Page 11 of Twisted Empire

“The council didn’t just tell me about the hunt. They’re hiding all sorts of fucked up shit in the third level. Like the truth about my mother.”

Her brows lifted. “What?”

I scrubbed a hand over my face and sighed. Then I filled Tatum in on the pregnancies Crown and Dagger forced upon unwitting captives. Her face grew dark with horror.

“That’s why I saw those pregnant women that day,” she said, looking down at her lap.

“Yes.”

Her eyes shot up to meet mine again. “So your mother was one of them.”

“Sort of. Not a surrogate, though.”

“I don’t get it.”

“She was a slave to my father. Her name was Camille Gorham.”

Recognition flickered in her eyes. “I think I’ve heard of her.”

“Yeah, you would have. She went missing from somewhere near the Roden campus in the early nineties.”

“So she was brought here like me?”

“Yeah.” I hesitated, and then it all came flooding out. “My whole life, I thought my mother was Sylvie King. My father’s wife. He told me she died giving birth to me, and I spent my entire fucking childhood feeling bad about it. But what really happened was this: he got Camille pregnant, and he decided to keep the baby and raise it with Sylvie, seeing as they were having issues conceiving a child of their own. He tried to convince her that Camille was just a side-piece, but she figured out the truth. When I was a few months old, she took Camille and me, and they tried to run away.”

Tatum’s eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. “What happened?”

“My father caught them and killed them.”

Her face crumpled, and she looked back down at her lap. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

I let out an angry breath. “You know how powerful he is, and the kind of connections he has. It wouldn’t have been hard for him to cover up his own wife’s disappearance, not to mention Camille’s.”

“I know.”

I narrowed my eyes. “So do you see now?” I asked. “Do you see what a fucking lying asshole my father is? He’ll say anything to make you believe what he wants you to believe. He’ll twist the truth any which way to back his shit up. But that’s all it is. Shit.”

She nodded, and I went on.

“He manipulates everyone. Everyone. If he was going to lie to me about my mother, he could’ve just said she died in an accident, right? But he didn’t. The story was always that she died giving birth to me. Like it was partially my fault.”

“That’s so awful.” Tatum shook her head.

“Yeah. I bet he only told me that so he could make me feel like a fucking monster from the second I was old enough to comprehend things. That way it would be easier to get me on his side with all the shit he does. Or so he thought. He probably hoped I’d think something like ‘well, I’m already a piece of shit, so I may as well act like one’.” I snorted with cold disdain. “God knows what else he’s fucking lied to me about over the years, just so he could manipulate me.”

Tatum bit the inside of her cheek and looked away.

“What is it?” I said sharply.

“There is something else he lied to you about,” she replied, her voice soft and tentative. “I just remembered.”

“What?”

She chewed her bottom lip. “Can I go and sit somewhere else first? It’s getting uncomfortable here.”

I nodded and helped her up, my heart pounding as I led her out into the bedroom. “So what did he tell you?”

“It’s about Ben.”

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