

  I frown, “Impossible. They didn’t even know each other until Elliot moved to Black Hallows.”

  “Trust me, they did. Sarah comes from a powerful family. You know that better than anyone. She was wild, never did what they said. They went away one summer and when she came back, she was different, quieter, calmer. I barely saw her and then a year later she was being forced into an arranged marriage with your father.”

  “What has any of that got to do with Elliot, or Elle for that matter?” Asher questions and she glances at him before looking back to me.

  “Elle was payment. A child for a child.” She says the words slowly like they are going to make any sense, but none of us pick up on whatever she means.

  “Stop speaking in fucking riddles!” Asher shouts and I can see the anger in him rising. Being here is not good for him, it’s digging up too much of the past. We need to go.

  She takes a deep breath and then says four words that change everything.

  “Zack is Elliot’s son.”

  Chapter 27

  ASHER

  The drive back to Hallows is silent. None of us know what to say. We thought we knew everything; was so sure we had all the pieces of the puzzle. Turns out we have been playing a game we didn’t even know the fucking rules to. No wonder we were never a step ahead of them, this has been in the making longer than we thought.

  My father raped Sarah King when she was sixteen. They met on vacation and because my grandparents had just come into their huge fortune, they were trying to rub shoulders with old money families to gain status. Elliot spent the week chasing her and when she refused, he decided to take her anyway. When she went home, she tried to forget about it, until she realized she was pregnant with Zack. She turned to the only friend she had left, Michael Riviera. Michael told her he could send Zack to a nice family and nobody would ever know. That family just so happened to be Arthur and Helen. They hid the teenage pregnancy scandal and then Sarah was forced into an arranged marriage with Jonathan who took her powerful name.

  She knew, knew how depraved and evil he was, yet became friends with him anyway, or was she forced? Jonathan King is the mystery here, did he know about what Elliot did? Did he care? Does he know about Zack? So much information and still so many unanswered questions.

  All of that and the only thing I can truly think about is that I have a brother. A good brother, a brother that isn’t a total fucking psychopath. A brother that my fucking other brother tried to kill. Zack is the one who found a way to reach out to me after Elle disappeared from town. He let me know she was okay and safe and thanked me for getting her out. We’ve gotten on well all this time and now I find out he’s my older brother, my eldest brother. Fuck. The thought hits me like a bulldozer. Zack Royton is the true Donovan heir.

  “That’s why Greg tried to kill him.” I mutter smacking the steering wheel, I should have fucking known.

  “Huh?” Elle asks swinging to look at me.

  “Zack’s the oldest,” I say, and she looks at me in confusion, “he’s the heir.” I confirm and her eyes widen as I conclude what she hadn’t yet put together. “That’s why Greg wanted him dead.”

  “Fuck!” She shouts and I know she understands now more than ever. This isn’t over, it can’t be. They won’t stop, so we can’t stop.

  The rest of the drive is silent and I’m grateful, I have too many thoughts swirling around in my head, too many plans. Greg and our father have been ten steps ahead for too long. It’s time we take the upper hand. We already have, we got Cass back. She’s safe, Zack’s alive and we’re all together. I don’t even register getting into the gates of the house, pulling up and getting out until Elle speaks.

  “I’ll go inside and gather Zack, Arthur and Helen.” She says squeezing my shoulder softly before heading towards the house.

  “Get the twins too.” I say back to her and she pauses and gives me another nod before disappearing inside with Marcus. I know they need to know, so might as well tell them all at once. We are all in this together.

  I don’t know how long I stand there, but apparently, it’s long enough for the help to find me. “Everything go okay?” Lincoln asks and I close my eyes in frustration, the last person I want to see me freaking out right now is him.

  “Fin
e,” I grit out.

  “You don’t look fine,” he starts, and I open my eyes and glare at him, “I mean you always look fine,” he adds and then he pulls a weird face, I scrutinize him closely, but can’t put my finger on it. He huffs, “what I meant to say is you look stressed.”

  I take a deep breath, I don’t see the point in hiding it, he’s going to find out. Elle trusts him, fuck even I trust him at this point. “Elliot is Zack's father.”

