Page 65 of Scorned Queen

My brows furrow at the direction I’ve never heard, but everyone certainly hustles to comply.By the time I’m standing, Delilah and Lana are exiting the room.I hurry around the desk, and intend to follow, when Damion steps inside the room, and the look on his face, the absolute dread I sense in him, has me gasping for air.

My heart twists, squeezing like a band around it.“What is it?”

He closes the space between us, folds me close against his warm, strong body and whispers in my ear.“Alana, baby, there’s been an accident.”

I jerk back, and now my breath just won’t fill my lungs.“Tell me.”

There’s anguish in him that shreds me even before he says, “Your father’s gone, baby.”

The words don’t quite sink in.I have to repeat them in my mind.Your father’s gone, baby.My fingers stretch and then curl around his lapels and I’m trembling, tears streaming down my face.Why am I crying?My father is fine.“No,” I say.“No.What does that mean?Gone?He skipped out on rehab?He didn’t make his flight?”

“He’s gone, baby.I’m so sorry.He’s gone.There was an accident and—”

I don’t hear the rest of the sentence.The room spins and there are screams in my head, my screams.Tears explode from me and my legs give out.Damion catches me and holds me to him or I’d be on the floor.I can’t, I think.Just—I can’t.

And yet, I do.Somehow, after completely losing it, I pull myself together, at least a little.“My mother?”

“Walker is locating her.She doesn’t know.”

“Take me to her.”

Walker hunts her down at her apartment, and I’m the one who tells her my father is dead.Despite barely holding it together, I manage to hold her as she cries, but there is a coldness in me toward her that is wholly unfamiliar.She hurt him.She hurt him so very badly.And she can’t take that back.

He’s not coming back.

Chapter fifty-three

Thenextthreedaysare the hardest days of my life.

Neither me nor Damion talk about his father’s role in a car accident that feels far from an accident at all.Damion just seems to know that I can’t go there yet, just—not yet.

With his much-needed help, I arrange the funeral pretty much all on my own, as my mother declares she is not in a good place, and incapable of such matters.She’s drugged, she also claims, but to me she comes off more removed from the process than she does grieving.

It rains the day of the funeral, a light chilly mist for the most part, that seems to last forever, when my father will not.I speak at the service, but my mother does not.Again, she’s too drugged, she insists.More like too hypocritical.After crying through the eulogy I’ve delivered, and leaning on Damion to survive it, I’m angrier with her than ever and I just can’t make it go away.

By the time we’re at the cemetery, I’m out of tears, at least for a bit, and with Damion as the thread that holds me together, we stay until everyone is gone.He’s standing with me, arm around me when my skin prickles and my gaze lifts and catches on a figure by the trees.A man, and he’s not alone.He’s withmy mother.When I realize who it is, fury erupts inside me.I twist away from Damion and run toward the pair.

Before Damion even knows what’s happened I’m in front of them, his father and my mother.“Are you kidding me?”I demand of my mother.“You can’t even wait until after he’s in the dirt?”

“This isn’t what it looks like,” she says, while Damion’s father smirks, as if confirming the exact opposite.

That’s all it takes to unleash me.

I lose it and shove my mother.She falls backward.onto the ground and begins to sob.I charge at her, ready to jump on her—I’m not in my right mind—when Damion grabs me from behind and holds onto me.

My mother is now wet and muddy and on her hands and knees.“What was that?”she screams at me.“Who are you?”

“Who areyou?”I demand.“The last conversation I had with him he talked about you and this monster.The way you hurt him is unforgivable.”

My mother shoves to her feet and sobs, rushing away, a coward who will be naked with Damion’s father before the hour is up, I suspect.

“You were quite hard on her, don’t you think?”West Senior dares to say.

“You killed him,” I say, my voice as brittle as ancient wood.“I’m going to make you pay.”I twist and jerk from Damion’s grip and start walking, my pace fast but measured.and I know then me and Damion are done, and not because I don’t love him.Because of what I’m going to do to his father, what I will go down for, pay for, alone, just me, not him.

I reach the limo waiting on us and Damion’s there, in front of me.He doesn’t have to turn me to face him.I do it myself.“We’re done,” I declare.“I’m done, Damion.I’m going to my apartment.I’m not going with you.”

“Alana, don’t do this,” he pleads, torment in his eyes, in that rich timbre of his voice, I love so much, but when he reaches me, I hold up a hand.

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