Page 22 of Crazy Rich Monsters (Necessary Evils 1)

“Your mother is stable,” he says softly, quietly. It’s nobody’s business but our own.

My stomach sinks though. It should be good news, but I am fucking awful. I finally realize in the moment that I wished her to be dead. It’s a selfish, cruel thought, but I’m not naive enough to believe that we both wouldn’t be better off for it. She doesn’t want to live anyways. She coasts through life waiting for the grim reaper. Hell, I’d go so far as to say she invited death into our home on purpose.

“She’s going to have a long road to recovery,” he continues. “The smoke from the fire caused Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, which resulted in respiratory failure. We have her incubated and on a ventilator. You can see her if you want, but I’d ask that you keep it brief.Ifshe wakes up, it could be tonight. It could be tomorrow. It could be a few days to a few weeks. We won’t know anything for certain until we’re able to run some more tests.”

He continues talking, but I completely space out. I’m tired, my anxiety firing on all cylinders. I’m trapped inside a nightmare where I waver between empathy and entropy without warning or reason. Maybe I never woke up and I’m still asleep in my bed, dreaming. When he’s finished talking his medical jargon and disappears from my sight, I make my way to her room that’s just down the hall.

I close the door gently behind me, as if being loud could wake her from the induced coma. The room is dark and quiet, but the eeriness is cut through like a blade on flesh every time the ventilator pumps or the heart monitor beeps. I exhale softly as I approach the bedside and take a seat beside her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this peaceful, her arms lying on either side of her chest. I lean forward and collect one hand into my own, offering a gentle squeeze. Her flesh is cold and wrinkled beneath my touch, her body completely unresponsive. I might as well be holding onto a ghost.

“I need you to wake up, Mom.” I swallow the pangs of guilt, a heavy lump in my throat that brings me to the brink of tears. “Not because I need you, but because I need to know if you accidentally started the fire. The truth is that that’s the only reason I need you to wake up.” I squeeze her hand tighter, partly to punish her and partly to give me the strength to say what I need to say. “I don’t even know if I want you to wake up. You and I both know that you’re living on borrowed time. You’re so combative and cruel. It’s no wonder I ended up the way I did.”

This is the part where she usually fights back, where she would tell me that I was born evil and that she did everything she could do for me. It’s all lies but she can’t lie when she’s sleeping. She can’t fight back, can’t abuse me into believing whatever she needs me to believe to preserve whatever image she has of herself.

“Do you remember what you said to me the night Daddy died?” I sniffle and break free from her hand to wipe the underside of my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. “You said that it was selfish that he left us and he was always weak. I was just a little girl. I was too young, and you put that shit on me. So now I’m going to pile all of this shit onto you. You’re the reason I am the way I am. You’re the reason I’m back in this shithole, dragged back into this shit I fought so hard to escape and for what? To watch you die?” I drag my hands over the contours of my face, gasping for air. “I love you because I’m supposed to, because that’s what good girls do. They love their parents unconditionally but I’m not a good girl. Not anymore. So I can love you and hate you at the same time. I once told you that you were going to die alone, a sad miserable woman.”

I clear my throat as I rise to my feet, looking down at the woman. She’s more than halfway dead and looks every bit of it. She brought this on herself with her addictions. Without forty years of smoking, maybe she would stand a better chance. “You always told me I was wrong, but here I am, once again being right.” I lower myself gently over the bed, planting a short kiss on her dry forehead and then whisper, “Goodbye Mother.”

And then I’m gone, racing out of the room. Before I have a chance to slam the door behind me, a hand clasps around my mouth and drags me back into the room. I attempt to scream but my voice is muffled against his strong hand. He throws me against the door, forcing it to close and that’s when I notice who it is.

Eyes first, dark and stormy, and then the rest.

It’s Nick. Of course it’s fucking Nick.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I seethe between gritted teeth. “I could scream.”

“The thing about the girl that cries wolf is that people will eventually stop believing you.” He throws one hand over my shoulder, holding his fist against the door. “That’s a funny trick you tried playing on me last night.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He presses his face closer to mine, breathing hot and heavy as if he’s been running from the scene of a crime. His voice is deep and husky with a grit that’s not usually there. “You smell like fire. I was starting to think you weren’t going to make it out alive.”

I stare at him down nervously, but I try to stay calm and pretend I’m in control. The last thing I need is for him to see me weak. He’s capable of more than I previously gave him credit for. “So, you were there?”

“Do you have a bad habit of seeing things that aren’t there that’d make you question reality? I’m starting to understand how you can believe your own lies.”

“She could have died and you’re making jokes,” I grind out. “And everyone says that I’m the crazy one.”

“Oh please,” he scoffs with an evil dosage of quiet laughter. “You wish she was dead. I heard you talking to her.” He cocks a half-hitched grin. “Very sadistic of you.”

“Does that turn you on?” I press into him, shifting the weight of my body between his knees. I reach down and grab his cock through his jeans, expecting a full-blown erection but it’s not hard. “Are you telling me you don’t want to go another round in public?”

“I promise you,” he whispers in my ear. “We’re going to dance on this merry-go-round together until we both fall off. The only way this ends is if one of us dies.” He grabs my hand and forces it back down to his crotch to begin massaging it again. Slowly but surely, his cock hardens beneath my touch. “I want you to know that I burned your house to the ground.”

He’s the sadistic one. His dick isn’t threatening to burst through the seams of his jeans because I’m touching him. He’s about to explode because he gets off on torturing me. Only a fucking madman would admit to committing arson. I break free from him and attempt to push him backwards, but he’s too strong. He digs his feet into the ground and throws me backwards once more, pinning my hands above my head.

“I’m going to make you an offer that you’re not going to refuse because if you do, I promise that there are worse things I have planned for you.” He grinds his body against mine, breath hot fire against sensitive ears. “Saturday night, you’re coming with me as my date to my parents' Fire and Ice Ball.”

“Okay,” I eke out in the quietest of whispers, not in submission but agreement.

Two can play this game.

I am fucking insane. Literally fucking mental. Even after what he’s done, there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to fuck him right here in this room, right in front of my comatose mother. Pleasure and pain are so often the same thing, and when they’re not, they somehow manage to be the prescription needed to relieve the other.

Nick is right. The two of us are engaged in a battle that’s never going to end, but if I have a chance in hell at winning, I have to play his game. He thinks he has the upper hand, but he’s going to find out soon enough that he’s fucking with the wrong damn one.

Because the Calloway Fire and Ice Ball is about to go up in flames.

ChapterThirteen

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