Page 188 of Beautiful Venom

“I have no intention of throwing fists. What an uncultured motherfucker. It’s an embarrassment to call you my brother.” Julian sighs, then tells me, “If I see a manifestation of your plan, I might consider backing off. But that’s all I can offer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Jude is going to punch me and I need to break his arm.”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Fuck!” I hit the steering wheel but take a deep breath.

It’s useless to try to convince Julian with words anyway. If he wants action, then so be it.

An hour of reckless driving later, I arrive at my parents’ house and nearly hit the entrance.

The late-night air is suffocating. To think I had the best time of my life not twenty-four hours ago, and now I’m back to this absolute shithole is fucking revolting.

As soon as I get out, I spot a slim silhouette walking back and forth by the massive front door. Upon seeing me, Helena charges toward me.

Her night robe clings to her frail body and her eyes are sunken, dark circles surrounding them like bottomless pits.

“Kane, honey, don’t go in.”

I stop and stare down at her bony hand clutching my arm. “Let go, Mother.”

She adds another hand, digging her nude nails into my black jacket, shaking her head. “I heard Samuel call you. You shouldn’t have come back. You…shouldn’t be here.”

“I shouldn’t be here? Then where should I be? Hiding? Burying my head in the sand? Being you?”

“You don’t understand. If you go in there, he’ll torture you.”

“Something I’m extremely familiar with, but she’s not, Mother!”

She flinches, her cheeks losing all color.

This is the first time I’ve raised my voice at her. I might have kept my distance from my mother, but I’ve treated her cordially, with respect, as expected of me.

Now, though? I turn around and grab her by her shoulders and shake her. Hard.

“She defended you, Helena! Even after she knew you stood by and watched while the man you chose to have a kid withtorturedthat kid. She said you must’ve beenhelpless. You must’ve tried to stop it but couldn’t. She said you’re mentally fragile and couldn’t handle this type of life, so you withdrew as a defense mechanism. She gaveyouthe benefit of the doubt. She begged me to be kinder to you, to not forget and erase you. She asked if you and I could turn over a new leaf. I started seeing you fromherperspective. Throughhereyes. Because she lost her mother at a young age, she has these rosy concepts about mothers and affection, so I shouldn’t have listened to her warped logic. But I still came by, didn’t I? I still conformed to the benefit of the doubt she gave you. And now you’re asking me to let her be tortured and watch? I’mnotyou, Mother. Do you understand?”

Tears stream down her face as she trembles uncontrollably. “I just…I just want you to be safe. I hate for anything to happen to Dahlia either. She’s been the only color in my life lately, and I begged Grant to let her go, but you know he never listens to me. I don’t want her to be hurt, but I would hate losing you more.”

“You already lost me fifteen years ago,Mother.”

I let her go and push past her as I stride through the mansion, down the dim halls with the ugly dark-green wallpaper.

Throughout the years I’ve been walking these halls, I’ve only felt numbness and, lately, the consolation that this will soon come to an end.

But right now, my muscles are tense, my steps wide.

I’ve never rebelled against my father, and it wasn’t because I couldn’t. After I hit puberty, I became as big as he is and even more muscular. If I’d wanted to hit him, I would’ve.

But violence is not my style, and I refused to be molded into a copy of him.

So I connived behind closed doors. I gathered all the intel about his trusted executives and used it to turn those pigs against him. I actively sabotaged each of his new ventures, starting talks within the company and even Vencor.

I didn’t want to physically harm Grant. That wouldn’t have accomplished anything.

Seeing his empire crumble before his eyes, however? Witnessing the son he labeled a weakling take over?

That would break him.

Two of my father’s men stand guard in front of the dungeon’s metal door, buff, muscular, their gazes mean.

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