Page 47 of His Princess

My gut churned. I loved my mother, but.... “Mom,” I said, clasping my hands together under my chin. “I’m happy here.”

She glanced around. “Of course you are. It’s a beautiful house. That skirt is probably five hundred dollars. You’re being kept well.”

Anger had me closing my eyes. She’d always been this way. I let out a shaky breath. “Why did you leave me here without a word?”

She went back to fiddling with her purse. “Oh, honey. You were a beautiful child. Men would see me with this adorable waif and decide we needed their protection. They would melt. You’re an adult now. It’s not the same.” She shrugged a shoulder.

“I throw off the game,” I said, disappointed. I’d had plenty of time to contemplate this, and the awful truth she’d just shoved in my face had certainly been one I’d thought I might get from her, assuming I ever had a chance to ask questions. “Wow.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, though she certainly didn’t sound it. She raked her gaze down to my feet and back up to my face. “But honey, I was clearly blind.” She plucked at my leather skirt while contemplation furrowed her brow. “We could rethink our strategy,” she whispered, but her voice was much warmer.

Horror clawed through me. “Mom, I love Matt. I want to stay here.”

She touched her throat and widened her eyes at me. “He’s dangerous.”

I slapped my hands on my thighs. “And yet, you left me here.”

She rested a hand on my knee, squeezing. “Don’t you want revenge? We can drain him dry.”

An uncomfortable heat surged through my body and my face burned. I’d already done that earlier. “No,” I snapped.

She slipped a hand into her purse, and I was shocked when she dragged out a small silver gun. There was a pink pearl handle, and the weapon could easily be mistaken as a novelty item, but by the way she clutched it, I knew it had to be real.

“Since when?—”

“Always,” she whispered, glancing at the doorway. “He caught me by surprise, but it won’t happen again.”

“You sent me to do so many dangerous things as a kid, and you were always armed?” I whispered furiously at her.

She rolled her eyes. “No one hurts children. Anyway,” she said, standing. “We are leaving. This is for your own good. We’ll be back on our feet in no time.”

I stared anxiously between her and the gun. “I’m not going.”

She waved around the weapon while she shook her head. “You’re clearly too deep into this. Brainwashed.” She checked the doorway. “You need to know when to cut your losses and run.”

Shit, I’d wanted some privacy with Mom, but now I was wishing Matt was either closer or paying more attention. I shook my head desperately.

“You can be a tasty temptation for some other rich man who treats me like gold to win you over. We’ll sell ourselves as a package deal.” She poked me on the shoulder with the gun, and my heart almost stopped.

For several seconds, I glared at her, then bit the inside of my cheek. Would she really carry around a loaded gun? If she’d had this earlier, why hadn’t she thought to reach for it when Matt grabbed her? Did she panic? No, it must not be loaded. Maybe it wasn’t even real. Fury drove me to my feet, and I grabbed at the gun.

She shrieked, and I grunted as we strained together with the weapon between us. I shoved it upward, then pushed her a little, hoping to knock her off her heels, but the roar of the gun going off made me freeze. Her eyes widened and a hole in her neck began to pour scarlet blood. It was as if the strings of a puppet had been cut. She crumpled straight to the floor, mouth gaping, blood spreading away from her body. Her lips moved, but not so much as a finger or toe twitched. I rushed to help her, hitting my knees at her side, but a light investigation of the damage crushed me. The bullet had gone through the front of her throat, and I was pretty sure it had ripped through her spine at the back.

I stared at the blood on my fingertips.

Matt rushed into the room, eyes wide. “Holy shit, what did you do, Princess?” he asked, hands out at his sides. He was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt with damp hair, so he must’ve gone to take a quick shower.

Maybe I didn’t think my mother was a good person, but I’d loved her. I burst into tears. “I can’t believe I did that!”

17

COLT

THIS WASN’T the first time I’d had to hide a body, and it wouldn’t be the last.

But that wasn’t what I was worried about right now. Quin stared down at his mother’s lifeless face, barely moving or saying a word as Derek and Royal helped me move her from the Hummer to our little burial ground. It was a testament to how much Derek liked Quin that he was out here in the cold doing the dirty work himself. We’d hidden bodies here for years. The area was outside of the city in a woodsy grove, and it was close to what Derek called his torture warehouse.

I dusted off my gloved hands and stared intently at Quin and his shaking lower lip. Derek and Royal were moving his mother into her grave, along with the rotting bodies we, and our allies, had gotten rid of in the numerous years we’d used this location.

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