Page 29 of A Heart So Savage

Kingston’s voice was soft, but Ava felt the tension coiled inside him. Like a snake ready to strike at a threat. Or a lion stalking prey.

“Why would he do that?” Horrified by the confession, Ava wondered how a father could do something so horrible to his own child. “What did he want you to do?”

Kingston’s gaze clashed with hers. “Kill the man he believed was screwing my stepmother. I told him I wouldn’t do his dirty work, which he didn’t take very well.”

Ava’s stomach lurched as she pictured Kingston hanging in chains. Helpless and wounded so viciously by someone who should have loved him.

Kingston’s eyes were hollow. “When he was done, he had Neil stitch me up. And after… I followed his orders.”

Ava pushed herself up and peered down at him. “Did you hate yourself for it?”

Kingston shrugged. “Mostly, I was angry that my father succeeded in getting his way. He got what he wanted, and a man innocent of that particular charge died as the result. But he knew that.”

A shiver passed over Ava. “Your stepmother wasn’t cheating after all?”

“Oh, she was.” A thin smile creased Kingston’s lips. “But not with the man assigned to guard her.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because the man she was fucking was me.”

Ava wasn’t sure she heard him right. Her heart thumped in her chest so hard she wondered if it was bruising her insides.

He can’t mean that. I misunderstood him. I must have…

“I don’t understand,” she murmured in confusion.

Kingston’s eyes were hard as obsidian stone and just as dark. “You heard me, Ava.”

Ava said nothing. She couldn’t. Not when her mind was whirling from Kingston’s revelation.

“My father knew I was in love with Rebecca. He also knew she had seduced me, although she didn’t need to try very hard on that account. Ordering me to kill that man was a test. A twisted way of determining if I was worthy of his empire. He wanted proof I could disassociate from my emotions. It was all part of the punishment. The goddamn mind games. I didn’t find out until later that he knew all about Rebecca and me. Things only got worse after that.” Kingston’s voice lowered as old memories were rekindled. The softness of his tone did not make the tale any less repulsive.

“Why are you telling me this?” Anguish and faint disgust colored Ava’s voice. She wanted to clamp her hands over her ears and not hear another word. “Why?”

Kingston and his stepmother… they’d had sex. And an innocent man was murdered because of the affair.

Well, probably not so innocent considering the family employing him. But innocent of the false accusations leveled by Alan Winter on a whim.

Kingston gripped Ava by the arms, hauling her body up and over his own. Her naked breasts were smashed against his chest; their faces practically nose to nose. A contemplative expression mixed with relief crossed his face.

“I can’t explain why. Especially when I shouldn’t trust you. But I know your secrets. Maybe it’s only fair you learn a few of my own.” His hands slid from her shoulders, capturing her wrists and keeping her imprisoned. “Other than Neil, no one else knows what I just told you, Ava.”

“You shouldn’t have told me. I don’t want to know what you did with your stepmother. Or how many people you killed,” Ava replied in a tight voice. “You’re up to two now, counting Malcolm.”

Kingston’s lips curved in a rueful smirk. “Sure. Two.”

“Did you murder them?” Horror trickled down Ava’s spine. Maybe Kingston was more of a psychopath than anyone realized. Beneath that handsome face and tight muscular body lurked a monster too terrifying to contemplate. A spiderweb of fear etched across her heart. “Your father and stepmother. Did you kill them?”

A flash of disappointment lit Kingston’s stormy blue eyes. His jaw clenched, and for a moment, Ava thought he might shake her like a rag doll. Frustration rolled off him in waves and maybe even a little bit of hurt that she would even entertain the thought.

“Other than that unfortunate guard, I’ve never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it, Ava. And while my father’s death was a goddamn blessing, I’m not the one who put a bullet between his eyes.” Brow slightly furrowed, he carefully considered his next words. “My infatuation paved the way for Rebecca to get what she wanted. A permanent way out of the nightmare my father had created of her life. For months, she begged me for a gun. Said when my father’s enemies stormed the house, she would need it. She could defend herself. Protect Oliver. She wouldn’t listen when I promised I’d protect them both.”

Kingston took a deep breath while Ava held hers. Despite herself, she was held spellbound by the dark story he wove. Sick with realization at the horrors Kingston endured.

“I did what she asked. I got her a gun and I believed her lies right up until the moment she shot him in front of us at the dinner table. She then turned the gun on herself while we sat there in complete shock with my dad’s brains splattered over the Waterford crystal. It was worse for Oliver. He was only twelve and already so ruined. We both were. We’d seen women whipped and abused. Fucked and choked until they begged for mercy. And I can’t count the number of men tortured by my father and his men. I was one of his monsters in training. Someone he could twist and mold into a reflection of himself. Had Allan Winter lived, Oliver would have been treated the same.”

His hands loosened the grip on Ava’s arms, and she slumped against him, eyes prickling with hot tears. Not for herself but forhim.Her heart thumped against his as if in sympathetic commiseration. She tried imagining what it must have been like growing up in that house of horrors. And for the first time ever, Ava understood why Kingston looked up to her father and why he was always around their house. He’d been searching for something… normal.

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