Rebellion of a Kingdom by G.N. Wright
Chapter 37
LINCOLN
What I saw tonight, is the closest I have felt to my childhood in a long time. I killed so many men tonight. Too many. Yet somehow, it will still never be enough. There will always be more, sick depraved men who use and abuse people for their own pleasure, until their playthings become useless. Only then are they discarded and sometimes, not even then. I neck the whiskey, letting the burn slide down my throat.
I can’t relax, can’t settle. There were just so many girls. Young, naked, fucking abused, and broken girls. I’m here with a team of guys looking out for Elle and Cassie, but who’s looking out for all of them? These girls have families or homes, or at least they did, at some point. Who's watching out for them? Who's missing them, waiting for them to come home, even though some never will? How is that okay? It’s not. Someone should be doing something. I should be doing something, more than I already am. Elle opened my eyes to a world of crime happening right in front of me, and I can’t sit and do nothing. I need to help them.
I hear the door open and a minute later, Marcus is marching through the living room with Elle slung over his shoulder, muffling her laughs into his back. “Brother,” he nods at me before they disappear down the hallway towards their rooms.
I frown just as Asher enters after them, “where are they going?” I ask, even though I suppose it’s pretty obvious. I just didn’t expect it after what she did tonight. Asher rolls his eyes as he joins me at the counter, pulling his own tumbler from the cupboard. “To fuck each other's brains out like always, I don’t know how they aren’t sick of each other.” He huffs. helping himself to a healthy serving of vodka.
I can’t help the slight smile that ghosts over my face when I think of the difference in Marcus, since Elle came home. He’s not the same boy I met in foster care. No. That Marcus was cold, calculating and lost in his grief and pain. The brother I have now is an entirely new man. Elle brings out the best in him, like they are two sides of the same coin, destined for one another, always.
“When you have chemistry like that, you can never get enough.” I answer him, Marcus and Elle are drawn to one another like a moth to a flame. That won’t change, no matter how long they spend together. Their connection is so deeply rooted with one another that even their trauma couldn’t break it.
I take another burning sip as I continue, “When you have that kind of connection, why wouldn’t you wrap yourselves in it?” With all the shit we are facing, they are still somehow managing to find happiness in each other. That’s the kind of thing that will keep them fighting. “They’re happy and they please each other.” I shrug, feeling the tension in the air and wanting to disperse it. “And from what I hear, it isn't easy to please a woman.” I smile at my own little joke, which I’m sure went right over his head, and just when I think he will ignore me he responds.
“And what do you know of pleasing a woman? I thought the male specimen was the only thing that interests you. Or should I just say Logan?”
He eyes me expectantly, and I take a slow sip of my drink as I contemplate how to answer. He smirks slightly behind his glass, thinking he has silenced me. “Oh, a lot of things interest me, dark prince. I just don't act on them.” I ensure my tone is laced in innuendo, but of course he ignores it.
The look in his eye turning more serious if that’s even possible, “this is a now or never kind of life, Lincoln. You should know that by now.” His words have my spine straightening, does he think I could ever forget that after what we all just went through, what we still have to go through?
“I know that better than anyone,” I snap, adding more whiskey to my glass and downing it again. The taste on my tongue forces me to speak more freely than usual. “I just know now isn't the time to indulge in the fantasies in my head.”
He smirks again, and my eyes transfix on the dimple that appears on his left cheek, “And is it your fantasy to please a woman?”
“Is it yours?” I toss back, watching his fist clench around the glass in his hand, but he remains silent. I think he is going to leave, but instead he drops into one of the stools and sighs.
I don’t know why I start talking, but the words leave me before I can stop them. “My father was a serial killer.” His head snaps in my direction as soon as I speak, my focus remaining on my now empty glass.
When he doesn’t react more than that, I continue, “there were so many women.” I pour another drink and take a healthy sip, I need it. My father would bathe them, dress them, do their hair and makeup, and then pose them. Then once he had indulged himself in his sick fantasy, he would murder them.