  He frowns and I watch as he tries to put the pieces together, trying to get to the conclusion of what I just told him. Good luck, I’ve got most of the answers and I still don’t know how we fucking got here.

  “Hmm,” he finally says, and I snap.

  “Hmm? What the fuck does hmm mean?”

  He laughs a little, in that way he always does with just a little tip of his mouth, “Nothing, it’s just I can actually see it. You and Zack being brothers.”

  “How is that even possible. We didn’t even grow up together, we don’t look alike.”

  He shakes his head, “strong, caring, loyal, would do anything for the ones they love. Ring any bells?”

  I hadn’t really thought about Zack and I being similar, never had a reason to, but now I am it makes my chest feel a little lighter. I always thought everyone in my family was a piece of shit. My mom left us, and my father and brother are literal murderers. Yet I have a brother who is smart, compassionate, and completely devoted to his family.

  I offer him a slight smile as thanks and head into the house to find Elle and the others. They are all sitting in the living room and by the time I enter I can feel the thick tension in the air. Arthur and Helen are sitting with their hands clasped, Lily is in the corner with her usual frown and Logan is lying across two cushions like nothing is a big deal. Zack is in his wheelchair next to the sofa where Marcus and Elle are sitting.

  He looks between them and me and then sighs, “you know about Elliot?” He asks and Elle’s head snaps towards him in surprise. “About him being my biological father, I mean?” Now it’s Lily and Logans turn to look shocked, but I note Helen and Arthur don’t look surprised.

  “You knew about this?” She asks in disbelief.

  “I suspected.” He confirms, looking at me warily.

  “Since when?” Elle demands.

  “Since the night Greg shot me.” He shrugs slightly, “he said something about family resemblance and at the time I thought he meant to you. Then a few other things made me realize he was referring to himself.”

  “You are nothing fucking like him.” She cries, “don’t even think that for a second.”

  “I know. When I woke up, I had Liam dig into Sarah’s past and I found a crossover with Elliot from when they were teenagers. Didn’t take much to figure out the rest.” I can see he’s had time to digest this. Well, I haven’t.

  “And when were you planning on telling us?” I blurt, breaking my silence.

  “Honestly? I don’t know.” He sighs and I know he means that. “This changes everything.”

  “It changes nothing.” Arthur says, “you are our son, always have been, always will be,”

  “That’s not what I meant, dad. You know you guys are the only parents I will ever recognize, but we all thought this whole thing started because of what happened to Elle. But we were wrong.”

  “What does this all mean?” Marcus asks and I see the flash of Donovan DNA across Zack’s face then for the first time ever.

  Zack sits up straight looking at Marcus, Elle and then eventually me, “It means we’re going to kill them, all of them. Before they kill us.”

  Chapter 28

  MARCUS

  Every single time I think the Donovan’s and their sick list of crimes can’t get any worse, they prove me wrong. Monsters like Elliot and Greg aren’t made, they are born. That pathological need to hurt people ingrained in them from the very beginning. I want to end them, stand over their dead bodies in victory and fucking cheer. I need the thrill of making them bleed, the one I got with Asher on Christmas Eve as I watched the life drain from those two bastards that helped Greg. I understand now more than ever why Elle came back, why she had to do all of this. It’s the only acceptable justice.

  Zack Royton. Zack King. Zack Donovan. Not once since I met Zack had it ever crossed my mind that Elliot Donovan could be his father. A King and a Donovan. What a toxic fucking mixture. A child for a child, that’s what Beth said. So that means Elliot found out about Zack years ago and instead of looking for him like a normal fucking human being, his solution was to kidnap his little sister and use her to punish Sarah. We all thought that night triggered a chain of events that would change everything forever but turns out this was all in motion before we even existed. Zack Royton, Elle’s brother, heir to the fucking Donovan throne. What the fuck do we do with that?

  I think it’s safe to say we have all undoubtedly decided that this isn’t over. We are moving forwards with Elle’s plans for revenge and hopefully this time we get no more surprises. We are completely off radar at the safe house, but school starts again in a week and then what?

  We are all together in the living room including most of Max’s guys who have made it back after taking Christmas with their families. The only people missing are Cassie and Lily who went to bed a couple of hours ago.

