Ruined: A Dark Bully Reverse Harem Romance (Beautiful Tyrants Book 1)

by Vanessa Winters

  “Agreed,” my father replied.

  “But I don’t have a brother,” I said.

  It was impossible for me to wipe the look of shock from my face.

  “You didn’t think you had a brother,” my father said.

  “You and Pauline had a son?” It was obvious that Julian was having just as much difficulty accepting this to be true as I was. “Why didn’t anyone ever know about it then?”

  “Pauline was not my mother,” David said. His voice was strong but quiet. His voice was the kind of voice that has been used to staying in the shadows for a long time.

  “Then who was?” Julian asked him.

  David’s eyes turned to Michael. “Marta was my mother.”

  No one spoke for several long minutes.

  “Oh yes,” my father said after a while, as if he had just remembered something important. “I guess that makes him your brother,” he said to Michael. “More importantly, your half-brother.”

  Michael stared across the table at David, completely stupefied. Then he looked back at Jack.

  “Did you tell him that you just murdered his mother?” Michael said aggressively.

  “Yes,” my father answered. “And I also told him that he was the reason I killed her.”

  My skin started to crawl, and I felt as though my nerves were going to explode if I didn’t get out of this room. Michael looked like he was going to jump across the table at my father at any moment. Everyone else looked like they were completely frozen in shock.

  “You see, I just found out about David myself. It seems that they kept him a bit of a secret,” he glared at Michael. “Your mother took it upon herself to hide my son from me for all of these years. I had a son--an heir to my fortune--and she kept him hidden. When she came back after her little erroneous visit to you the other night, I had men follow her. She led me straight to him. He looks a lot like me, too, can’t you see the resemblance?”

  “You knew my mother came to see me?” Michael said.

  He was getting ready to lose control; I could see it.

  Jack nodded. “Yes.”

  “And you killed her.”

  He shrugged, as if this were commonplace for him. “Like I said, I killed her because she hid my son from me. I couldn’t have cared less what else she did.”

  David sat across the table from us, unmoving and silent. Michael looked at him in disgust.

  “You know that your father just killed our mother, and yet you just sit there as if you don’t care?” Michael said to him with rage in his eyes.

  “Marta may have been my biological mother, but I have never considered her my mother,” David answered.

  “Then who was?” Michael spat his words at David as if they were daggers.

  “Pauline.”

  All of a sudden, it all made sense to me. Marta had come to my mother for help when she discovered she was pregnant from an extramarital affair with my father. My mother didn’t care about my father’s indiscretions; she had always hated him. My mother, instead of shunning Marta, helped hide her child when it was born. She must have known what an awful fate the son of Jack White would face, and she took pity on them both.

  Then this man sitting in front of me, boasting about his ‘heir apparent’, killed them both.

  And I’m going to kill him.

  31

  We left immediately following my father’s announcement. I wasn’t sure what his game strategy was to bring us there and parade David in front of us like some sort of token. Maybe Adam was right; maybe my father did it to show us that he had a legacy now and that there was nothing he couldn’t and wouldn’t do.

  If seeing David was supposed to scare us though, it didn’t work.

  I felt bad for the guy more than anything else. And I felt mad for Marta and my mother. They had spent all the years of David’s whole life trying to keep my father from discovering him, and suddenly now, he ends up right where they tried to keep him from falling in my father’s clutches.

  The four of us walked back to Goldshire quickly. There was a lot to talk about, and everyone was baffled by what had just happened.

  “Hey,” David called from behind us as we neared the big tree. “Can I come with you guys?”

  The guys looked at him and then scanned the perimeter. I knew what they were thinking. They thought that my father was using David as a pawn to get to us.

  “Why would you want to come with us?” Adam asked.

  “Well, a day ago, I was minding my own business and going to school, and then suddenly now I’m picked up by a father I never knew who just happens to have also killed a mother that I never knew. So yeah, I’m a bit puzzled right now, and you guys seem a lot cooler than he is, so I thought maybe I could come talk to you about what’s going on.”

  “I don’t trust him,” Adam whispered to Michael.

  “Neither do I,” he replied.

  “Hey, I remember you,” David said as he tilted his head toward Julian. “I thought you looked familiar back at dinner, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Now I remember you, though. You were that kid I used to play tag with in Pauline’s backyard.”

  Tag.

  “We should bring him,” I said. “It’s not his fault he’s in this mess. I think we need to help him.”

  I could tell that neither Adam nor Michael thought that was a good idea. But Julian seemed to be on my side about it.

  “I remember you, too,” Julian said to him, smiling. “You played a mean game of tag.”

  David laughed and walked toward us.

  “Fine,” Michael said flatly. “You can come for a while. But if you do anything stupid, I’ll send you back to your father in pieces.”

  David looked slightly intimidated by him.

  “You’ll get used to him,” Julian joked.

