Tacet a Mortuis (The Elite King's Club 3)

Hector raised a cigar to his lip, lit it up and then blew out a cloud of fog. “Madison, my son never killed Khales, or, so I’ve just found out tonight.”

I turned back to face Bishop. “I thought you told me you did?” I fought to add to that sentence just like you told me a lot of fucking things. I hissed the ‘me’ to accentuate how livid I was by yet another one of his lies.

“Well, this is all grand, but that’s not why I’m here.” Khales stepped forward and my eyes cut to her.

“Don’t you fucking come closer.” Then I glanced at my mom. The person I mourned for years after her apparent death. I realized, there was a lot that went on between her and my father that I probably didn’t know. But even though my gut churned with distrust when I looked at her, I trusted my dad. Amongst all the chaos that he had put me through, I believed he had a good heart, well, at least when it came to me, anyway. I’d been wrong about this type of shit in the past, so at the same time, I wasn’t entirely sure. I was overwhelmed, so overwhelmed that my hand started to convulse, and my legs quivered. A sharp zap started shooting through my bones, leading to my knees, and then suddenly, I was on the gravel road with stones imprinting into the flesh of my knees and palms. Silent tears began to trickle down my face, and in my peripheral, I caught Bishop sinking down beside me, his arm curling around my back. I froze as every sound, every ounce of talking that was going on, started to slip into white noise. The revelations, this world, it had been slowly breaking me since I first stepped foot into the Riverside Prep marble hall. The finery that screamed elusive, now roared at me in caution. I could feel my thoughts tremble as they slowly started to lose the fight. I thought I had my mom, I thought I’d always have her, even when she was dead, I still thought I had her. But it turned out, I had nothing but plastic promises that were delivered by a cheap imitation of what a mother should be.

The hands that were clamped around my upper arms tightened and began to shake me. I stared at Bishop instantly, but I had nothing else to give. Nothing. My mouth opened, and in my mind, I was ready to tell him to take me away from all this. To whisk me away from the imposters, and the fakes, but…I didn’t trust him. One thing was clear through all of this mess. “You loved her.”

His eyes searched mine cautiously. “What?”

“You loved her.” This time it came out as though I was more confirming it within myself and less like I was asking him a question, because deep down, I knew. He must have felt something for her to not have ended her life all those years ago.

“Madison.” A voice so familiar, it lit up my memory bank like a matchbox full of explosives and drifted through the frosted midnight air, lashing over old wounds that have now opened again.

My eyes closed in reply. “Don’t.”

“Madison, there’s—”

My eyes slammed open and I narrowed them at her, finally, having enough courage to face the monster head-on. I slowly, and on shaky legs, stood from the asphalt, dusting off my pants and squaring my shoulders. I faintly heard a car pull up behind me, but ignored it. All of my focus was on her. I stepped forward and watched as her eyes darted around the place in panic, probably unsure of how I was going to react. I considered lunging at her but figured enough blood had been shed tonight. As much as they were all so used to witnessing scenes so graphic, I was not. She looked the same, too, well, somewhat the same—which angered me further. I guessed I would have liked to think that while I was mourning her fake death, she wasn’t out living a lavish life. My eyes found her wrist, where a white gold watch was fastened around it. It had enough bling sparkling around the face of it to make Flavor Flav jealous. Yeah, she was definitely living a pretentious life.

Laughter cracked out of my throat before I could stop it. I was so incredibly angry at everyone, but I was going to start with her. “You know I’ve just spent the last few seconds hoping that the reason why you faked your own death, the reason why I had spent months mourning your death, crying for you, was because you were held captive somewhere against your will. Because what kind of mother would do that to her own daughter, right? But it turns out...” My eyes fluttered back down to her watch, and then lazily dragged up and down her body, examining the way her silk top hung off her lean arms, and the pearl beads that fell around her neck were clearly visible, and let’s not forget the way her face appeared freshly made up of the finest—probably Chanel— makeup. Nope, no smudged eyeliner here. No sunken black eyes, bruises or scarred flesh. Just another housewife pissing away too much money and pretending like they give a shit. “—You’re a fraud all on your own.”