Page 78 of Nest Of Lies

She stomps over to me and belts me across the face. “You’re a sick little whore, but I’m going to take you to a place where you can be better. Where you can’t embarrass me.”

She turns on her heel, her long hair fanning out behind her and leads the way downstairs.

“Right,” I whisper. “She wants me out of sight. Where people can forget I exist.”

Another guy comes into the house. “Excuse me, ma’am, but we’re going to need to wait for another car. All four tires have been cut.”

My heart leaps. “You’re fucked now,” I tell the man holding me. “You’re all muscles, but they will cut you to ribbons. No one will find you.”

I let out a shrill shriek when my hair is yanked back.

“Shut up! Enough of these sick lies,” my mother hisses. “No one wants you. You are a devious little beta who steals, lies, and ruins lives. You are sick. I should have known you were just pretending when you were little. You’re a snake in a betas clothing. But your true colours are coming out now.”

I stare at my mother like I’ve never seen her before. What is wrong with her?

“Given up pretending you care, Mother?” I snarl back into her face. The body guards are near the sofas. My mother is in the center of the room, light from the open window bathing her. She looks smug and evil. Like a villain in a kids’ movie. Has she always been this ugly?

She doesn’t look like all those photos. The pop princess herself; China Raines. She’s a monster, and now the rest of the world can see, too.

“I’m not sick,” I whisper, staring at her and knowing that whatever I had with her is gone.

My mother is gone.

She turns that cold, furious glare on me. “I’m your mother. I know you’re sick. I say you’re sick.”

I shake my head in protest.

She steps towards me and hits me again. I stand still, even when I see her raise her hand a second time. Her strike sends my left cheek numb, but it tears open a wound in my soul.

She hits me again. And again.

Until the doctor is forced to pull her off. He drags her to the corner of the room and whispers to her there.

I wrap my arms around myself, refusing to look at any of them. They are all complicit.

They are all guilty.

And when they come…their bodies will feed the flowers.

I close my eyes and tilt my head up, trying to find courage and listening in delight to the telltale sound of my MC returning. It sounds like hope and freedom.

The sound of bikes roaring up the road makes me smile.

Time’s up.

My mother starts to scream at me, finally losing her cool. But it doesn’t matter because I hear the roar of the MC.

Chapter twenty-eight

Zaden

I have never beenmore angry. The words this bitch has said are repeating over and over. Her echo has reached me in the deepest parts of the mansion. As I walk, Ianto and Valen fall in on either side of me. Ranger and Mills join us a moment later. The five of us are moving with purpose. Deadly purpose.

People aren’t going to survive the night.

Time seems to stand still and speed up, and then I’m kicking the fucking dining room doors open. They bounce open, rip off the hinges, and fall to the ground.

I don’t care. All I can see is the man with his hands on my Lia. He’s big, but the bigger they are, the harder they fall. His expression tells me everything, though. He knows who we are, and he’s scared. Very scared.

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