  When we got back to the apartment, the guys grilled David. I honestly felt a little bad for the poor guy. It started to get late, and they seemed to feel at least okay enough about him to let him stay the night without having to go back to Lineage. David took a spot on the couch, and when everyone else had gone back to their bedrooms, I stepped out to peek in on him. He laid there on the couch, looking nervous and slightly miserable.

  “You okay?” I asked as I walked out. He sat up and pushed the blanket Julian had given him to the side of the couch to make room for me to sit down.

  David sighed. “Yeah, it’s just been a lot to take in, you know?”

  I did know, though. In fact, I probably knew better than anyone.

  “So, you’ve been at Lineage this whole time and never knew he was your father?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Did you know about all the awful stuff going on there?”

  He paused to gather his thoughts. “I mean, not really? I had heard rumors and things, but I never thought much of it. Every student hears the same rumors at one point or another, you know? And after Pauline died, I was pretty upset and mostly just tried to focus on graduating in the spring. I know she wasn’t my real mom, but she was like a mom to me too.”

  I could see how he would feel that way. My mom was like a mom to everyone and anyone that needed her. But most of all, to me.

  “I’m sorry that this has all happened to you,” I said. “Especially about Marta being killed. Even if you didn’t know her that well, she was still your mom. It must have been difficult hearing that our father had killed both of the women you knew as mothers.”

  “What do you mean?” David’s face looked truthfully, blank and confused. “Who else did he kill besides Marta?”

  “You don’t know?” I asked.

  He didn’t, so I enlightened him. “Our father killed my mother too.”

  There’s a certain kind of look that evil has, and it can sometimes take a few different forms. Sometimes, it can take the obvious form that shows itself clearly, It could be obvious, like the look of the yellowed, maniacal grin that my father had, or the way that Marta used to smile before she did
something truly horrible. But then there’s a different look that evil can take on, one that is much harder to describe and to prove. It’s a silent, emotionless, invisible look that chills you to the bone. It’s the kind of empty reaction that you can tell is hiding something so vile that it can’t bear to reveal itself until it’s ready to strike.

  It might have been my nerves from the day that were just shot, but something about the vacant look in David’s eyes when I told him about my mother’s murder made me feel as though I were staring into the face of something even more treacherous than my father.

  “David?” I asked as I got up and started to back away toward my room.

  I’m not even sure what made me get up; he hadn’t done or said anything.

  “Are you okay?” I asked hesitantly.

  He looked at me as if he were staring past me instead of at me when he answered. “Yes, Lisette. I’m fine.”

  I kept looking at him as I went down the hall toward my room. David laid against the couch with his eyes wide open, watching me but looking as if he were watching something completely different behind his eyes. Like it was something that only he could see.

  And when I got back into my room, I locked the door.

  The next morning, I slept in late. I didn’t have any dreams at all, and it was honestly a nice and restful break for my mind. When I came out for coffee, I saw the blanket that David was using neatly folded and laid over the arm of the couch.

  But I didn’t see David.

  “Morning,” I said to the guys as they were gathered around the table with coffees in hand.

  Adam came over and kissed me on the tip of my nose.

  “Morning,” Julian smiled.

  “Where is David?” I asked.

  “Not sure,” Michael answered. “We thought maybe you would know. He wasn’t here when we came out for coffee this morning.”

  “Did he leave a note or anything?”

  “I didn’t see one.” Michael went back to drinking his coffee and checking updates on his phone. I think he was glad that David had left; they all were. And I think I was glad that he was gone too.

  I didn’t think about David much for the next few days. Final exams were nearing, and Goldshire was busy preparing for graduation. It seemed ridiculous to even think about graduation when we knew that we still had to deal with my father and his schemes before we could leave Charleston, but even so, it was hard not to be a little excited about graduating from college. Mom would have found it even more impressive that I’d been able to graduate with a 4.0 GPA even despite all the murderous craziness.

  The guys didn’t seem quite as excited about it as I was, but I reminded them that if we didn’t take time to enjoy some of the trivial things in life, then what was it all about? Since Julian had already graduated, he didn’t have any exams or preparations to make, so he indulged me more than the other two by listening to all my silly graduation wishes.

  Since Goldshire had separated from Lineage, the effect of all their shady dealings had dissipated from our campus, and Goldshire was beginning to feel more like a regular school, one that wasn’t entrenched in a long history of corruption. It made it easier to feel like things were normal on some days.

  We had all talked about where we would go when we were able to leave. I thought Asheville sounded nice…all the mountains and solitude, with the quaint little towns. But the boys seemed to want to go even farther away than that. Adam had even started talking about the west coast. We had all agreed that wherever it was, all four of us would be going there together.

  I wondered how long the three of them would stay patient about my inevitable choice of who to be with. But for now, they all seemed content with the way we were.

  The only tradition that Michael had forgotten to change when he restructured Goldshire’s school events was the graduation after party. Lineage and Goldshire had always held separate graduations but then combined graduating student bodies later in the evening as a gesture of good-willed, mutual celebration. He realized his mistake and was getting ready to change it, but I intervened.

