Petty Rage: Westbrook Blues Book 4

by Mpofu, Thandiwe

  I raise my voice just to tick her off and piss Kimberly off even more.

  Hey, don’t judge me. I have to get my wins in somehow.

  “You’re going to hurt her feelings,” Mom mutters softly, swatting my arm like I’m a fly.

  “Ouch,” I groan for dramatic effect, but it doesn’t hurt. “Newsflash, Mom, that girl doesn’t have a stitch of feelings in that ice-veined body.”

  It’s true, she just didn’t know it yet.

  If I have my way, my mother will never have to experience the hurt of trusting Kimberly Allory.

  “It’s a good thing this job doesn’t really include having feelings, now does it?” Mom says softly. “Besides, I like that she’s headstrong and doesn’t take any shit. It’s good for the job.”

  The job? Right, like it’s a real thing.

  Hundreds of people work for my mother, and I’m pretty sure a hundred percent of them have gone to Ivy League schools and come from families that don’t solely survive on gas station ramen noodles and tap water, Salvation Army third-hand clothes; and I’m pretty sure none of them have knives strapped to their right ankle at any given moment.

  But most of all, I’m pretty sure they didn’t look like her.

  All ready for rebellion at a moment’s notice. It’s almost like she’s looking for trouble. Trouble that I so wanted to give her.

  “Mom, you don’t know her.”

  “The fact you seem to know her, from what your foul mouth is saying, that’s enough for me. Now, if you have nothing nice to say, for the love of God sweetheart, shut your mouth. I don’t appreciate you treating people like this,” mom says ever so sweetly.

  I scoff. “No, I know how to treat people,” I mutter, glancing at the imposter behind me. “They should always be treated according to contents of their character and this girl has none to begin with.”

  After all, what character trait goes with deceit? Oh yeah, lies!

  If someone by-passes telling the truth when it matters most, when the truth could keep people safe or allow other people to build a life together, if they had the audacity to choose a lie, why the fuck would anyone think that one day liars would tell the truth?

  That shit is beyond me.

  “That’s enough!” Mom snaps.

  “It’s not like I’ve been trying to not hurt her feelings or anything,” I mutter.

  Kimberly Allory is the face of my nightmares and my fucking wet dreams, and after two weeks, I have no idea how it’s possible that she looks so fucking stunning and even more beautiful than before.

  She’s a sight for starved souls.

  Don’t fucking notice her, jerk! She doesn’t deserve it.

  “Noah, watch your mouth,” Mom says with a wide-eyed innocent smile on her beautiful face that reminds me so much of Craig.

  Sometimes, looking at my own mother made my freaking soul ache and there was nothing I could do about that except avoid her at all costs.

  And that’s my fucking error because she’s gone ahead and done... this!

  “Since when do you scold me for my colorful language, Mom? Please don’t tell me you’re doing it for this conniving trash’s benefit.”

  “I...” she starts but I cut her off, raising my voice so Kimberly can hear every word. I’d never keep my loathing of her a secret.

  “Trust me, mother, she’s well-adjusted to colorful, meaningless language. She speaks it fluently, don’t you, Kimberly?”

  I don’t want to look at her. I really don’t, but I can’t stop myself.

  It’s like there’s a clawing need within me, scratching at the back of my eyelids, demanding that I look at her, take her in, get a feel of her in some way.

  After all, the last time I saw her, she had a sexy, scandalized look on her glitter-covered face, naked and panting for me with her legs spread wide, asking me for the impossible.

  “Noah, that’s enough!” Mom demands, shooting me her famous ‘displeased’ look. Then she turns to look at the liar. “I’m sorry, Kim.”

  “Kim?” I spit out. “Since when are you familiar with one another?”

  “Since we had a nice chat,” Mom says, a genuine, bright smile on her face as she looks at Kimberly.

  “A chat? That’s all it took? Just one measly fucking chat with her?” I leer, a scowl I can’t erase plastered on my face.

