Fight me.
“I told you, you might hate me,” she gasps, her throat bobbing against my palm.
I blink rapidly to keep myself in check.
Maddoc is gone, Captain is hurt, my mother is dead.
Maddoc is gone.
I’m crumbling.
Bass lets her go and I get in her face, closing my fist as much as I can until not a sound can squeeze past her lips. “You. Are going. To fucking talk,” I force past clenched teeth, fighting the tremble threatening to take over every inch of me.
She tries to nod, eyes pleading, but not for me to release her, for me to believe in her.
I shove her away, and she starts coughing, her hand shooting up to rub her reddened skin, but I don’t give her the space to calm, I push her again, until her back slams against a parked car.
“Captain was shot,” I tell her. “That’s why he’s here, and by my own fucking mom. My mom who planted more seeds than I have time to grow. I’m out of time and out of choices.”
Alarm fills her eyes, but she blinks it away. “What did she tell you?”
“Not enough before she stopped breathing.”
She freezes, her eyes sliding between mine and Bass’.
“Talk.”
A tortured sigh leaves her. “I don’t want to tell you.”
“I don’t care. Talk.”
She glances at Bass as if she wants him to walk away, but he only leans back against a random van, crossing his arms and one leg over the other.
With a shake of her head, her stare moves back to me.
“I was a tool,” she starts after a minute of silence. “My role was always the same – the naïve little girl with stars in her eyes for the target of the night. A shoulder for them to boost themselves up on, not attached to their worlds, or so they thought. After a few drinks, they loved to tell me how brave they were, who they screwed over, and how easily it worked.”
“Dirty laundry.”
“At its filthiest,” she mumbles, her eyes focused over my shoulder. “Since alcohol was what we used to get them loose-lipped, Mero, that was his name, refused to touch it, but after a few years with me, he grew comfortable, less careful. He started having a few here and there.” Her eyes slide back to mine. “I had to play extra nice to get what I was looking for, but it worked. He practically sang when I stopped playing dead in his bed and pretended to be the girl he bargained for.”
Mero...
My mind spins trying to place the name.
She nods like she can read my mind. “Mero.” She repeats the name.
“Who is he?”
“The man this town erased – the fourth man in the yearbook photo.” Her eyes bounce between mine. “The man who gave a secret in exchange for me. The man your mom tracked down five years ago with a shoebox full of unopened envelopes.”
No...
“Envelopes full of what?” I rasp.
“Cash,” she whispers. “With a Brayshaw stamp sealing each one.”
My stomach muscles tighten. “Five years ago...”
She holds my eyes. “It’s how I found them, the house.”
Five years ago... in the dark...
“It’s how I found out about you. Who you were and what you were worth. Clearly, much more than me since the knowledge of your existence is what earned him his rag doll. Me.”
“Vee...” I croak, my hand flying to my stomach.
“I sat in the front seat of his car, parked outside your trailer the night he came for you.” Her eyes grow cloudy, her scowl never breaking. “I watched your mother walk out, saw the light go off. I listened to you scream, and I was glad, for once, it was someone else instead of me.”
“Enough,” Bass snaps, trying to step between us, but I hold my hand up, keeping him away.
“Mero Malcari,” she says.
Malcari.
I shake my head.
“Rolland’s biological brother, Maddoc’s biological uncle. Remember the story I told you, about how the night their dads died, one man died on the scene? That’s how Rolland remembers it, when really his brother was the one he chose to leave behind, assuming he wouldn’t make it, and tried to save Captain and Royce’s dads instead, who died anyway.”
I groan, my body jolting forward.
“I said enough!” Bass screams, his hand coming down on my back, a strain taking over the corners of his eyes as he stares at me.
She keeps going. “The man who wanted revenge on Brayshaw and Graven and used us both to get it. The man your mother paid to rape you, to ruin you so Rolland couldn’t trade you, and so a Graven wouldn’t come for you themselves.”
My knees give, my body falling into Bass’.
Leave it to Ravina to do the most twisted thing imaginable to her own daughter in her own fucked up way of revenge. The sickest part, I’d bet she was convinced she was somehow saving me, while also reminding herself I didn’t deserve it.