  “Are we going back?” Lincoln asks and everyone looks to Elle.

  She huffs a long slow breath, like she is still thinking about her response, but we all know her answer. We knew it the moment she got Cassie back, the moment she saw Lincoln's blood, the moment she found out she wasn't the first King to be raped by a Donovan. The moment her fourteen-year-old innocence was stolen in the black of night. It isn’t over until she says it’s over.

  “Yeah,” she sighs, “we’re going back. We aren’t letting them win. If Greg wants me, he can come and get me. I’ll be armed and waiting.”

  “The twins will have to stay here. They can’t be that far away without protection.” Arthur says with a no-nonsense tone and I see Logan's nod in agreement. College isn’t even on his mind right now. He wants revenge just as much as Elle. She smashed into their lives and changed the course of it forever. Family is everything to them.

  “That’s the best plan, this is the only safe place for any of us right now.” Zack agrees as he rubs his hand over his chest where he took the bullet. His wounds aren't even healed, and he is ready to go headfirst back into the trenches for his sister.

  “Okay then.” Max starts, “we need to do a full security sweep of the school and get some extra measures put in place.” he says without pause looking at his guys, “I want every inch of that school under surveillance.”

  “Principal Lock is an old friend, none of that will be an issue.” Elle replies absentmindedly, I can tell she is already knee deep back in mission mode, ready to take out her next target.

  “So what? We’re just supposed to go back and act normal?” Jace asks bitterly, taking another swig of whiskey from the bottle that is permanently in his hand these days.

  “As opposed to what?” I ask with warning in my tone, he might be my brother, but Elle is my girl, and we are all in this together. He just huffs in response, taking another drink.

  “We put on a united front, watch each other's backs and act like we aren’t spending our nights violently murdering the scum of the town.” Elle responds to him with a glare, but I can tell she is worried about him. This is the side of Jace she hasn’t seen before.

  She watches him a little longer before she brings her gaze to Asher who is silently listening in the corner, “what about you?”

  He flicks his eyes to hers. “What about me?” He asks.

  Elle glares at him now, “What are you going to do about school? I presume you won’t be returning to Hallows Prep, not unless you have a fucking death wish.” I refrain from rolling my eyes at her statement, because if anyone has a death wish, it’s that psycho. He’d walk into his home with no weapons and murder his father and brother with hi
s bare hands if Elle would let him.

  “I can easily hack into your files and transfer you to Hallows High with us.” Lincoln interrupts before Ash can give Elle an answer.

  He looks at him now and smirks, “no thanks help, I try to avoid the masses where I can. I'll just stay home with Cassie and do some work.” He cocks his brow at him, like he is daring Lincoln to challenge him.

  Of course, Linc takes the bait. “What sort of work?”

  “The kind that's none of your business Blackwell.” He snaps at him, effectively ending their conversation.

  Elle cuts in before their little sparring can continue, “that’s great Ash, she will love it.” He offers her a small smile and then silence descends again.

  “Okay aside from setting you guys up to go back to school, what's the next priority?” Max asks zoning in on Elle.

  “Rebecca O’Sullivan.” She replies simply.

  “The MC President’s daughter.” Liam confirms with a nod as he starts to furiously type into his laptop.

  “Yeah. We get her then we get the whole of the Hallowed Crows MC on our side. This war isn’t about numbers, but they sure will help” Elle adds.

  “We’ve had eyes on Fitzgerald since we got here, but there has been no sign of any girl. We’ve all got her picture, so for now we keep watching. Get his routines down and see if we can track down where he is keeping her.”

  “If he even still has her. If she is even still alive.” Jace mutters in contempt.

  “I can’t find any evidence that he does or doesn’t, but there are several purchases from high end boutiques that only retail women’s clothes and lingerie and he doesn’t appear to have any other woman in his life.” Liam continues to tap away as he talks, but his words don’t offer comfort. What the fuck has he been doing to her if he still has her. Elle said that her dad hasn’t seen her in two years. I can’t even imagine what she’s endured.

  “We don’t give up until we know for sure.” Zack says looking to Elle who nods in response, I imagine she is thinking the same as me. She suffered for one night, but that must seem like a walk in the park compared to two years with one of these sick fucks.