Reign of Brayshaw (Brayshaw High 3)

I swallow, looking across the yard when a small flame appears out of nowhere.

“After dinner was cleaned up and Collins was in bed, so was he. I assumed he was waiting for me, but when I went to his room, I found his door locked, and I knew. It all clicked in a single second.”

“Knew what?”

“He’d found her, the love of his life.”

My head jolts back. “Found her? My mom?”

She nods. “Suddenly, every weekend, sometimes weeks at a time, he had business meetings and events that kept him away.” She looks up. “I’d never seen him so alive as he was during those months. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one to notice.”

“Donley.”

“Yes. One weekend, several months later, Donley told me to get in the car. His driver knew right where to go. I’ll never forget the feeling of seeing them together, with you. He was weightless. Free and smiling.” She swallows. “When Felix got home that Sunday night, Donley was waiting with a nasty ultimatum. I thank heavens every day that he at least loved his son enough to give her up.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was either Collins died, or Felix made Ravina believe he was as sick as the man who ruined her. It took a couple weeks of watching him deteriorate before our eyes, but it was done.” Her tears fall freely now. “My son was allowed to live, Ravina’s hate was back, and Felix’s soul ... it was gone.”

She’s quiet a moment before she says, “Donley knew what he was doing. What Felix would do next. Felix didn’t make it twenty-four hours after that. I found him myself. Buried him here.” She takes a deep breath. “His memory was erased the night that followed, his son forbidden to so much as whisper his own father’s name.”

Smoke fills the air, seeping into my lungs, but my feet won’t move.

“He was prepared to leave us, to leave this place and be with her, be with you.”

“I don’t understand.” I shake my head.

She eyes me. My confusion must be plastered across my face as she tilts her head.

“Do you not know?”

“Know what?”

“The man who came to your mother, the one who allowed you to see a different side of her, a side that maybe you could have loved. That was him.”

My brows pull in in thought, my eyes falling to the grass beneath my feet.

I think back to the story I told Maddoc.

“I hate my mother.”

He doesn’t say anything, so I look his way again. “But that’s no surprise, right?”

His brows lower.

“She’s always been a piece of shit, my whole life, as far as I can remember anyway. But there was one time where everything sucked the teeniest bit less. Wanna know why?” A wry grin slips. “A client stuck.”

“Since he knew about her job of choice, she didn’t have to lie about who she was and what she did. Used and abused and all, he accepted her. Me too. He even claimed to have kids, but I never met them.” I focus on the sky.

“She got better with him, wasn’t clean, but functioned like a human instead of a toy with dying batteries – still turned tricks, but he never seemed to mind.

“For the first time ever, I had a dinnertime. Every night, when the sensor lights on the trailers started popping on – there were no streetlamps in my neighborhood – I’d run back. Excited for a stupid dinner that was never anything more than macaroni and cheese with hotdogs or rice and sauce. Dumb shit, but it was the first time she’d ever seemed to care if I ate since I was big enough to make my own cereal, so I thought it was cool. Lasted about a year.”

“What happened?”

“I ruined it.”

“How?”

With a deep inhale, I look to Maddoc. “Puberty.”

His features morph in an instant, flashing with incomprehensible anger. “Raven.”

“He started paying more attention to me, ‘neglecting her,’ she’d say. She beat my ass, told me I wasn’t allowed around him if I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.” I remember how angry she’d get. “Kinda hard when my room was the two feet between the table and the couch, that was also my bed.”

Holy shit.

“He made her think he was attracted to me, a child, on purpose, to ruin things between them?”

She nods. “He couldn’t simply leave, she’d know something was wrong and possibly come back. Donley couldn’t risk it.”

Both our heads jerk to the side when a loud crack sounds. Flames climb up the edges of the pool house, engulfing it in seconds.

I look back to Estella. “What do you mean by make her think he’s as sick as the person who ruined her? And you said he saw me, if that’s true why would he not bring me here then? He could have prevented all of this.”