The tickle of the tear tracking down my cheek barely penetrates. “You tormented me.”
She pauses at this, fingers stilling in my hair. Softly, she says, “That’s not fair.”
“Not fair?” I try to turn to look at her, but the grip on my hair, already half braided, snaps me back. “Not fair?!”
“Enough,” she begins, voice full of indignation, “I knew the second you stepped foot back in this town that you were too much like me. Did you ever stop to wonder why you never went to the police? Oh, it’d be useless to do it here, but in California? In Colorado? You had multiple chances to get away from this, Story, and what did you do?” She roots around my vanity for a hair tie, sounding more and more angry. “You came right back to their fucking doorstep because you can’t stay away. A part of you craves it—the pain and humiliation you feel when they defile you like a little pet, even when I try so hard to—”
“Ah!” I cry out when she pulls my hair, snapping my head back.
Suddenly, she’s in front of me, taking my hands in hers. “Listen to me, my little storybook.” Her eyes bore beseechingly into me. They’re eyes just like mine. The same color. The same shape. Probably even the same vibrant edge of desperation. “I’ve been down this road, and I know where it leads. You’ll spend a few years being the scum on the bottom of their shoes. They’ll pull you out when they want some excitement. They’ll use you. Debase you. Soil you. One of them will eventually put a baby into you.” At this, she smiles, but it’s a broken, jagged thing. “You’ll give birth to her after seven hours of excruciating labor. You’ll hold her in your arms for the first time, and she’ll be so beautiful and lovely and good. You’ll be amazed that something so perfect could come from such an ugly person.” She reaches up to thumb my tear away. “You’ll look into the eyes of this marvelous thing you’ve made, and it’ll change you. You’ll make a promise to her that it’ll be different. That she’ll never have to know a life on her knees. That you’ll do whatever it takes. You’ll beg, borrow, steal—and yes, if it means keeping that promise, you’ll kill, too.”
A sad, mangled laugh claws its way from my throat at the idea of it—this dream of hers. As if she’s sacrificed and worked so hard to save me from the very fate I’ve been subjected to for years. “Like Vivienne?” I ask, stomach roiling at the magnitude of her sins. “Was that for me, too? How did slitting her throat and leaving me her finger help me in any fucking way.”
Her mouth presses into a tense line. “Vivienne was getting in the way of my plans for you.”
“Vivienne was getting in the way of your marriage,” I correct, snatching my hands from her grip.
My mother sits back on her heels, eyes hardening. “You’re right. She was servicing my husband. Regularly. You know why that was a problem, don’t you?” She snorts at my blank expression, rising to her feet. “Jealousy is above me, Story. Otherwise the Velvet Hideaway’s payroll would be a hell of a lot smaller.” She walks to my dresser and begins going through the drawers. “She knew too much. Had too much access. She was beginning to notice the money missing.” Glancing at me over her shoulder, she explains, “Money that I used to pay Ugly Nick to take Killian out.” She pauses, pulling out a pair of my old jeans. “Or try, at least. He’s a slippery one, isn’t he?”
“You were wrong before,” I say, my voice just as perfectly controlled as Tristian’s taught me. “I didn’t come back here because I craved humiliation. I came back to get revenge.”
She drops the jeans in my lap and lingers, hands on her hips. “By spreading your legs over and over again?”
My brain spins, my heart aches, and the rage in the pit of my belly—all that fire I thought I’d buried from all the years of abuse—flickers back to life. “I did what I had to do. Don’t tell me you don’t understand that.” I look up and hold her eye. “And I won. I beat them. They don’t own me.”
“That bracelet.” She jerks her chin at my wrist, sneering. “Those scars on your chest. The tracker in your neck. They’re the mark of a pet.”
My back straightens, eyes flashing. “Right now, they’re the mark of a Queen.”
My mother’s face pinches at the word, like she’s tasted something bitter. “Have you been listening to anything I’ve said?” She takes the jeans from me, crouching down to slip the legs over my feet, motions jerky and stiff. “I was married to Daniel for years. I was his confidante. I single-handedly formed the foundation for one of his most successful businesses. I advised him, elevated him, fucked him, and even I wasn’t a Queen. Women like us?” She shakes her head, letting out a resentful laugh. “We’ll never be Queens.” When I tear my jeans from her hands, working them up over my thighs and hips myself, she raises her eyes to mine. “Not unless we take it.”