Chapter 23 Kashton
TWENTY-THREE
KASHTON
Twelve years old
Istep off the elevator and whistle while making my way through the pits to the hallway that leads to the cells.
My heart begins to race when I see the first one on the right is open.
I rush into it, looking around. My tennis shoes crunch the broken glass that still remains on the floor from last night when I visited.
Why haven’t they cleaned it? And the blood?
The floor is covered in it. Something has been dragged through it. Smearing it across the concrete floor.
“Why are you down here?”
I turn around to see my father following me and step into the cell. “Where is she?” I demand.
“She’s gone, Kashton.”
“You moved her?” I shove him out of the way and rush out of her cell.
I go to the one across from her. Wrapping my hands around the bars, I scream into it.
“Mom?” A frail woman sits in the far corner, her arms wrapped around her bony legs with her head down, trying to hide her naked body.
“Where is she?” I shout, and the person flinches.
“Kashton.”
“Mom?” I scream, starting to panic. I run down the hallway, scanning each cell. There are a few that don’t have bars, just concrete doors, and I slam my fists on them as I call to her, hoping she answers from the other side.
“She’s gone, Kashton.” My father yanks me back by my shirt and spins me around to face him.
“You killed her.” I punch him, and he pushes me away. “Why? Why would you do that?” Tears sting my eyes.
“She killed herself.”
“No.” I refuse to believe that. “She wouldn’t leave me.”
“Come on.” He grabs my upper arm and pulls me through the basement and to the morgue.
We enter a cold room that has rows and rows of drawers stacked three high. It’s where they keep the bodies. There’s a metal table in the center with a white sheet over it that’s soaked in blood.
A knot gets lodged in my throat when my father walks over to it and yanks it back.
It’s my mother, but I refuse to believe it. “No.” My tear-filled eyes go to his.
“She took a piece of glass and slit her throat,” he explains, running his finger across her neck, following the open wound. It looks almost fake. Like a Halloween costume with its uneven line.
“This is your fault,” I scream. My chest is squeezing. I can’t breathe. “You…you didn’t clean up the shattered glass.” It was from the light bulb that had broken. It was all over the floor. “It was cutting her.” She had blood on her hands and knees last night from crawling around her cell.
He says nothing, and I walk over to her and place my hands on her arm. I’ve never been able to touch her before. Even in her cell, she never tried to reach out to me or get close enough to hold my hand. That’s all I ever wanted. To show her how much she meant to me. How much I love her.
“No.” I shake my head. “She wouldn’t leave me. She loves me…” Tears roll down my face. “Please…Mom.” I sniff when my nose begins to run, digging my fingers into her cold skin. “No.”
“Sometimes you have to hurt the one you love.”
“You’ve never hurt me.”
“I will. It’s life…inevitable.”
She knew last night what she was going to do. That she was going to leave me. End her life. I bow my head and close my eyes tightly to try and keep the tears from falling in front of my father. He’ll see me as weak. “Please, God—”
I’m ripped from her, and my father digs his fingers into my upper arms. “Are you fucking praying?” he snaps, and I try to pull away, but he just tightens his grip. “God doesn’t exist, boy. You are the god.”
I shake my head.
“Yes. You are judge, jury, and executioner. You decide who lives, suffers, and dies.”
“I will never be like you,” I scream.
“Sir, we’re ready,” a voice says from behind me.
My father lets me go and nods to them. “Then get it done.”
The man starts to roll my mother to a door on the opposite side of the room. “Where is she going?” I demand, looking at him. “What are you going to do?”
“Cremating her. Then I’m throwing her ashes out with the trash.”
I wake up to my cell ringing, and for a second, I just lie in bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Eve has brought back memories I’ve tried to forget, and I know why.
A part of me wants to save her from herself.
I failed my mother. The saying goes history repeats itself, and I won’t do the same when it comes to Eve.
But it’s different with my future Lady. I knew I wanted her before I even knew who she was, before I knew about her past.
It rings again and I think about ignoring it. Maybe trying to go back to sleep dreaming of Eve and the future we’re going to have.
When it rings once more, I decide to answer it. I need to get up anyway. If I stay in bed all day, the guys will be in here asking too many questions. “Hello?”
“Hey,” comes Sin’s voice. “You busy right now?”
“Depends,” I say and roll my eyes. I sound like a bitch playing hard to get.
“I thought about going for a ride.”
