Page 30 of The Lost Kings
“Because I have no one else, Scotty!” I sneered, while a few tears slipped down my face. “I have no one else. The twins aren’t coming back. Carter and Alex are hardly ever here. I’m alone. I have you and my parents, and that’s it.”
My uncle was quiet as he watched me cry, and then after enough silence had passed between us, he pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons.
“Fine, Presley. You’re lonely? I’ll fix that…don’t blame anyone but yourself for this.”
“What do you mean by that?” I searched his face, panic filling me.
He kept pushing buttons, and my anxiety continued to rise.
“What do you mean, Scotty?”
He finally dropped his phone and glared at me once more. “I mean your little friendship with the head of the Adesso family is over.”
The echo of his steps reached me before he did, and when he held his phone out to me, I wasn’t sure what I was even looking at but as he walked past me, I realized exactly what he’d done.
He’d been texting the twins from his own number, the most recent message was a picture of me lying against Adrian’s chest while he played with my hair in my bed. The television played against the far wall, and our snacks were strewn next to us.
The text below it read:
Get home now.
New emotion clogged my throat as my head whipped up and I watched Scotty walk away. A sob worked into my voice as I dropped his phone.
“I hate you.”
He didn’t turn around, but I heard him as clearly as if he had. “That’s fine, Presley. Hate me all you want, just take that fucking necklace off while you do it. It’s probably a tracking device.”
“They are only going to be coming back because you ordered them, just like one of your dogs.”
His feet faltered for one second before his head dipped. “At least they’re obedient when it comes to protecting the family. Something you still need lessons on.”
“Fuck. You.”
Suddenly Scotty spun on his heel and glared back at me. “You forget that I never had to order them to protect you, Presley. You forget that I nearly died at their hands because of that instinct. Never pretend like I am not aware of what’s at risk, but more so, stop pretending like they aren’t in love with you.”
“They aren’t!”
“You are not stupid, Presley. Stop acting like this before you get someone killed, or did you forget you’ve already done that too?”
He disappeared around a corner before I could reply that it wasn’t my fault…all the times they’d tried to protect me. It was his.
Chapter 12
Kingston
AGE 15
This plant was going to die. My mother had tried so hard to keep it alive and tend to it, but I knew it wasn’t going to make it, which would devastate her. She was weird like that, had seemed to let go of the concern of actual people dying, or the bodies that our father helped pile up, but plants dying fucking destroyed her.
“Kingston, do you know what I did wrong, honey?” My mother’s soft voice sounded exasperated as she tilted the leaves of the plant. My hands were behind my back as I stared down at the peace lily almost scoffing at the irony of her choosing this one to try and keep alive.
“Perhaps it died of hypocrisy.”
My mother’s eyes lifted slowly, meeting mine. Her blonde hair was long, kept back in a low bun, but pieces touched the sides of her face. She had blue eyes, not like Gio; some people said they were, but if you actually took two seconds to compare the two, they were nothing alike. My older sister, Alex, had my mother’s eyes, but Gio had some strange blend of fuckery that didn’t exist in anyone I’d met in either family tree yet.
Mom’s lips pursed. She knew exactly what I was talking about, and if we were the kind of family that embraced therapists hearing our problems, then perhaps, she’d know why I was constantly so pissed off.
“Are we doing this again, son?”