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “What did she say to you?” I demand then turn to look at the drop-dead gorgeous imposter standing in my house. “What did you say to my mother? Because I swear to God if you tricked her or lied to her in any way…”

  She—more than anyone else in this fucking world—knows I don’t play about my mother.

  “Actually, I’m the one who ambushed her,” Mom states. “And for your own information, Noah, it was an honest, open chat that revealed so much than you ever do in ten chats, my love.”

  Leave it to my mother to diss me in front of trash company.

  “But I...”

  “That’s enough of you,” mom says.

  I stare at the woman who raised me in the middle of a lavishly hidden hell and clamp my jaw shut.

  A look passes between us, one that I know all too well, so I turn on the heel of my fucking sneakers and walk over to the far corner of the room and plop down into the chair closest to the fireplace, feeling chilled all of a sudden.

  There’s only one cause for that and she’s standing just a few feet away, doing her best to keep her cold, petty attitude in check. I mean she wouldn’t want to show my mother her true colors especially when she’s about to benefit from her.

  After all, I’m pretty sure she needs the money.

  “I’m so sorry, dear,” Mom starts, walking over to Kim with a small apologetic smile on her face. “Please don’t pay him any mind.”

  “Trust me, Christina. I don’t,” Kim Possible says for the first time since I walked in. “I hardly even notice him at all.”

  I look at Kimberly, stunned at the way the thing in my chest feels like it was just crushed and ground into dust, but I’d die before I ever show her what she does to me.

  “Oh?” Mom says in question. “And why is that?”

  “I respect you, Christina,” she goes on, “which is why I’d like to continue being forthcoming and honest with you.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  “Your son’s unprovoked and frankly, unwanted, opinion doesn’t matter to me.”

  She looks directly into my soul as she says that, with a cold, impassive, stony expression plastered on her face that churns something in the pit of my alcohol filled stomach.

  Snap!

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter, huh?” I whisper menacingly, slowly getting back on my feet, holding her beautiful stormy gaze.

  “It fucking doesn’t,” Kim Possible whispers back, unwavering in her stance even as I stalk closer to her, my fists clenched tightly.

  “That’s pretty rich coming from a worthless, sorry excuse of a person who’s standing in the study of my mansion, dressed in threads that my money paid for, looking pathetic to my mother and having just accepted and signed a contract that I fucking sponsor.”

  I put as much emphasis on the fact that she’s on my fucking turf, not some backward trailer park. She’s currently in my world and she has the audacity to want to reduce me to her miniature, barely there level?

  And just when I thought her opinion of me didn’t fucking matter…

  The defiant, headstrong look she had on her face starts to slowly falter and I grin, the tightening I felt in my chest easing up a bit as I look at her like the liar she is.

  “Ah, look at that sweet confusion on your face,” I taunt, circling her now.

  “I’m not confused,” she says in that smokey, sultry voice of hers. “I’m just disgusted that someone can be as entitled and off-putting as you,” she fake-shivers. “It’s repulsing.”

  “I repulse you?” I sneer. Standing right behind her now. I lean in, loving her new hair st
yle that she did in a swirl of lavender and grey. My hell colors. A far cry from when she burned her own hair last Christmas. “You know what, I wonder how that works.”

  “What?” she snaps as goosebumps form at the back of her neck. Hmmm.

  “That the man who will decide whether you get fed, have a roof over your kid sisters’ heads—not to mention get them an education and set them up for life—how can he then repulse you when you so desperately, pathetically need him?”

  “I think you’ve got it twisted, Noah,” she says, dropping her voice even further. “No one needs you. I made a deal with your mother. Not you.”

  “Oh, did you now?” My smile gets even bigger. She’s angry, good. I glance at my mother, then back at Kim Possible. “You made a deal with my dearest mother, huh?”

