Val didn’t say anything, but she knew the answer. He’d known… and so had David.
David shoved to his feet with such force that his chair tipped over. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to this. Come on, Dad. We don’t need this.”
Shade blocked the door. “You don’t have to sit, but you will stay.”
“I’m trained to kill your kind.”
Shade cracked his knuckles.
Wisely, David backed off, but his stung pride put him on the hot side of pissed. “This is your fault, Serena.” He stalked to the end of the bed and nailed her to the wall with a hateful glare. “Yours and your whore of a mother’s.”
“Enough!” Val shouted, coming to his feet. “You’re out of line.”
“Really, Dad? Really? Because I’m thinking that your affair with Patrice was out of line.”
Serena’s mouth dropped open. Val’s snapped shut. Silence was an uncomfortable fourth party in the room until Shade drawled, “Now things are getting interesting.”
“Tell Serena,” David said. “Go ahead. Tell her how you cheated on mom for years. How every time Patrice snapped her fingers, you went running, leaving us alone. How, when she wanted to get pregnant, you couldn’t jerk off into a cup fast enough.”
The air left Serena’s lungs in a rush, leaving her woozy. “Is this true?” she croaked.
Val spread his hands in a pleading gesture. “I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t even know David knew.”
“How stupid do you think I am?” David snapped. “You think mom didn’t figure it out the first time she saw Serena? She was a carbon copy of you when she was little.” His voice vibrated with anger. “It must have been such a relief for you when Patrice gave up her charm to Serena. You got the best of both worlds. Your precious daughter was protected and you could finally fuck Patrice—”
Val decked David so hard that it sent his son flying. David bounced off the wall, using the momentum to rush at Val, but then Shade was there between them, fisting David’s shirt and easily holding him at arm’s length.
“I don’t care if you kill each other. But do it outside. Wraith will have my ass if the female gets caught in the cross fire.”
“She should be dead already,” David spat, and Serena went numb.
“Oh, my God,” Val whispered. “You did it. You betrayed her to Byzamoth.”
“So what? Mom is dead because of her! If you hadn’t loved her and Patrice more than us…” He jerked away from Shade and stumbled to the corner, where he put his head against the wall. “Mom couldn’t handle knowing you were cheating on her. All those years she put up with it, but when Patrice got pregnant again, it was the last straw. You drove her to it, Dad. You might as well have put the pills down her throat yourself.”
The truth of David’s words put shadows in Val’s eyes. He swallowed hard. “I never meant for any of that to happen. I loved your mother. I love you.”
Dabbing blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand, David turned back to Val. “But you loved Patrice and Serena more.”
Serena began to shake with fury. If she wasn’t so weak, she’d hit him herself. “You put the entire world at risk, betrayed the human race, just to get revenge?”
He recoiled as if she had struck him. “I didn’t know what Byzamoth was.” Tears swam in his eyes, and he dashed them away as he turned to Val. “I swear to you, I didn’t know. And I didn’t know Serena would die, not until you got all freaked when she said someone was after her. I just wanted the necklace. I wanted to be special.”
Val shook his head as though trying to clear it, and Serena knew how he felt, because she was confused as hell. “How did you find Byzamoth?”
“He came to the mansion after he discovered Serena’s identity. He said he was a mage. I think he planned to take the charm then. But you’d already sent her to Egypt. I was pissed—”
“Because you wanted to go,” Val interrupted, and David gave him a petulant nod.
“Byzamoth made a deal with me. He said if I told him where she was, he’d take the charm and give me Heofon.”
“And you believed him?” Serena gaped at the man’s stupidity.
“He acted like he didn’t care about the necklace. I thought he just wanted the charm. Then he got interested in the artifacts, and decided to use you to get them, too.”
“So he was after the tablet and coin.”
Val laughed bitterly. “Of course. Once David spilled the beans about those, Byzamoth would have realized that shutting down the Harrowgates would seriously disrupt his war. The gates between Heaven and Hell could still have been opened with Heofon, but demons wouldn’t have been able to get to the Earth’s surface to make war on humans. At least, not until they destroyed Heaven.” He made a sound of disgust as he rounded on his son. “You idiot. You realize that even if you had gotten the necklace, you would not have been allowed to keep it.”
David’s chin came up in defiance. “The holder of Heofon is given the charm—”