“All the same, ma’am,” Vette answers through his teeth, “she seemed surprised when we told her what you said, so I thought we ought to have it all out now, plainly, instead of whispering our secrets in dark corners.”
My gaze darts up to Vette in shock—he asked for this showdown with my mother? But then he’d just heard my side of the story in the car, and he didn’t say a word.
Mother sighs again. “Very well. I told you she’s a talented little actress, so you can’t believe a word she says. But as I told you, Amber was always jealous of Jade. They fought like cats and dogs growing up. You can’t imagine how difficult it was for me.”
A gasp of fury escapes my lips. “That’s total bullshit! She—”
Vette squeezes my arm. “Wait your turn.” To my mother, he says, “Continue.”
Mother sighs again, as if she’s embarrassed by the interruption. “So, Amber was completely wild and made Jade’s life miserable. Yes, I admit Jade and I had our differences before she left, but we were working them out.” Now she sniffs dramatically, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “She was so sweet, my Jade, that she offered to help me tell Amber about her alpha status, that she wouldn’t be going to Omega Prep as she’d always assumed. We’d always planned to send her to Drakewood, where she would get the kind of structure her life at home was apparently lacking, but we wanted to wait until after her eighteenth birthday when her true order could no longer be denied. I did my best, you know, but I was not prepared for raising delinquent alphas.
“But Jade must have told Amber on her own before I ever got the chance, and before we could quietly enroll her Amber flew into a rage—a rage primarily aimed at the sister who had shared the news—and before we even knew what happened she’d stolen Edward’s gun—look what she’s done to his poor face just today—and she shot Jade in cold blood.”
“I see,” Vette replied in a steady tone. “But I have to wonder, why did you need Jade’s help at all if you had your enforcers there to get Amber to Drakewood?”
Mother chuckles nervously. “Well, you know, I thought it might make the process smoother for her to have her sister—”
“The sister you just said Amber despised?”
“Well, they’d been getting along better in recent months, we all had been reconnecting with Jade—”
“And why, when all of this happened, didn’t you call the authorities?”
Now the waterworks begin. Mother’s face scrunches up and she sheds fake tears into her tissue. “Can’t you understand how hard it was for me? I’d already lost one beloved daughter, and I couldn’t imagine sending a second to federal prison for murder! I just thought perhaps we should follow through with the school and they’d be able to help her. I love all of my children so much.” She smiles wistfully at me through her tears. “I only want what’s best for them.”
“And what’s best for Amber is to give her to us, to do with as we please, in exchange for forgetting Jade, our omega, ever existed?”
Mother’s smile falters. “Well, she’s obviously a danger to society, and I can’t bring Jade back. I know you want revenge, so I thought it all worked out for everyone this way.”
Vette glances down at me, and I open my mouth to reply to Mother’s salacious lies but he shakes his head once.
“Perhaps,” he replies slowly. “But what doesn’t work out for me, what doesn’t quite make sense, is why the girl who hated Jade so much wears your beloved lost daughter’s favorite necklace like a token of a lost love, and you haven’t even noticed it around her neck.”
My eyes drop to the jade flower pendant. Of course! I couldn’t bear to let them take it when they took her body away. I had nothing to remember my sister by at all. No one knew what it was, and so no one noticed.
But of course Vette would know. He loved Jade. He knew this was her favorite necklace. Heat rushes to my cheeks when I realize he was staring at the necklace a few moments ago, and I’d lashed out at him for staring at my tits.
Mother stutters, trying to come up with an explanation, but she has none. “I… I—”
“I see now. In our grief, we were easy to manipulate, weren’t we? Easy to sell a lie. But Amber already told us her version of events, and I think it makes the most sense. What about you guys?”
Vette’s pack grunts their agreement, and they release my arms which immediately ache with returned blood flow.
“What I don’t like,” Vette continues, rubbing his hands together slowly, “is being lied to.”
twenty-six
AMBER
Iwatch in mute horror as Vette lifts his gun and points it toward my mother. Anger mars his handsome face, turning him vicious. Lethal. He claims he hates being lied to, and Mother has built her entire life upon a throne of lies, using manipulation to rise above anyone in her way.
But not anymore.
“Lie is too strong a word.” She laughs lightly as if this whole thing is nothing more than a playground game. Lowering her voice, she sweetens her tone, taking on the role of the perfect submissive omega trying to calm down an alpha. “We’re merely interpreting events differently. That’s all this is. Please put your weapon away. There’s no need for—”
“Shut up!” Vette yells, his gaze cold although his words are full of flame. He steps forward with his gun, his arm steady and ready.
Surprisingly, Mother listens. She might be an evil bitch, but she’s not stupid.