“Give me twenty.” I hang up and jump in the shower. I’m a little slower than usual because of the two days I spent with Eve. My cock is still hard thinking about what we did. How I played with my angel.
I’m standing in the garage at Carnage with one of the doors up when I hear his bike coming down the road. He’s got a loud muffler on it.
Seeing him pull up, I take a helmet off the wall. Between the three of us here, we’ve got a large collection. “Put this on.” I shove it into his chest. “We both know Elli only married you because she thinks you’re pretty.”
He laughs and shoves the helmet over his head, fastening it underneath his chin. I’m not going to be the reason he crashes and dies. I don’t want Elli coming after me because of his stupidity.
I put my earbuds in, turn on Spotify, and blast music. We ride for I don’t know how long, taking curves too fast, lane splitting, and popping wheelies. We’re just two guys out being dumbasses and not caring. Cars honk and flip us off. We just wave and nod at them.
Man, I’d hate to have a life like theirs. Live a little. You’re going to die eventually. Some much sooner than others. Why not enjoy it?
One woman flashes us while her friend laughs from the driver’s seat.
It does nothing for me. She isn’t my girl. Before Eve, I’d have given her my number since it’d be an easy lay. Not anymore. All I need is my angry angel.
We’re at a stoplight when Sin waves to me. I turn my music down and raise my visor.
“I need gas,” he calls out, and I nod, slamming my face shield down at the same time.
We pull into a gas station and get off the bikes. Removing our helmets, he starts fueling and leans up against the side of his bike while he texts away on his cell.
I might as well top mine off too. Once I’m done, I look over at him, and he’s staring at me. “What?” I knew this was too good to be true. “The guys tell you to call me? Tell you to take me on a playdate?” I’m half joking but also expect him to say yes.
“No. Tyson called me and said you beat the shit out of three guys at the club the other night.” He shrugs. “Not that I care about them, but I thought you could use some fresh air.”
I look away. Did Ty call everyone? I know I made a scene, but damn.
“What happened?” he asks at my silence.
“Doesn’t matter.”
He chuckles. “I’m sure it was over a woman, and that matters.”
I look back at him, and he arches a brow, daring me to argue.
“Is this the ‘I’ll take care of it’ girl?” He brings up the conversation we had in the office at Carnage.
I’ve been waiting for him to ask me if I’ve handled it. This is probably his way of wanting to know what I’ve found out about her.
I look away and sigh heavily. “Yes. It’s Eve.” I run a hand through my helmet hair.
“And?” he urges.
“And she was there that night.” I shrug.
“With another man?”
I laugh at that thought. “No.” If my girl were with another man, I’d have killed him. Not just beaten the shit out of him. “Some guys I know from Barrington were talking about her.”
He frowns. “What were they saying?”
“Called her a whore.” The conversation she had with Adam in the bathtub comes to mind. Not like we’ve discussed past sexual partners. It doesn’t matter how many men she’s been with, as long as she understands I’ll be the only one from here on out.
Sin’s jaw sharpens at my words. We all know Elli’s past. What her family did to her.
They tried to devalue her. They physically and mentally abused her, tried to push her over the edge.
To make her look insane. All because of money.
They wanted what had been left to her. And the Lords took advantage of her as well.
They knew how much Sin loves her, so they sent him on a mission to break her.
But she was stronger than any of them could have imagined.
“It was more than that,” I go on at his silence. “Called her useless—”
“Useless?” he repeats.
“She can’t have children.” I shrug. “At least that’s what I got of out it.” He tilts his head to the side, wondering how I came to that conclusion. “They said she was the perfect bitch that you fuck on the side when you’re married. I just put two and two together that they couldn’t knock her up.”
“Have you asked her?”
“We’re not there…yet.”
He laughs. “So she doesn’t know you exist.”
“Oh, she knows.” I chuckle to myself.
He looks away, dropping his arms from his chest and burying his hands in his jeans pockets.
“She was a doll,” I tell him.
His wide eyes meet mine. “Maybe…maybe they sterilize them?” he offers softly. “Like you guys do with women at Carnage.”
“Maybe.” Honestly, I don’t know enough for that not to be an option. “What about Elli?” I ask. Changing the subject. I still don’t know enough about Eve to answer all the questions I know he has.
“What about my wife?” he growls, as if I’m implying something.
“How’s she doing?” I clarify. “She was pretty upset after her appointment.”
He nods, looking away. “She’s good. Does it every time. Calls it a cleansing cry.”
“Ice cream seemed to have done the trick.”