I wakeup with murky water dripping on my cheek in an abandoned factory I recognize as belonging to my dad. All of his businesses have gone to ruin since I sold them for parts after taking my inheritance. Between orchestrating Delilah’s torment, pretending to be Asher, and some unnamed, faceless stalker, I didn’t have the time to keep the factories going.
Guilt tears through me at how disappointed he’d be if he knew, for hating my parents when they protected me in their own way. It may not have been the route I would have chosen, but they still tried. Which I’ve repaid by destroying the only good legacy left for me because I wanted, what? A fuck you to the dead?
I groan at the ache in my muscles as I sit up on the hard floor, slowly looking down to check my belt hasn’t been undone. Thankfully it’s still buckled, and only my masks have been removed.
Heels click through the dusty floor as the woman who spoke while I was on the boat says, “You’re awake.”
I can’t see her face through the rusted machinery, her white woolen coat with the collars pulled up to obstruct the rest of her.But when she walks through the aisles of steelworks machines, I rear back at the features I never thought I’d see again.
“Mom?” I croak.
She looks exactly the same as she did when I was a child. Fuck, is she a twin too? No, Helene said she was defective. Defective means they were born without a shadow, without a twin.
The woman who looks like my mother laughs. Her hair is red and her lips are painted a deeper shade to match. My mom always wore pink to match her natural lip color.
This woman can’t be my mom, she’s too pretentious. As she steps forward, I notice the scales engraved into her thin gold heels. The pointed toe of her shoes are capped in the same gold, snakeskin debossed metal.
“A Ward,” I deduce as I stand, brushing the dust off me.
“Well done.” She nods.
“Why do you look like my mom?”
“Maybe your mother looked like me.” She slowly turns her head as though she’s raising her brows, but they don’t move. It takes a moment for my foggy brain to piece together that it’s a realistic mask made from a mold of my mother’s face. The seams of the latex are nearly invisible.
“You asked me what I’m willing to sacrifice.” I take another step forward. “What do I get in return?”
“I’m insulted. Did your father never speak of our arrangement?”
I remain still. My dad never spoke of his family, how he met my mom other than saying it was a mutual friend, and my mom wasn’t exactly honest with the information she provided.
“You see,” the woman says lightly, “your father was besotted with your mother after meeting his best friend’s older sister one day whilst she visited him at college. Lennox was in training to become the shadow. Such a mighty one he would’ve been.”
Lennox was best friends with my dad? The lying fuck.
She takes half a step forward, digging her heel into the tile. “Their relationship started innocently, much like yours with the Leroux girl, but as all tales of love go, it’s never enough to conquer those more powerful than them. As much as this world tries to convince you it will. Your father was struggling with letting the woman who became his all go. That’s when we offered him a choice.”
“A choice?” I repeat dumbly.
“A choice,” she repeats, nodding once. “We facilitated your mother’s escape from the Kobalt clutches. She was no longer a princess locked away in a tower after finishing her education, and she had her prince. A fairytale ending, if the story ended there. As we both know, that’s not the case. When you were born, your mother knew she had given birth to keys Helene would never allow out of her grasp.” She takes another half step while I remain unmoving. “So we provided our help once again. Do you know what your father sacrificed for your safety?”
My throat thickens, halting any speech, so I shake my head.
“To protect his new family, he shed the old,” she says lightly. “He took his precious newborn twin boys to visit their grandparents. They held you, squeezed your chubby cheeks, sniffed the top of your heads. As you slept in the guest house with your mother waking every hour to feed you, your father slipped away and ended their lives.”
“My dad’s not a killer,” I snap.
“He was.” She hardens. “After all, I was there. I recorded his allegiance, kept the evidence should it ever waiver.”
“You didn’t protect us. They were in our lives and Asher’s dead.”
“Well done, again. I see you have your mother’s intelligence as well as your father’s heart. Do you remember what happened at your fifth birthday party?”
I have to think about it. So much shit has happened since then, a random birthday party is inconsequential. “I got a puppy, but I had to give it away.”
“Why did you have to give it away?” she asks, her smirking fucking audible. If I didn’t need this cunt’s help, I’d have fun killing her.
“Asher tried to drown it in the pool,” I force out. “I didn’t want it to get hurt, so I said it bit me.”