  “Noah, that’s...” Mom starts, but it’s too late. I have an opening and I’m taking it. A plan starts forming at the speed of lightning in my damn head. I can feel the excitement of it all kick start my heart in a whole new way.

  See, if there’s one thing that might make me sleep better tonight and every other night until the fucking day I take my last breath, it’s knocking Kimberly off of her fucking high horse of superiority in my life.

  I hate that she has so much power over me, still.

  Last Christmas, this girl slapped the shit out of me, and then stuff happened up in those snowy mountains, and then there was Hell Day, and now here she is, still making me feel like a damn loser.

  Enough is enough! She needs to be put in her fucking place and that’s out in the fucking cold!

  “My mother said she ambushed you so let me piece this together.”

  “Noah, must you do that right now?”

  “Of course I do, mother,” I say as calmly as I can so she doesn’t see what I know Kim Possible can see in me. The beast within. “See, Christina Montreal is a clever woman. A well-educated, classy and sophisticated woman who knows how to get what she wants, trust me I know,” I say, winking at my mother, then look at Kimberly again. “So, I’m guessing she pin-pointed what you need right fucking now, which I’d guess is a job after you failed at your last one. Dismally might I add.”

  “Because of you!” Kim accuses heatedly, her grey eyes slowly starting to darken like a storm is brewing.

  There’s my girl.

  “And I guess you jumped at the chance to make bank, and of course she told you that I wouldn’t even be here at all. That I no longer live in Westbrook Blues? How am I doing so far?”

  Kim Possible looks up at me, her tiny fists clenched, her lips…fuck, her lips are pressed together angrily. I want to bite those lips until I draw blood. Immediately I step back.

  “You’re paranoid,” she whispers.

  “You’ve given me a pretty good reason to be, haven’t you, Kimmy?”

  We stare at each other and I can’t possibly keep the hate or the beast hidden for long. The room is literally pulsing with thick tension, and I know my mother can feel it, so why then is she still silent?

  You know what, scratch knocking Kimberly off her fucking high horse and say hello to making her fucking pay!

  It’s in that moment as I say that, that I make up my mind.

  I’m moving back home. I’m taking everything that David wants and I’m going to find out exactly what happened to my brother.

  Kim shivers and sucks in her breath which is a tell, her tell, that I’m so fucking right about everything and how this sacrilegious deal went down.

  “Either way, that contract you’re talking about, it states clearly that I work and answer to your mother.”

  “And anyone that represents her or is in charge of her estate and the compensation of duties completed,” I say, quoting the part of the contract I memorized.

  “No,” she gasps underneath her breath, looking down at her worn-out, dirty white Converse shoes which clash so hard with the clothes.

  “Oh yes,” I say with a humorless chuckle. “You see, what you didn't know when you signed on that dotted line is, you signed a deal with the devil.”

  “This can’t be happening,” Kim whispers, shaking her head.

  My smile gets even bigger. This one is genuine and the realest one I’ve had in a while.

  And that's my tell, a tell she knows too. Shit’s about to get fucked up.

  “You signed your life to me, Kimmy, not to my mother.”

  “Noah...” mom starts, but I cut her off, enjoying this side of destroying Kim.

  “I am the sole proprietor of this shit. It’s my money. My estate and properties. It’s my fucking seat on the board of the school you want your sisters to get into full ride. It’s my town. My rules. Everything is all mine, and now, so are you.”

  “Like hell,” Kim whispers breathlessly, then she pushes past me to get to my mother. “Please tell me he’s wrong and he’s just a drunk who wants to hurt me.”

  “Oh dear,” Mom starts, a half-pained, half-irritated look on her face as she looks between me and the girl that she brought here.

  “No, please, this can’t be right.”

  “I was going to tell you.” My mother winces. “I didn’t expect that—”

  “He’d be here,” Kim spits out, turning to look at me. I do a Valley Girl little wave at them both.

  “Yes.”

  Awkward silence follows and I’m pretty fucking proud of my damn self because of it.

  “When were you going to tell me?” Kim questions my mother.

