His head titled, his smile falling to a smirk. “That's just it, Summer. That's just what you have missed.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “I'm not V.”
I felt my face fall. My mouth opened slightly, my eyes got wide. He wasn't V? What? How was he not V? Everyone called him V. That made no sense. At all.
“In fact, I believe it is time for you to meet the real V,” he informed me, jerking his head at Martin who started shoving me forward.
So I followed Not-V up the pathway, into the entrance, past the huge staircase that led up to my old prison upstairs. Not-V turned down the hallway that I had a vague recollection of leading into the kitchen. I felt myself pause, my legs not willing to keep moving. My mind just simply... not ready for any more surprises. Any more shocks to my system. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't deal with any more. I was done.
Martin made a grunting noise, bringing up his knee and hitting it hard into my lower back, making me stumble forward a few steps.
I had no choice, so I kept walking. The kitchen was a massive area of warm brown tile, stainless steel, and a huge island. Not-V was standing in the doorway, half blocking it, a weird smile on his face. Like he was enjoying it. Like he was anticipating my reaction. Which could only mean that who I was about to face was going to scare the ever loving shit out of me. That was the only explanation
Then he moved to the side, watching my face hard. “V, here she is,” he said.
And then there was V. And I just collapsed back against Martin. “Mom?”
Twenty-four
Summer
V.
Veronica.
Veronica Lyon.
My mother.
No. No fucking way. No no no no.
Martin shoved me away, making a strange disgusted noise, moving to go stand next to Not-V who was smiling like a maniac still. Like this was the most entertainment he had gotten in months.
I looked at my mother. A mother I had no actual memory of. A mother who was nothing more than a single picture on the mantle in the formal sitting room. A picture that was taken with her smiling beautifully, her gray eyes shining bright, her red hair flowing around her shoulders.
I had no memories of her. Of her brushing my hair or kissing my skinned knees. I didn't know what her voice sounded like. I didn't know what perfume she wore.
She was a ghost to me.
She was some story my father told me when I had finally asked about her. She was his sad eyes falling on mine, his hand landing on my shoulder. “Your mother didn't want to be with us, baby girl. She had other plans for her life. And they didn't include us. That doesn't say anything about us. It doesn't say anything about you. It says she was a very selfish woman. Do you understand me, Summer? It was her loss.”
That was what I knew of my mother.
Aside from knowing that I had her eyes and hair.
That was it.
She was selfish.
She didn't want me.
But there she was, standing five feet from me.
She didn't look that different from her picture. Her face wasn't as full as it had been when she was younger. She had some crows feet beside her eyes. But she looked mostly the same. Youthful. Beautiful. Her red hair was pulled into a loose barrette at the base of her neck. She was short, like me. Slight, like me. In fact, she was a perfect representation of what I would look like in twenty or so years.
Except I wasn't going to live that long.
She was wearing a pair of black slacks, heels, and a tight white long sleeve t-shirt. Her head was tilted, looking me up and down.
“Daniel, darling,” she said, looking over at Not-V. Daniel. His name was Daniel. That was somehow so much less terrifying. And also, my mother's voice was nothing like mine. Mine was smooth, girly. Her's was more throaty, lower, a bedroom voice. It was really weird to be leaning that while I was standing cuffed in her kitchen, years after I gave up thinking I would ever meet her. “What has happened to her face?”
Daniel cleared his throat. Martin shrugged and answered. “She tripped.”
“Oh, is that what it's called?” I asked, glaring at him.
To this, my mother laughed.
The sound shocked my attention back toward her.
“Summer,” she said, giving me a smile. “It's so nice to finally meet you.”
Alright.
Let's just say my anger managed to break through my shock.
“Couldn't have dropped by when I was chained to a chair in the basement having one of your lackys carve into my back? Or perhaps late at night when they would come into my room, climb on top of me, grab at me and tell me all the ways they were going to rape me?”
At that, her face hardened. As did Daniel's I noticed as his eyes shot daggers at Martin.
“Deke, man,” Martin said, shaking his head like he wasn't a part of it.
“Really? It was Deke who told me that girls like to get it from both ends at once? Funny, cause that sounded a lot like you,” I shot back. I was beyond caring about pissing anyone off.
“Summer, darling, no one was going to rape you,” my mother soothed.
“Really? Because judging by the look of surprise and anger on your face, you had no fucking idea what was going on under your own roof at night. Please do try to convince me you have any kind of control over the situation. Or your men for that matter.”
To this, she smiled. Warmly. It could only be described as warmly. “You know, I was worried about leaving you behind. Leaving you with Richard. I thought he would squeeze every bit of independence and spirit out of you. I guess I was wrong.”
Oh, god.
She was right though.
She was so right.
He had done that. He had done that without me even realizing it.
I was his little yes-man. I did what he said. I never fought him. I never even thought about disobeying him. I was terrified of the prospect of letting him down. I was his god damn trained puppy.
