Page 82 of Volatile King (The Kings of Wayward Academy #6)

“Didn’t Lawrence tell you he released her?” Sheila swallowed but kept quiet. “He didn’t? Well, I guess we know who he’s fucking tonight,” I said, and Sheila’s glare darkened. “I hit a nerve. You didn’t like all the extra women…did you?”

“I don’t care about the two-bit hoes he wants to fuck to get his rocks off,” she said, and Liam nodded. So, that was true, too.

“Interesting…so you didn’t care about all the random girls fucked, or the ones he tested before selling, but you do care about him fucking Mya. Why is that?”

Sheila looked away and pressed her lips together.

“Cut her,” I said.

“Nooo, pweease,” she cried as Liam gagged her, and Myles started all over again on a fresh area.

Leaving them to it, I took the opportunity to walk around her room.

She had always loved red. Everything was accented with bold, bright red flowers or pillows.

I swiped my hand along her blood red satin sheets that matched her pajamas.

Everything else was crisp white. Not off white, not Victorian white, or eggshell… no, a white so white it was blinding.

“Stop.” The tears were now freely flowing down her face.

“Let’s try again, now that you understand how fucked up I really am. Why don’t you like Mya?”

Sheila snarled as Liam pulled the gag from her mouth. “Because the little bitch managed to get her claws into your father’s heart.” My eyebrow raised.

“He loves her?”

“Love, obsession, call it whatever you want. But he did things for her that he never did for anyone else,” she said.

“Anyone else…or you?” Her eyes turned glacial. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to answer, I already know. So, he fell for Mya, and she became a threat. What did she and Lawrence do with my son? That’s all I care about and want to know.”

Sheila looked down and shook her head.

“Myles.”

“No, wait.”

I held up my hand, stopping him. “You’d better speak quickly.”

“They don’t have him,” she said, and a cold dread settled in my bones. “Neither do I.”

I marched across the room, gripped the arm of the chair, and growled in my mother’s face. She reared back to get away from me, but it was no good.

“Where is my son?”

“I don’t know,” she yelled.

“What did Lawrence do with him?”

“Nothing.”

“Myles, take her ear,” I ordered.

“I’m telling you the truth,” she screamed, and the worst part was that I believed her.

“What happened to him?”

She swallowed hard, her eyes filling with dread, and that cold feeling inside of me got worse.

“Tell me, or I’ll go get the chainsaw and start hacking off limbs.”

Sheila’s lower lip trembled. “I don’t know where he is. I…I…dropped him off with a black-market dealer who sells kids. They don’t exactly give them to families if you get my drift.”

What the fuck? I stumbled back from the chair and fell on my ass as I stared at the woman who I’d called mother once upon a time.

“He was your grandson,” I said.

“He was the devil’s spawn, and if he had stayed, then Mya was going to take Lawrence from me for good. I couldn’t have that. He had to go.”

I slowly stood. “No…no, I don’t believe you.”

“Believe me or not, it’s the truth. I knew a guy through your father’s connections. He said that there was a real market for children’s organs. I told Mya that I was taking him to the park and brought him to my contact instead. When I didn’t come back with the kid, she lost it.”

“Lawrence would have killed you for doing such a thing,” I said, unable to wrap my head around the fact that my father was sort of the good guy in this particular scenario.

Sheila shook her head. “No. He was angry, yes. And when he was trying to find out where the boy had gone, he killed the contact. But your father and I have always had a special connection. He loved that I was that jealous over one of his lovers. Your father has a massive ego, and nothing strokes it more than large displays of affection.”

“You call having an innocent child murdered an act of affection?” I snatched her jaw and squeezed until she was whimpering. “You don’t know the meaning of the word,” I growled.

My body shook with rage, and I glared into her eyes. “If I find out you’re lying and he’s not dead…”

She rolled her eyes. “Nash, he’s dead. Dead, dead, dead,” she mumbled, unable to open her mouth.

I released her jaw, and she smiled. Right now, I wasn’t sure who was more evil…

my father or my mother. Sheila screamed as my fist connected with her nose.

It easily broke under the hard strike, and blood splattered her face.

“My nose…you broke my nose,” she wailed, but I blocked her out.

Tears pricked my eyes, and I paced in a circle. My heart was beating like a drum, and my breathing was so fast that I knew I had to get control or pass out. I bent over and put my hands on my knees.

“Mya said that Lawrence took him, not you,” I said. She shook her head.

“She said what you wanted to hear,” Sheila mumbled, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.

“This doesn’t make sense. Lawrence could have another child with her, so killing my son only delayed the inevitable.”

Sheila laughed before spitting blood onto the carpet.