  “If she had her way, it was going to be never,” I say, happily walking over to the highboy where a crystal decanter of whiskey and some glasses are. I don’t bother with the glasses, I just grab the decanter, unscrew the cap and take a healthy swig to celebrate my little victory of getting Kimberly Allory right where I fucking want her. “But thanks to my dear mother, my opinion is the only one you’ll be considering in this house until that contract is up!”

  Kimberly looks at me with a look so livid and so hot, I get hard in an instant.

  Fuck.

  Her cute little nostrils flare, her tiny palms ball into fists and there it is.

  Her undoing. My victory.

  “You can choke on that opinion,” she snaps.

  “Oh no, Kimmy, according to that contract, you’re the one who’ll be doing all the gagging. But then again, we both know you don’t have a gag reflex.”

  “Noah!”

  “And just when you thought my opinion didn’t matter.” I raise the decanter and make my way out of the study. After all, I got more than I ever thought I could.

  This day was looking fucking bleak and useless but now… now the shadowy night has given me a gift in the form of a calculating mother.

  I can feel Kim’s judgement and rage as I go, that’s to be expected. But it’s my mother’s non-reaction that confuses me. She’s obviously playing her own game but still, to what end?

  “I bet I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Allory,” I say over my shoulder. “Oh and if I were you, I wouldn’t dare think of being late.”

  “I can always break the contract you know!” she shouts after me but all I can do is laugh. I pause and turn to stare at her. She wouldn’t dare break the agreement. She knows exactly what’s at stake.

  “Maybe you should re-read your copy of the contract. And try to get past the zeros this time around,” I say sarcastically.

  And with a wink her way and a smile to my mother, I leave and make my way to my wing.

  Oh, sweet fate, you! Thanks, you motherfucker!

  Chapter 17

  KIM

  Past

  ME: Have you ever hated anyone before? Like with your entire soul. A pure, burning, unending kind of hate?

  Fairy: Yes.

  ME: Can I ask who?

  Fairy: None of your fucking business, but I promise you this, being hated by me… is the last thing you want.

  ME: Okay…

  Present

  Ah fuck!

  I knew this was too good to be fucking true. I just kne
w it.

  I knew seeing Noah was going to be the beginning of everything going down the drain. I mean that’s a given whenever we’re in close proximity, but I seriously wasn’t counting on seeing him at all tonight.

  Hell, Raea and Ivy both confirmed that Noah was in LA with Emmett and had zero intentions of coming back to Westbrook Blues.

  The last time I saw him was on Hell Day and even that ended on a pretty dark note, and now this?

  “So, when he says he’s the proprietor…” I start, my voice trailing off as I look at Christina.

  She bites her lip, but otherwise I’m not even surprised to see that she’s already getting back to her work like nothing just happened.

  “It means just that,” Christina says softly. “Noah, as my only living child and the sole heir to the Montreal family wealth in its entirety—and every shitty thing that comes with it—is the one who owns everything now. Especially after my bastard of a husband up and left.”

  “In other words, he’s the…”

  “One who signs your paychecks and will sign off on your sisters getting the scholarships at the school every school year.”

  Of course.

  At this point, I’m pretty sure I was born with some sort of bad luck that has made my life this… this unbearably shitty.

  But this is more than bad luck. This is like some dark karma for what I did. Or more specifically, the bloodline I come from.

  “I’m so sorry dear, but I wasn’t aware that he agreed to take over,” Christina says softly, but as I look at her, I swear there’s an undertone of ‘unbothered-ness’.

  “I’m not really sure how to feel about this.”

  “I thought you didn’t care about my son’s opinion,” she says with an eyebrow arched.

  “I don’t.”

  “So, what’s the issue?” She stands up then and walks over to me in that elegant stride that makes me reluctantly admire her some more.

  “There’s…” I start, but my voice trails off as I look at where Noah disappeared. “There’s history between your son and me.”