Page 107 of His To Claim
“Well, my dear Malcolm, you know I’m known to enjoy playing games, and tonight, we’re in for a treat.” Servite stands turning to me. “Tonight’s game is more of a mystery. A murder mystery. A mystery that will be solved by the time we all leave here tonight.”
Everyone looks around at his words murmuring quietly to each other.
“Who killed Silas Smoak?” Servite blurts out, making the crowd go silent.
Malcolm pushes back against his chair standing furiously. “Is this some kind of joke to you, Wesley? You mentioned you never found my father’s murderer. That they were just some lowlife addicts, a robbery gone wrong.”
I turn to Agent Servite, and he winks at me, a slow grin appearing on his face as he faces a very irate Malcolm. “Oh, I’ve known all along who murdered your father, my dear Malcolm, and they’ve been under our nose all along.” He looks at me and I feel Ace’s hand on my thigh squeezing tight. I turn to him, and he looks at me, a silent warning to keep quiet on his face.
“Stop with the riddles and games, Wesley. Do you or do you not know who murdered Silas?” Stephan Silver asks, annoyed by his friends' games, though he also doesn’t look surprised by Servite’s dramatics.
Servite’s gaze finds me, a sinful grin turning up the sides of hismouth until all his pearly white and perfect teeth are showing. My body shakes uncontrollably.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my second guest of honor, the beautiful, difficult to hunt down and nearly impossible to find, Lilith Steele.”
A woman wearing a dress made from the most delicate of black silks emerges from the mansion. Her dark hair is perfectly combed and cut into a blunt bob right above her shoulders while clear blue eyes glimmer in the moonlight illuminating her face beautifully painted with makeup. She looks nothing like the woman I last saw three years ago.
Nothing like the woman who abandoned me and ran off. Nothing like my mother.
I stand as she emerges to her seat at the table directly in front of me. A sly smirk on her face as she looks at me over. I feel Ace’s grip on my waist trying to steady me and her eyes travel to where his hand sits on my body. Her smirk widens, and a light chuckle escapes her.
“Hello, daughter,” she says, and my breathing falters. My heart pounds so fiercely in my chest I can feel it in my temples. My vision blurs and my skin feels oddly cold, an electrifying shock radiating through me. My mother, here in front of me, at this table filled with these powerful and corrupt individuals. The worst thing is she looks like she fits in, like she’s one of them.
The memories of her beating me and screaming at me day in and day out for any little thing. Taking off and never coming back for me. The last few months I lived terrified of making one wrong move and costing those around me, my real family, their future. Everything is too much, and I can’t take it anymore.
I turn away from Ace pulling to get away from him but his grip on me tightens. I push and claw at him, screaming to let me go but he doesn’t listen. I suddenly feel sick and dizzy as I look up to Ace, his face blurred, and my body grows numb.
Everyone at the table is looking at me as if I’m the one in the wrong, the one who is overreacting. I feel a tear fall on my cheek, but I refuse to give her the satisfaction. It’s the first tear I’ve shed in front of her in years. I look to Ace who is watching me solemnly. Dark blue dilated irises, the color of the ocean at dawn. That’s the last thing I see before my eyes give out.
“Hush little angeldon’t you cry, momma’s gonna sing you a lullaby. Sweet little baby don’t say a word, momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.”
My body feels sick, weak, and broken. My mind is numb, empty, and dark. Memories of her singing me to sleep when I was just a little girl, memories of a better time. I wonder sometimes if they’re even real or just my body’s way of fighting back against the abuse it endured.
They say when you undergo such traumatic events your mind plays tricks on you, creating calming scenarios that never occurred, our bodies’ own coping mechanism. At times like this I believe it was all a figment of my imagination. Lilith never genuinely loved me. She would leave me alone all day with the neighbor, supposedly to work all day and night, but why was it necessary if it was just the two of us. Then once Chaz, Jade and Roman moved in, the working stopped, and we still managed to have a roof over our heads, and food on the table.
“Hush little angel don’t you cry, momma’s gonna sing you a lullaby. Sweet little baby don’t say a word, momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.”
I sometimes wonder if it’s even her voice I remember singing to me, or someone else entirely.
I awaken dripping in sweat, startled by the dream I was having and find myself lying on a large bed in a dimly lit room.
The surrounding walls are a dark red, with black curtains. The wind flings open the two large doors leading to a small balcony overlooking the yard of Servite Manor.
I suddenly remember where I am and what happened just before I awoke here.
My mother. Lilith Steele standing before me, looking like a completely different person. I walk over to the door of the bedroom and find it locked as I try to wiggle the doorknob free. I move over to the balcony and hear voices coming from outside. I quietly step out trying not to make a sound as to inform them I am awake. I look down and find the men still here have moved to the grass area beside the pool. I can barely hear them, so I step a little closer, nearly leaning against the railing. I see everyone except for the Horsemen standing in front of me.
“You murdered him!” Malcolm yells as he steps toward Lilith, crowding her.
She reaches up, slapping him across the face. “You mind your tone with me, Smoak,” she shouts, Agent Servite stepping toward her.
“Now, now, Lilith, no need to get violent. Just tell him, tell them what you told me.”
“I was there that night, the night that Silas was robbed and murdered, but I wasn’t the one to do it. A colleague informed me Silas was selling information about The Gallows to the mayor of Providence. He had a black book of all the clients and was using it to fund his reelection campaign. He knew that the Servites and the Silvers were hoping to get him to step down in order for you to assume his place, but being the arrogant bastard that he was, he refused to step down. So, he needed a little push.”
“So, you admit it. You killed him,” Malcolm says. My mother shakes her head, and she lets out a maniacal laugh.
“I’m not finished, Malcolm, and don’t you dare interrupt me again. I was there to scare him. We faked a robbery. We were goingto find some information we could use as blackmail to get him to resign, but my partner felt we needed to take more drastic measures to ensure the concealment of the ledger remained secret. It was then that he shot Silas in the head once, then twice for good measure.”