Page 37 of Wicked Promises (Fallen Royals 3)

I tip my head back and close my eyes. I’m going home to Margo, I remind myself. That should be enough. Revenge, taking action—those are words my uncle put into my head. Drilled into me.

Beat into me.

12

Caleb

Past

Mom was gone. She didn’t say where she was going before she left. One minute she was there, kissing the top of my head, and the next…

It had been two days. Two days of moping, staring out the window, and avoiding my uncle’s gaze.

“You look like your father,” he said to me now, filling the doorway. “I’m sure that’s why she hasn’t come back.”

I flinched.

He liked it when I reacted to his words. He came out with these awful thoughts. He spoke them into existence and then watched the damage they inflicted.

“Ben and I looked alike, too.” He came closer and sat down in the chair to my right. “Lydia… she’s a troubled girl.”

“Mom?” I asked. “Troubled?”

“Always up to her ears in mischief.” He grimaced. “It was what attracted Ben to her in the first place. Like a moth to a flame…”

“Mom was the flame?”

“Indeed,” Uncle said. “Still is.”

I didn’t know what to make of that.

“Caleb, sit before me.” A demand, not a request.

My feet moved on their own, carrying me to the space in front of him.

Uncle did look like Dad. He had the same mean glint in his eyes, too. But that meanness only came out in Dad after a few drinks. It was ever-present on Uncle’s face. He was like a supermodel in the magazines Margo used to flip through. Beautiful and ice-cold.

There was no chair in front of him, but I already knew what he meant. We’d done this a few times—lessons, he called them.

I sank to my knees, keeping my eyes on Uncle’s shoes. They were polished.

“Tell me again how it happened,” Uncle said.

“We were playing hide and seek.” I glanced up. “And Margo was hiding. She saw…”

“Your father fucking her mom.”

I blinked. Mom hadn’t let me swear. Practically vibrated with anger when hell slipped out my mouth. But that was then. Now, she wasn’t here.

“She saw Dad…”

“Say it,” he prodded. “It’s just a word, Caleb. It’s what they were doing.”

I couldn’t. Mom would be angry.

He exhaled.

The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back. He knelt beside me, his hand wrapped around my throat. The pressure was just enough that I could barely suck in air.