Page 25 of Twisted Empire

“You couldn’t have just waited and let me get a new liver the regular way?”

“No. It was becoming so clear that there wouldn’t be a match from a legitimate source in time. Your other organs were starting to fail. I took the one option I came across that would save your life, and I don’t regret that for a second.”

I closed my eyes, willing down my nausea. I’d already known it had to be true, but hearing her admit to the crime sickened me all over again, even more than when the revelation had first hit me.

“You did all that, supposedly for me,” I said. “And then you chucked me aside like I was nothing.”

“Logan, I wasn’t happy. I loved you more than anything, but with your father holding me back, I was trapped. I couldn’t have continued being a good mother to you while I was stuck like that—I could already tell I was failing you. What I did—what I had to do—was the only way I could get out.”

“Get out? You had a kid and a husband. A good mother shouldn’t evenwantto get out of that situation. You should want to be with your family.”

“I put you and Holand first for years, and I lost myself to it. I leapt at the first chance I’d had at real happiness in over a decade. I gave you as many years as I could, and then I made a clean break so you could get over it quickly.”

Did she really think that was how it worked? Hadn’t she ever missedme?

I couldn’t bring myself to ask that question.

“Thisman makes you so happy?” I said instead. “He kills people—he had Maddie’s father murdered! He doesn’t care at all about who he destroys if they’re in his way. How could a monster like that make you happy?”

“There’s so much more to him than that,” Mom insisted.

I shook my head. No, I’d given myself the answer already. The problem was that my mother was plenty monstrous too. I just hadn’t realized it before.

She’d had moments in this conversation when she’d sounded a little sad. The slightest bit regretful. Was there any part of her thatwasn’ta monster?

There had to be, didn’t there? How else could she have convinced me so well that she cared about me back when she’d been in my life for all those years?

“Mom,” I said, my voice getting rough, “we could end this here. No matter how much more there is to him, he’s causing dozens, probably hundreds of deaths. You can stop him. Turn him in to the police. Save all the people he’s going to kill before it happens.”

“Sweetheart, you know I can’t do that.”

“No, I don’t know that! You’re a witness—you know all kinds of things, I’m sure. You could say what happened with me and Maddie’s dad. It’s the only way you could make up for all the other things you’ve screwed up.”

Mom’s voice stiffened again. “I may have made mistakes, but I did the best with the options I had. I love this man. I’m happy with the life I’ve made for myself. You have no idea what I’ve been through or what the bigger picture looks like.”

There was a click, and the line went dead. It took me a few seconds to process that she’d hung up on me.

I lowered the phone and set it down on the coffee table. My shoulders slumped, my entire body seeming to have been drained of energy.

I could tell myself that she wasn’t really my mother over and over, but that didn’t stop the knowledge of who she was from lacing through me like a knife to the gut.

The door to the sitting room swung open. I sat up straighter, expecting to see Beckett or my friends, but it was Maddie who poked her head in.

“Hey,” she said softly. “I heard you talking when I came up on the door… You sounded pretty upset. Is everything okay?”

I swallowed thickly and pressed my hand to my forehead. “Yes. And no. It was—I was going through my mom’s phone, and she called it, I guess to see where it’d ended up. And we talked. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation.”

Maddie grimaced and slipped inside. She hustled straight to the sofa and sat down beside me, wrapping her arm around my back.

“I can only imagine. Did she say anything that would help us with the case?”

I shook my head. “I even tried to convince her to help directly by turning on Doom’s Seed, but she wouldn’t consider it. She says sheloveshim.” Acid filled my tone.

Maddie winced and hugged me tighter. “I guess it might be worse if she’d done all that without even caring that much about him.”

She might have a point there, but it didn’t make me feel much better. I sighed and nuzzled her hair, letting the citrusy scent of her shampoo fill my nose and soothe my nerves a little.

“That’s not even the worst thing,” I mumbled.

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