  “I think we should keep the graduation party,” I said.

  “Why would we do that?” he asked. “Why would we want to combine anything with Lineage?”

  “We both have a half-brother who is graduating this year, too. Don’t you think it would be nice to celebrate with him?

  None of us had heard from David since he had left the apartment. I had told the guys that David seemed upset and strange after I told him that my mother had been murdered by our father. Julian just said that it was probably a hard thing for him to hear since he liked my mother so much and that he probably just needed some time to sort everything out. That seemed perfectly reasonable considering all that he had found out about so suddenly.

  But I didn’t know what David’s plans were after graduation and didn’t know if we’d even see each other again. So, I thought the graduation celebration would be a good idea. Michael ended up conceding because he could see that it meant a lot to me.

  Personally, I don’t think he ever cared if he saw David again.

  “Do you ever just think about leaving?” I asked Michael as we were lying in bed together one night.

  “You mean leaving town?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Julian and Adam talk about it all the time. They both seem like they would just drop all of this and leave everything behind after graduation and leave. But you don’t ever mention it.”

  “That’s because we aren’t done,” he said as he pulled me closer. I liked it when we laid in bed together with our naked bodies touching beneath the sheets.

  “Done with school? Graduation is right around the corner,” I said.

  “No, I meant done with what has happened here.”

  I snuggled against him. The weather was getting a little bit warmer now, and when we kept the windows open, it brought just the right amount of chill into the room.

  “My father hasn’t done anything lately,” I said. “He seems to have quieted his hunt for us and is just letting us be.”

  “That’s true,” Michael agreed. “But he has done so much in the past that he needs to atone for. And I’m sure that he’s still running his illegal operations within Lineage. We just don’t see them as much now since Goldshire has separated from it.”

  That was true. There was no way my father would have given any of that power or money up. It just wasn’t right under our noses as it had been before.

  “What are you hinting at, Lisette? Do you want to just walk away from all this and go start fresh somewhere else?”

  I didn’t answer right away because I wasn’t sure. Michael rolled me over gently so that he could see my face. “I want to do what will bring you the most peace,” he said. “Everything that has happened here has been so terrible—everything except for you and I finding each other. If you want to stay until we can finally figure out how to take Jack down, then we’ll stay. If you need to do that for your mom, and for yourself, then that’s what we will do. But if you want to leave, and you feel ready to let go of all of this and start new somewhere, then I am ready to do that too. And so are Adam and Julian. Just say the word, and we’ll leave right after graduation.”

  I wasn’t sure yet.

  I’d had some time to think about everything. Although my feelings were every bit as strong and determined as they had always been, some of the drive that I had for revenge had been replaced with the peace that I found now. Yes, I wanted to stop my father from hurting anyone else. And yes, I wanted to expose the corruption that had resulted in my mother’s death.

  Was I willing to risk anyone I loved? I was happy now…we were all happy now. I just couldn’t stomach the thought of putting Michael, Adam, or Julian in danger again. And we were finally coming to a time when we could get out of here and leave all of this behind us. I couldn’t believe I was about to say this.

  “I think I might want to just leave,” I said to Michael. “Would you be okay with
that? Would you be okay with leaving Goldshire behind, now that you’re acting headmaster?”

  “Absolutely,” he said as he smiled at me. “Asheville it is, then? Or someplace else?”

  “I don’t know; let’s talk to the other guys about it.”

  Adam and Julian, as I had suspected, were in complete support of the idea. In fact, they all wanted to bail on graduation and just leave now. But I had promised my mother that I would walk across that graduation stage, and I intended to keep that promise.

  32

  “Hey,” someone behind me said as I went to reach for my cap and gown that was being handed across the counter to me.

  I turned around and saw David.

  “Hi,” I said, surprised to see him here. “What are you doing here?”

  He snickered. “With graduation coming up, the colleges are working on the celebration plans, so I was over here with permission. I saw you walking in here and thought I would come say hello.”

  “I’m glad you did,” I smiled. “I’ve been wondering how you are. I hadn’t heard anything from you since you left.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said as he looked down toward the floor. “I was a little upset and just needed to work some things out on my own.”

  “That’s completely understandable.”

  Julian was right. David had just needed some time.

  “How are things over at Lineage?” I asked.

  But, what I really wanted to know was how my father had been treating him.

  He nodded with a sigh. “They’re okay, I guess. I’ve mostly just been staying to myself and focusing on school.”

  I tried to lighten the conversation a bit since it was pretty obvious that he didn’t want to talk about our father. “Do you have any girlfriends yet?” I teased.

  It felt awkward and a bit unnatural to try to tease him like a brother since we barely knew each other, but I was trying my best to break the ice.

  “No,” he laughed. “Guess not everyone is as lucky as you with a whole harem of lovers.”