Asher remains silent yet, his full attention is on me as I speak, “I helped him. It was our little game, our little secret.” I have never told another soul what happened that night. Not the police, my social worker or even my brothers, so I don’t know why I tell him. I just feel like I should. I don’t tell him how scared I was or how wrong it felt, I don’t want his pity. It’s why I’ve never told anyone else. They would say things like ‘you were just a kid’ or ‘you didn’t know any better’. But they’d be wrong, because I did know better, I was just a coward.
“My mother was his final victim.” My spineless behavior and fear of my father left me blind to protecting her. If I would have just stopped him, told someone, she would still be alive. Her death was my fault.
“None of the others screamed.” I recall, they were all so silent and docile, but not my mom. She begged him, pleaded with him, she cried so hard her voice went and he just ignored her. He said he would let me say goodbye, that it was his gift to me, and I should be grateful. Then he strangled her.
“He killed her right there in front of me. Then I killed him”
The silence following my admission should be awkward, deafening yet I find nothing but comfort. Like a weight has been lifted off my chest at my admission. I can feel Asher’s stare burning into me, but I can’t bring myself to look at him. To allow my darkness to mix with his, it won’t change anything. I don’t know how long we sit there, but for the first time in a while, the silent company feels nice.
When he finally breaks his silence, I don’t expect what comes out of his mouth. “That’s how you knew how to trust Elle right from the start. Why you had her back, no questions asked. You saw the look in her eye. The one that only comes from a specific type of trauma.” He knocks back the rest of his drink and I am once again transfixed by the masterpiece that is Asher Donovan, as he swallows it down.
“Isn’t it funny how one night, one moment, can just change the course of everything.” He says, staring down into his own glass, thankfully, completely oblivious to my stare. “I still remember her eyes, the way they were before. I had never seen eyes as blue as hers, or a smile as big. I envied Marcus when we met.” He admits, and it’s like he senses my raised brow because he shakes his head. “Not in the way people always presume. I envied their friendship, their closeness. I’d never had that. We moved around a lot, never settling in one place for long. When we got to Black Hallows, and I saw the bond they had, the friendship they’d built. God, I wanted that.” He shakes his head, like the memories are just barreling into his mind.
“You have that.” I tell him solemnly. I see the way he and Elle are with each other. They have each other's back no matter what. They have killed for one another and would die that way too.
“Yeah, at what cost?” He snaps. “My friendship with Elle led her right into a pit of fucking snakes.” He grips the tumbler so hard I don’t know how it doesn’t break, and I can’t control myself.
I storm around the counter until I am next to him, “No. It led her to an unbreakable friendship, to the father of her child, and to a family she adores. Don’t ever forget that. You are not your father’s son, Asher.”
His stormy blue eyes lock with mine as he digests every word I say. His body turning towards mine, bringing his knees against my outer thigh as he replies, “neither are you, Lincoln.”
He stares at me intensely, and the way he says my name has me thinking ungodly things. I feel like we have broken through the invisible barrier that always seems to sit between us. He’s looking at me and finally seeing the real me, like no one else has before. The connection like no other I’ve ever felt. He looks like he wants to say more, do more, but that can’t be right. Just as I open my mouth to ask, someone else beats me to it.
“What’s going on here then?” Logan's flirty banter breaks us apart. I watch as those Donovan defenses slam back into place. That barrier rising back up, never to be brought down again.
“Just talking shit,” Asher responds without taking his gaze from mine, before he finally breaks it, grabbing his glass and slipping off the stool. “It’s late, I’m gonna head to bed.” He doesn’t look at either of us as he rinses out his glass, and then leaves without another word.
I can feel Logan staring at me, but my gaze trails after the unattainable and forever out of reach dark prince.
“Don’t let yourself sink, Lincoln.” Logan says, stepping up beside me.
I turn to look at him, letting myself appreciate the beauty that is Logan Royton. We have been getting closer these last few weeks, but neither of us has stepped over the line we crossed in the gym again. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
He sighs, “I know better than anyone what it’s like to be caught in the tsunami that is Asher Donovan. I’ve drowned in it for years, and trust me when I say, it doesn’t come with a life raft.”
He looks at me one more time and I detect a hint of pity in his gaze, before he shakes his head and returns back the way he came, and I remain where I always do. Alone and in control. Ignoring the temptations, they both have to offer. I won’t ever be like my father and take something that doesn’t belong to me, no matter how much I want it.