The only reason I found my independence and spirit was from being held captive. By her. How fucking sick was that?
At the same time though, whatever my father had done to me, nothing, literally nothing would even close to being held against your will and starved, beat, sliced open, and humiliated at the hands of your own mother.
“Whatever Dad may or may not have done, he never had someone lay a hand on me,” I said, my chin lifting.
“Oh, darling girl,” she said, reminding me of my father. They both called me that. And it was, on both their lips, incredibly condescending. “Haven't you learned yet that there is far worse damage to inflict on people other than the physical kind?”
“Sounds like you're speaking from experience. How's the skin trade, Mom?” I asked and saw a flash cross her eyes before she pushed it away.
“Martin,” she addressed instead, looking at him. “Would you please show my daughter to her room? It seems she needs some time to think about how to speak to her mother.” She paused, her eyes going to Daniel as a second thought. “You go with them,” she said pointedly, obviously no longer trusting Martin alone.
Thank God for small miracles.
“Will do, V,” Daniel said, jerking his head at Martin who walked up to me, shoving me back toward the hallway.
I stumbled up the steps, Martin's hand banging between my shoulder blades every few steps while Daniel followed a few steps below. And I found myself wondering about the man I used to think was V. The man who delivered the orders about what was to be done with me. They weren't his decisions. They were my mother's. And he only put his hands on me once. Then jerked back from me like I had burned him.
What the hell was his deal?
He wasn't the viscous skin trader I thought he was. But he was someone important. Someone my mother trusted.
And if he was part of the inner circle, why wouldn't he get his hands dirty?
Were the higher-ups like... above that?
The door to my room was opened and I was pushed inside. Mart
in reached into his pocket, getting a key to the cuffs and unlocking one of my wrists.
And, well, let's just say I was getting a little sick of being a good prisoner. The second my wrist was free, my arm swung out, the bottom of my palm slamming upward underneath his nose and I heard a sick, satisfying crunch before he reared back, cursing.
“Fucking bitch! The fucking bitch broke my fucking nose!” he yelled, as the blood started pouring.
He advanced on me quickly, but Daniel's hand at the back of his shirt pulled him backward. “Go deal with your face. I'll lock her down.”
He'll lock me down?
I was too stunned to swing out again, my arm falling down at my side.
Martin glared at me then stormed out, slamming the door so hard I was shocked it didn't splinter down the center.
“You gonna hit me too?” he asked, his head tilted, watching me.
“I haven't decided yet,” I answered honestly.
At that, he nodded. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”
I should have said yes.
I should have taken the opportunity, one arm free, to get my gun and get done with the whole dying thing. But I couldn't bring myself to. Not yet. Not when things had changed so quickly. It shouldn't have mattered that V was my mother. She was nothing to me. But I found myself needing answers.
After I got those answers, I was going to follow through with my plan.
Which would, hopefully, be before Martin got his hands on me again.
I shook my head. “No.”
Again, I got a nod. “Are you going to fight me?” he asked, motioning toward the bed.
“Are you going to threaten to rape me?”
He flinched.
Flinched.
The seeming second in command to a skin trader, aka: someone who routinely sold women to be raped, flinched.
What the hell was his deal?
“No, I'm not,” he said, his words firm.
“Then I guess I don't have to break your nose too,” I said, sitting down on the bed, moving to press my back onto the headboard. I didn't want to be cuffed lying down. I had been cuffed lying down for months. I lifted my hands above my head.
Daniel came toward the bed, kneeling beside me. “No,” he said, pulling my arms down. “Put them behind your back instead. It'll hurt your shoulders like hell but it won't make your arms fall asleep.” Agreeing to his logic, though wholly uncomprehending why he was trying to offer me comfort, I put my arms behind my back. He reached around me, slipping the chain through a rail, then putting the bracelet on my other wrist and clicking it closed. Then, to my utter disbelief, he grabbed one of the pillows, turning it longways and slipping it behind me to cushion my back from the hard headboard.
“Who are you?” I found myself asking his profile.
His head snapped to me, his eyes flashing for a second before it was gone. “Someone who doesn't get off on pain,” he said simply, moving off the bed and toward the door.
He was half in the hallway when I found my voice again. “Is it a good or a bad thing now that she knows I know?” I asked, not sure why I was bothering.
But he turned back to me, hand on the doorknob. “Honestly?” he said, shrugging a shoulder. “There's no way to know that. V is unpredictable on good days. But I can guarantee that no one will be coming into your room at night anymore.”
Well.
That was something.
“Thank you,” I found myself saying.
His brows lowered, looking confused, before he shook his head at me like I had lost my mind. “Don't thank me, kid. There's no telling what I might have to do in the future. Don't be getting all your hopes up that I can protect you.”
And with that, he was gone.
Okay.
I needed to focus.
In the matter of three days, my entire life had been turned on its head. Everything I had accepted as facts were wrong. People I thought I knew were relative strangers. People I thought were strangers were somehow family.
It was a fucking lot to try to digest.
