Shattered Dynasty by Ava Harrison
48
Payton
A waveof nausea hits me.
I push it down, holding back the vomit. It won’t do me any favors.
Where am I?
Everything around me is black. I’m bathed in darkness. My lids feel heavy, and my head throbs.
I blink a few times before colors finally start to stream in. My surroundings hit me like an avalanche. The darkness is hard to adjust to, but when I finally do, I immediately realize where I am.
Erin’s basement.
The questions threaten to crack my head open. It throbs everywhere. Someone hit me on the head. I don’t know why I’m here, or why it’s so dark, or why I can’t move. I just know it’s bad. That I should’ve told someone where I was headed before I left.
That I should’ve told Trent I love him.
I close my eyes, forcing myself to think. To remember what happened.
It’s difficult past the splitting headache that comes from all angles, starting from where I was hit in the back of the head.
I went to Erin’s because she was crying, sobbing . . .
Someone knocked me out.
Then I ended up here.
In her basement.
The couch is sticky and uncomfortable beneath me. I stare down at my lap. My hands rest on it, bound together by a rope. My feet are in the same state. If I try to move, I’ll fall over.
Who did this to me?
The answer comes at once.
That sicko Brad.
There’s no one else.
Paul is dead.
Erin has no history of physical violence.
Is she also tied up somewhere nearby?
This has got to be about the money.
Maybe he thought my sister would get it, but now he thinks he can get it from me?
It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Around me, music starts to play.
Goose bumps break out on my skin.
It’s that song again.
Bile rises in my throat.
The same song that played on my phone.
The same song I couldn’t place how I knew.
But now, I know everything is because of him.
Brad is the one who tried to kill me.
I hear a footstep, and I search for who’s coming.
That’s when I see my sister. Her face is lit up by a single stream of light wafting from the door she left cracked open.
“Erin, thank God!” I jerk against my binds, trying not to fall over. “Get me out of here!”
She cocks her head and stares into my eyes. Her gaze is void of emotion.
“Why would I do that?” she asks.
“Because Brad might be coming back . . . I think Brad’s the one who is trying to kill me!”
A laugh rings through the air.
A sinister one.
“You think this is Brad?” She shakes her head as she stares at me, unhinged. “This was never Brad . . . this was all me.”
I want to scream.
I want to deny it.
I want to be someone else for once. Someone whose parents aren’t dead. Whose sister loves her. Who’s brave enough to tell the man she loves her feelings before it’s too late.
“What?” I shake my head and begin to rapid-fire questions at her. “What do you mean? Why? Why am I here? What do you want from me?”
My brain swims in too many unknowns.
They come pouring out of me.
“I want you to admit it!” Erin screams. Her hands wave around her. She is losing it. Or maybe she’s already lost it, and this is all that’s left.
“Admit what? What are you talking about?”
“Admit that it’s all your fault!” The anger on her face morphs into sadness. “You took them all away from me.”
“Erin, calm down.” I lift my tied hands, trying to reason with her. “Took who?”
“Everyone.” Erin points at me. “You took everyone and everything from me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“First, you took our parents . . .”
I shake my head, confused.
“They were going to pick you up. You called them, sad.” Her face turns into a sneer, and she mocks.
My brain tries to remember. I was homesick. The girls were mean. They were teasing me. I called my parents.
“Poor Payton. At a friend’s house and oh, so sad. Never happy no matter how many people you bend to your will. It’s always about you. Always about Payton. You just had to beg them to pick you up and take you home,” she snarls out. “They died going to get you. They died trying to make you happy.” Her nostrils flare with fury.
“I’m so sorry, Erin, but I was a kid—”
A hand slaps against my face. The skin on my cheek burning hot.
“Shut up, you little brat! Everything. You took everything from me.” She swipes away an angry tear. “I had a life before you. I was going to go to college. I was going to make something of myself, but then I was forced to raise you. I was forced to take you in.”
“You didn’t have to. You could have—”
“What? Put you in foster care?” She scoffs. “Then I wouldn’t have gotten my parents’ money . . . Because obviously that was in their damn will.”
“What money? Our parents didn’t leave us money.”
“Of course, they did, you little idiot. But you were a minor. You didn’t know anything I had to do for you.” She stalks forward. I edge back as far as I can with the binds. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. But by then, I was already saddled up with you.”
“Again, why didn’t you get rid of me?”
“I was going to. But then I saw how men looked at you.” She shrugged. “I thought I could use it for my benefit. Until you took him, too.”
I shiver at her words. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I was going to sell you.” She spells it out for me, her tone condescending, betraying how dumb she thinks I am. “Tony was going to help me . . . We would have gotten a pretty penny for you, but you had to mess that up, too.”
Tony. Her ex.
Her horribly abusive ex.
The music gets louder, and suddenly, I’m back there.
On the couch.
His warm breath on my cheek.
His hand on my lap.
The music playing on the stereo in the room.
“He was going to hurt me,” I whisper, remembering everything now. It slams into me, harder than the car did. “You saved me.”
“Saved you?” Erin’s dry laughter pierces the air. “I didn’t do it to save you. I did it because he was mine, and you couldn’t have him.”
The memory of that day plays in my mind.
My sister was screaming . . .
They fought.
Then she pushed him.
He fell down the stairs.
An accident.
She was protecting me. It was the thing I clung to in my worst moments—how she’d been there when I needed her most. It was why I never left her. It was why I kept the loyalty even when she treated me like dirt.
I thought she saved me.
That she loved me.
But now?
Now I know the truth.
After that day, we lived in her car. We left before the cops came and moved from city to city . . . until Erin met Ronald.
“It’s always been you.” She reaches forward and slaps me again. My head flies back. “You have always taken everything from me.”
My cheek stings. I push it down, croaking out, “He was going to rape me.”
“You seduced him, you whore!” She looks downright unhinged.
This is not my sister.
This is . . . a monster.
“Probably like you seduced my Ronnie,” she accuses. “Is that how you got him to give you my money? It was all supposed to be easy. I knew about the account. It was supposed to be in my fucking name. Mine.” She jabs her thumb against her chest.
“I never asked for the money,” I say, knowing she’s beyond logic.
“When Ronnie went to jail, I thought he would give me access to the money, but he still wielded it like a sword. Brad was easy to convince. You know that’s the funny part?” She laughs. “I saw him when I was visiting Ronald. Tony’s old friend Brad. When I found out he was Ronald’s cellmate, I knew what I had to do. I got Brad to handle it all . . .”
“Brad killed Ronald,” I finish.
“Not by his own hands. He got out before, but he made sure it happened. And what was it all for?”
She shakes her head, and I realize there’s something in her hand. I can’t see without the light, but fear pulses through my veins.
“I still didn’t get what I deserved,” she continues, closing the distance between us. “Yet again, you fucking won the prize.”
“It was never about winning, Erin. I never seduced him. I was a child! I never seduced anyone!”
“Oh, keep telling yourself that. I’m sure that’s exactly why you are spreading your legs for his son. Acting like you’re better than me, you worthless bitch.”
My head spins.
It feels like I’m free-falling off a cliff.
“You should have died when Brad hit you,” she tells me, standing right in front of me now. “It would have been so much easier if you had.” She tilts her head, staring down her nose at me. “What do I do with you now? Well, not me. Brad . . .”
She reaches toward me, gently strokes my hair, and makes me a promise.
“I’ll make sure it’s painful.”