Page 57 of Twisted Empire

His jaw clenched, but then he inclined his head. “All right. I’ll keep searching the building.” He cut his gaze toward Mom. “You’d better tell me now if there’s anyone else I might run into here, because I won’t be as careful with my gun aroundhispeople.”

Mom shook her head. “It’s just me and the guards who were outside. I assume you’re already aware of them, whatever happened to them.”

Beckett narrowed his eyes like he wasn’t sure he believed her, and I wasn’t sure I did either. But he backed out of the room and shut the door behind him.

Perfect. The more private Mom thought this conversation was, the better.

My fingers itched for the pistol I’d left downstairs, but I didn’t think it would have set the mood here very well anyway. I had to act like I had more faith in Mom than I actually did if this maneuver was going to work.

I pulled my gaze back to Mom, backing up half a step to give myself more room to breathe—and to take in any telling gestures. “Mom, you have to realize it’s over now. We’re coming down on Doom’s Seed hard. He’s not getting away with any of this.”

Mom’s shoulders stiffened. “You shouldn’t be messing around in—”

“Youshouldn’t have gotten involved in his mess,” I shot back. “I still don’t get it. How could you have thought that going to a crime lord for an illegally obtained organ was the best thing for me? Do you even know how he got that liver?”

“No,” Mom said defiantly. “I have no idea, and I don’t care. It saved your life—hesaved your life—and that matters more than the red tape.”

“Someone could have beenmurderedfor him to have it. Doesn’t that matter to you? I don’t understand how you could have not only done that, but also gotten so involved with him that you’d fake your death and leave me and Dad behind to be with him instead.”

“I told you on the phone, you don’t know what my life was like.” She sounded more choked up than angry saying it now, though. Her gaze dropped to the floor and returned to my face. “I’ve wished I could see you, talk to you, for so long. I hated leaving you behind. But it was the only way I could protect everyone I cared about. If anyone had found out the truth about your operation, it could have ruined your life too.”

“Don’t pretend you ran awayforme,” I said. “You told me that you weren’t happy with Dad. Fine. But hooking up with a vicious mafia boss—seriously?”

“You don’t know him. There’s so much about him that you don’t know.”

“I know enough.” I folded my arms over my chest. “Have you been helping him now—going out there and arranging for these organs to come in, finding people desperate enough to pay him for them?”

“No!” she insisted. “Hedoesn’t even get that involved. He just gives the orders, and his people look for the marks. He’s barely a part of it at all.”

“He threatened to kill Maddie. Hedidorder his people to kill her dad.”

Mom grimaces. “That was an unavoidable precaution, or everything would have fallen apart. It’s not as if I wanted to see Evan Silver dead, but if it was him or you…”

“And Doom’s Seed,” I filled in.

She just stared at me, her expression tight but her body trembling just slightly.

I had everything I could have wanted now. Comments confirming that the man who called himself Doom’s Seed had illegally supplied my liver, had an ongoing business for arranging transplants, and had orchestrated at least one specific murder, all recorded in my mom’s voice on my phone. She had no idea, and prickles of guilt were still nagging at my insides, but I’d done what was necessary.

Now I had to give her a chance to get herself out of this mess before it imploded around her.

I lowered my voice. “It’s all going to end now, Mom. We’re going to bring justice down on him, and anyone standing with him will fall too. It’s time to do the right thing. You probably wouldn’t even face any jail time if you agreed to testify against him about the things you’ve seen.”

Mom outright shuddered. “I couldn’t do that. Ilovehim, Logan. We’re in this together, me and him, come hell or high water.”

I held her gaze. “Shouldn’t you be able to say that about your own son? Isn’t it time that you were here for me again? Walk away from this with me, please. You can divorce Dad properly, live life however you want it, in a way that won’t put everyone around you under threat.”

“Logan…” Her voice broke with emotion.

I pushed my advantage. “I want you in my life. I want to get what we should have had. Do you have any idea how much I missed you all those years?”

Mom blinked hard. She swiped at her eyes and took a step toward me. “I’ve missed you so much too, sweetheart. When I think about all the time I’ve lost with you, it kills me. I don’t know—”

Her words were cut off by the thump of the bookcase swinging from the wall. I only had an instant to register that the bookcase had been concealing a hidden doorway when a broad-shouldered, graying man in a vibrant peacock-blue suit burst from the opening into the room.

He was holding a pistol pointed straight at me. As I jerked backward, my pulse skittering, he barreled toward me, and it clicked in the back of my startled, panicked mind that this must be Doom’s Seed.

“He’s your weakness, Yvonne,” he growled. “The only one you have left, and I’m going to eliminate him. Then you’ll really be free.”

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