While cuffed to a damn bed.
But then again, being cuffed to a bed left me nothing to do but think about things.
Like... my mother.
My mother. Who I had always pictured off living on some white beach somewhere, her days spent drinking margaritas and getting fanned by cabana boys. Then spent her night praying on unsuspecting men like a parasite. Bitchy, childish, maybe. But that was how I saw her. Far away. Wholly unaware of me growing up, becoming my own person.
I didn't think I would have been able to handle knowing she lived within an hour of where I grew up. That would have hurt. More than the abandonment in the first place. More than knowing she loved herself more than she loved me. The fact that she could have made an effort to get to know me, if not as a child, then as an adult, and she tossed it away. Yeah, that burned.
Then there was, of course, the matter of her being a complete and utter monster. A psychopath. Or sociopath. Whatever the psychological term for her might be. She was inhumanely evil.
Never mind that she had me kidnapped, starved, and tortured. Let's forget that for a moment.
She was a woman.
She was a woman who was in the skin trade.
She had other women kidnapped and then she sold their bodies over and over again.
It was disgusting when men did it. Stupid, clueless, careless men.
It was downright evil when a woman did it. Women who knew the horror of rape. Women who, even if they hadn't experienced it, knew the ever-present fear of it. The reality of it possibly happening in their future.
For a woman to subject dozens or hundreds or lord-knew how many innocent women to that, daily, for however long they brought in money... that was so horrifying that I couldn't think of a word to describe it.
My mother bought and sold women into prostitution.
Jesus fucking Christ.
And my father... I didn't know what the hell was going on with my father. But something was up.
My life was crumbling underneath my feet.
I slammed my head back against the headboard to keep the tears from coming as my mind wandered back. To the compound. To the days that followed Reign bringing me there.
**
I was pressed up against Reign's side, his arm laying across my hip, my head on his chest. “Tell me about your past,” I said, my voice quiet, post-orgasm contented.
“You don't want to know about my past, babe,” he said, his tone causal, his fingers drawing circles over my hip.
I turned my head to look up at him. His chin ducked and he looked me in the eye. “Tell me,” I tried again.
He rolled his eyes, letting the air out of his chest. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” I decided. Because I did want to know everything. The big things, the little things. Everything that made Reign who he was.
He shook his head, his hand pressing my head back on his chest. “Not much to tell, babe. What you see is what there is. I'm prez here. It's booze and bitches and brotherhood. You ain't stupid. I'm sure you put two and two together and figured out what I do.”
“You sell guns,” I put in.
“Yeah, I sell guns. So I meet with a lot of unsavory types. I bust skulls when I need to. Which is more often than you would think. But that's it, babe. That's my life.”
I wasn't giving up that easily. “What was your childhood like?”
He made a short, weird chuckle. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously,” I said, mocking his tone.
“It was this too. Dad was prez. We grew up on the compound. Me, Cash, Wolf, a few of the other guys.”
“What were you like?”
“A little shit,” he answered honestly. “Picking fights for no good reason with the outside kids. Getting myself a nasty reputation by the time I was in middle school.”
“Were you and Cash close?” I asked. Because they were close as adults. Closer even than
most brothers.
“Not always. He was always tagging along. Being a pain in the ass. Cracking jokes that I didn't think were funny. Trying to be part of my friend group.”
“What changed?”
“Mom died,” he said, his shoulder shrugging underneath my head.
“How old were you?”
“I was twelve. Cash was ten.”
“I'm sorry,” I said, being motherless myself, I understood the sting. But my mom was long gone before I could even miss her. He got twelve years to love his.
“She was too soft for Dad's life. Always worried. Always sick. She couldn't deal with the stress. One day, she got sick and never got better. Cash was a mess. Dad went off the deep end...”
“The deep end?” I prompted.
“He might have made her life difficult with how much the chapter meant to him, how hard he worked, how often he came home bloody and bruised. But he loved our mother. And he didn't handle losing her well. Drinking all the time. Fighting. Taking off on all the runs he could go on.”
“Where were you and Cash?” I asked, my hand running down his arm.
“Here. Some of the men were always here to make sure we were fed and went to school and shit. Vin especially.”
“That's sad,” I said, my fingers brushing over his hand.
His hand moved, surprising me by grabbing mine and lacing his fingers through. “Don't feel sorry for me, babe. It wasn't that bad. I got away with shit no other kid my age would have.”
“And Cash?”
The shoulder shrug again. “I took care of him.”
Of course he did. Because underneath his big, bad, biker persona was a decent person. Someone who didn't just live for depravity like it seemed from the outside. He was someone who raised up his annoying little brother. He was someone who saved me. He was someone who refused to drag his men into my mess.
He might have been bad.
But he was a good man at the same time.
“Any fucking thing else or can I go to sleep?” he asked, but the words were softened by his hand squeezing mine.
“What's your favorite color?”
His body rolled under mine as he laughed silently. “Black babe.”
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