“Please…your father thinks he can impregnate the world with his seed ,” she said, laughing. “Have you ever wondered why there was only you? Why I never had another kid, or why any of your father’s fuck buddies never birthed a bastard?”

I hadn’t really thought about it too hard, but now that she mentioned it…it was strange.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“I chemically castrated him. He can still have sex, but the doctor gave me a specific drug to stop his sperm from being viable. He’s been taking it in his vitamin routine since the day you were born.

The man is so stupid that he blames the women for not conceiving and refuses to have his sperm checked.

It’s why I’ve been able to get away with it for so long.

I love him, but he’s not the brightest sometimes,” she said, like she was talking about an ill-behaved dog.

My heart ached like someone had just ripped it out and crushed it. My son was dead. I’d thought it was my father that I needed to worry about hurting him, but in the end, it was my mother.

“Why did you do this to me? You killed my son.” I held my arm out, the anger and pain twisting into something far more volatile. “For what? Body parts…money? I would’ve given you whatever you wanted for him,” I said, each word getting louder. My emotions were trying to strangle me.

“Nash, you already thought he was dead, and I had a plan to get rid of Mya. But if you know she’s alive, then either your father told you, which I doubt, or he cut her loose.

That was always my worry. That the rat poison I’d been slipping her wouldn’t work fast enough,” she said, obviously disappointed that her plan had been foiled.

Liam didn’t give anything away about what he was feeling, but his eyes were dark and filled with anger. Myles wasn’t as good at hiding his emotions. He looked disgusted and enraged. They were mirrors to the turbulence in my soul.

I stood directly in front of my mother and forced her to look up at me. I had to ask the question that had been tearing me apart since she left me years ago.

“Did you ever love me,” I asked, my voice void of all emotion despite the deep ache that had settled into my bones.

She licked her dry lips. Sheila was filled with as much evil as my father. I’d ripped off the fancy mask she’d always worn, and what was beneath the polished exterior was ugly, dark, and came straight from hell.

“Answer me,” I ordered.

“No. I told you I wasn’t cut out to be a mother. I never wanted children, but I knew your father would take a mistress who could give him one, and then leave me if I didn’t produce at least one heir. Once you were born, that was it.”

Well, there it was. I nodded and smiled as I walked over to where her phone was lying on the bedside table.

She knew what I was doing when I held it up to her face. It unlocked, and I went into the settings, turning off all the security features on the phone so I had access whenever I needed it.

“You won’t find his location in there,” she said.

“Maybe…maybe not,” I said, voice lethal. My heart and soul had been shattered so many times by the two people who claimed to be my parents that I was amazed it beat at all.

Thumbing through her contacts, I found one labeled Lover.

It could’ve been anyone, but I doubted it.

Taking the number, I put it into my phone and traced it to a hotel in Seattle.

Of course, the coward had scampered further away.

I sent the information to Edmundo, since his soldiers could get there faster, and then set her phone on the bed.

I nodded to the guys, and they stepped aside. Sheila looked at them, fear written all over her face. She struggled in the tight bindings as I pulled out my gun, grabbed the silencer I’d bought, and slowly screwed it into place.

“I grieved for you when you left. I thought Lawrence had chased you off with his abuse,” I said, no longer feeling anything. I welcomed the numbness that blocked out everything else.

“Nash, don’t do this. You can have other children. It was just one boy,” she said, and I lifted my head until my eyes locked with hers. “Nash, please…I’m still your mother.”

“No…you never were. Giving birth doesn’t make you my mother. That title is earned. The only person you’ve ever looked out for is yourself. And it’s time I grew up and stopped wishing that my mommy and daddy loved me.” I locked the silencer into place.

“Please, Nash…I’m begging you. I’ll help you find Lawrence.”

“I bet you would, but I don’t need your help…

I never did.” Raising my arm, I pointed the gun at her.

“You burned this family to the ground long before I was born, and you’ll lie in the ashes you created.

Don’t worry, it won’t be long before you and Lawrence are reunited.

” I pulled the trigger. The first shot went right through the beating organ she called a heart.

Her body jerked back, and the next shot was right between the eyes.

Liam touched my shoulder, and I slowly lowered my arm.

“We need to go,” he said, and I nodded.

“Take her laptop and anything else you can find from her office that might have information on it,” I said, not moving as Myles took off down the hall.

Liam swiped the phone off the bed and then grabbed me. He turned me around and stared into my eyes like he was trying to lend me his strength.

“She…”

“I know,” he said, and hauled me into a hug. “I know. But you can’t break down until Lawrence pays. He needs to pay for setting this into motion.”

My spine straightened. “I’m fine,” I said.

It was a lie, and we both knew it, but it was the lie I was going to tell myself until Lawrence took his last breath. My parents would rot in hell for what they’d done. I was going to make sure of it.