Page 89 of Claimed By the Ruthless King

The moon chanting, the obsession with crystals and bright colors; those were never vices she used to cope with the grief. Her flamboyant personality is rooted in guilt. She’s been begging the universe for forgiveness, wearing my mother’s perfume as a way to honor her in an attempt to atone her sins.

My heart picks up in my chest as I unpack more thoughts, letting emotions flood through the gates. I showed her the Crow drawing and her eyes turned wide, not because she feared the men, but because she didn’t want me finding out the truth.

And she proceeds to lie when I confront her about my father being the new leader. Not once did she correct me.

She can wear as many colors as she wants, hoard crystals until every surface in her house is covered, but it will never be enough. She sent my father away and left my mother shattered. How the fuck am I supposed to forgive that?

“This way,” says David.

I follow him robotically, lowering straight into the backseats of his car when he opens the door for me. Too many questions are spinning through my mind. I don’t care where David is taking me.

My head is scrambled, and I’m tired of defending myself, of differentiating the real from the fake. The world as I know it has been flipped upside down, and David is the only one with answers.

I’m not done asking questions, so I chase after him like a chicken walking straight into the slaughterhouse, all to hear what else he knows.

“What happens to Viv?”

“Salvatore will be able to answer that question better than me,” he says from the front, guiding the car down the road.

He went behind my back and confronted Aunt Viv?

I stare through the windows, contemplating everything. Lights roll past, not quite making it through the blacked-out windows. I will only ever see glimpses, never the whole truth. Even my own mother kept her journal entries from me, refusing to tell me about my own father.

She was heartbroken, still in love with a man who left without saying goodbye. And her own fucking sister staged it all.

I shut my eyes, thinking about Salvatore. What did he do to extract the truth out of her? Make her bleed? Chop off some fingers? A limb? I saw the way he shot out of the elevator during the attack, knife at the ready like an extension of his arm. Salvatore would be no one without killing, just an orphan.

“Tell him to leave her alone.”

“After she lied to you for years?” laughs David, turning at the next intersection, heading for the highway. “Vivian sold your parents and bought a gallery with the money. She should be punished.”

“Not everything has to end in death.”

“It does.” David’s cruel eyes cut through the rearview mirror. “And Salvatore thinks the same.”

“Salvatore would never hurt my family.”

“He would if they hurt you,” says David, merging onto the highway. “Which is why you come in handy. We kill two birds with one stone by keeping you quiet and forcing Salvatore to hand everything over.”

“Right, like you’re out of pocket from scamming people.” I glance through the window, seeing the sign pass for Brooklyn. “Where are we going?”

“I’ve answered enough questions for the time being,” says David.

“You’re the Crow leader, aren’t you?” I stare through the rearview mirror, watching the lines disappear between David’s brow, a horrible smile stretching across his face.

“Congratulations, you figured it out.”

“Why?”

“Like I already said⁠—”

“You broke into my mother’s fucking unit, making us think my father was the fucking Reaper.”

“The Reaper?” cackles David, taking the next exit. “You gave me a name?

“It was Salvatore’s idea,” I mutter. “And you lied at the fundraiser.”

“Oh, Ophelia,” sighs David, exhaling a long breath. “You really think anyone in the audience cares about the attack? Wake up. People only care about themselves. The bigger the tragedy, the bigger the distraction. People have no idea what is really going on behind closed doors.”