She did. God help her, she did. He was the man who had killed her mother, Marshall and the man who had been raping her and then set the apartment on fire, leaving a whole apartment building to burn down.
“You’re the one who took me from my mother and gave me to my adoptive parents.” She wasn’t going to mention that she had seen him murder them, too, afraid that he would kill a witness to a crime he had committed years ago.
“That bitch was no mother to you. That slut should never have been allowed to have any children. She was evil incarnate.”
“How did you know my mother?” Lily asked.
“She grew up in my neighborhood. We grew up together. I would see her around every now and again. I have several businesses; one of those businesses was to provide entertainment to men. She worked for me for a while until she started stealing extra cash out of the customer’s pockets.”
“My mother was a prostitute,” Lily said, her face pale.
“Your mother was a slut. She would give it away for free as often as she sold it.”
Lily winced at his cruel words.
“This is interesting, but I’m trying to understand what this has to do with you kidnapping me. If you’re worried I was going to talk someday, I won’t.”
“I didn’t think you would, Lily. It wouldn’t be much fun testifying, would it?” King said mockingly.
His words let her know he also remembered why he had killed her mother and the other men.
Lily shrunk in on herself, reminded of the treatment she had received as a child. She knew herself well enough to know that she would never be able to testify to what had happened to her when she was a child.
Lily heard King sigh, his hands going to his pockets. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories for you, Lily, but I have no choice. I have an enemy who is determined to destroy me and he plans to use you to accomplish that goal.”
“How? I don’t understand. I don’t want to understand. I just want to go home to my husband. He’ll be worried about me. I want to go home.” Lily refused to cry in front of this stranger. She had stopped crying all the time. She wasn’t weak anymore; she had Shade, Beth and Razer, and she had The Last Riders. The weak woman she had been was gone.
“I can’t let you go home until I kill Digger. He escaped a couple of days ago, and he’s not far from Treepoint, if he isn’t already there. I couldn’t take a chance. I had to put you where he couldn’t find you until I can find him. Don’t worry; it won’t be long then you can go home.”
“Why would he try to use me against you? I don’t even know you,” Lily protested.
“Look at me, Lily. It’s obvious.” His eyes stared into hers.
“No.” Lily shook her head, denying the possibility, squeezing her eyes closed as if she could make him disappear. She couldn’t shove the truth away, though. Lily gave a bitter laugh. “So not only was my mother a prostitute, my father was her pimp?”
King nodded his head. “Among other things. I’m afraid being a pimp isn’t the worst of my sins. You didn’t stand a chance.”
Lily lowered her head, her hair falling forward to hide her face. “Do you even know that I didn’t know that fathers existed? That when I found out, I cried for three days? Do you even know the things she did to me and made me do?!” Lily’s eyes raised, the purple depths filled with hatred stared at King who went pale at her outburst.
His face quickly became an impassive mask; however, Lily saw the torture in the eyes that were so much like her own, and her hatred fell away, replaced with pity. She had suffered for eight short years while this man had suffered for much longer than that.
“I…” King cleared his throat. His impassive voice belied the eyes staring back at her. “I didn’t know. My sister was violently murdered. She had been kidnapped and cut to shreds. I loved my sister. It was why I did some of the things I did when I began my business, so I could drag her out of the filth of that neighborhood. When she died like that, I swore I’d never let anyone hold someone over me like that again. The men I dealt with were too dangerous. The night they returned Ariel’s body, I had to make the arrangements for her funeral and pick out the clothes they were going to bury her in the next day.”
Kings hand ran through his dark hair. “I went back to my apartment, got drunk and did some coke. Brenda must have come by. I don’t even remember the bitch being there. I remember stinking like sex the next morning, but I didn’t remember anything from that night. I stayed out of the neighborhood Brenda lived in. It brought back too many memories.