Page 45 of Rebellion of a Kingdom

“When I was fourteen, I was kidnapped and raped. The result was my daughter.” I pause reaching out to clasp Ash’s hand in mine. “Our daughter.”

“It was Greg.” Ash adds in a cold tone, “in case you were wondering.”

She closes her eyes like she’s in physical pain. Putting her hands on the box again. “Your father is an extremely sick man. Always has been. I didn’t see it until it was too late. By that time Greg was already following in his footsteps.” She shakes her head, “I didn’t know what to do. There had already been so many girls that I’d missed.”

Her admission should shock me, but I think I am numb to anything I learn when it comes to the Donovan’s.

“So, what you did nothing?” Asher snaps in disgust.

“I did the only thing I could do. I took this and I ran.” She sounds ashamed and I want to feel sorry for her, but I can’t imagine ever leaving a child defenseless against a monster like Elliot. She left Asher behind, left him to be surrounded in darkness and grow up to become who he is now. How different would his life have been if he’d have escaped with her?

“My dad helped you, didn’t he?” Marcus interrupts my thoughts, and she nods.

“I didn’t know who else to turn to. Michael was still in Black Hallows and I knew he had helped Sarah out years before, so I knew he would help me too.”

“How did he help my Mom?” I interrupt, but she ignores me and focuses on Ash.

“I watched your father for weeks. He was taking you boys everywhere. It’s like he knew what I was planning. I waited until you were all out of the house and I broke into the cellar.” She stops closing her eyes like the memories are haunting her, “what I saw I won’t ever forget. I found this.” She pats the box, “then I planned my escape. I knew Elliot would let me go, especially when he knows I have this. But I knew he would never let you or your brother go. So, I made the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I ran and left you behind.”

“What’s in the box?” Is all he responds.

She sighs pulling the lid off and pulling out a huge binder, “evidence.” She mutters before handing it over to him. He takes it flipping through it and all I see are newspaper clippings, missing persons posters, and what look like bank statements.

“What is all this?” He questions as he takes in every page.

“It’s everything I could find.” She shrugs, but I can see how long she has been holding onto this. “We moved around a lot, Elliot said it was for work and I guess for him it was. I didn’t realize it at the time, but whenever he felt the heat got too much, we moved. But he kept this box, like a sick little box of trophies of all the girls he’d sold.”

Asher continues to flip through it but I can’t bear to look at it any longer, there are so many pictures in there. Elliot has kept track of every girl he’s ever fucking taken. I shouldn’t be shocked, but this is sick even for him.

“These all look like girls without families or runaways.” Ash muses and I know we had already come to that conclusion, that prior to me, he only ever seemed to take girls that nobody cared about.

“Safer that way,” she mumbles and then sighs, “from what I gathered he would use Greg to lure in the younger girls his age and they would do whatever with them and then they’d disappear.”

I fight down the bile as I remember what they did to me and what has been done to hundreds of others. All without justice. I can’t ignore that. There is just too much to let it go and it’s worse now, before he got away with it because it was girls nobody gave a fuck about. Now he gets away with it because he found his people. Just as sick and fucked up as he is and with power like he wouldn’t believe. He thinks he’s untouchable.

“So why ruin that by taking Elle?” Marcus wonders aloud.

“That was personal.” Beth responds mindlessly before I see her eyes widen like she’s said too much. She knows more, more than I ever could have anticipated. Ash doesn’t miss it either and calls it out straight away.

“Why do you think Elle was so important to them? She was just a fucking kid and a King. Taking her was reckless even for him.”

She blows out a breath and I know she doesn’t want to tell us, but I also know she can see how much of a force her son is. He won’t let this go. “It was never about her,” she replies looking at me now, “this was set in motion before she was even born.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” I quip back.

“Not to you. It all comes back to Elliot and Sarah.”

I frown, “Impossible. They didn’t even know each other until Elliot moved to Black Hallows.”

“Trust me, they did. Sarah comes from a powerful family. You know that better than anyone. She was wild, never did what they said. They went away one summer and when she came back, she was different, quieter, calmer. I barely saw her and then a year later she was being forced into an arranged marriage with your father.”

“What has any of that got to do with Elliot, or Elle for that matter?” Asher questions and she glances at him before looking back to me.

“Elle was payment. A child for a child.” She says the words slowly like they are going to make any sense, but none of us pick up on whatever she means.

“Stop speaking in fucking riddles!” Asher shouts and I can see the anger in him rising. Being here is not good for him, it’s digging up too much of the past. We need to go.

She takes a deep breath and then says four words that change everything.

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