Page 78 of Vicious Deception
My heart sinks. With how meeting Elliot’s parents went, I was hoping for something better. “Does Maria know?”
Mom shakes her head. “Thankfully, she’s been so caught up in work that all she’s noticed are a few missed texts from you. I told her you were sick.”
“Got it.” I rub my face. “Fuck, I’m gonna have to get a new phone.”
“One thing at a time. Apparently, the house is trashed, so that’s probably our first priority.”
“Trashed?”
“Wren and Finn told me that Holloway sent a second team to the mansion,” Mom says. “Said they were searching for the hard drive. There’s gonna be a mess to clean up, probably, although they haven’t gone back to see what the damage was. Didn’t know if the place was being watched.”
Sighing, I lean back in the swing. I was hoping we could go home today and just relax. There’s work to be done, but once Ludo is locked up again, most of it can wait.
“Did he hurt you?” Mom asks quietly.
I almost lie. She’s reliving so much pain as it is. But we’ve hidden enough from her.
“He did. I got lucky that it was only once. I think he was leaning more on the psychological torture aspect, which . . .” I shudder as I remember how panicked I got whenever I heard footsteps in the hallway. “It worked.”
“Torture? Hetorturedyou?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” My smile is meant to be reassuring, but the tears in my eyes ruin the picture. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. It felt like I spent an eternity in that basement, and the only reason I didn’t beg for death was because Elliot was there with me.
“Oliver,” Mom whispers.
“I can’t talk about it,” I croak. “Please, I just . . . I can’t.”
“Of course.” She runs a hand over my hair before pulling me into her.
I’m not sure how long we stay like that, but Maggie eventually comes back to sniff at our hands. We both pet her silently until the sliding door opens, and Aubrey and Sparrow step out.
“Are we interrupting something?” Sparrow asks.
“Not at all,” Mom says.
Sparrow gives her a warm smile before her gaze slides to me. “We just need to double check. Is King dead?”
I nod.
Aubrey blows out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“For killing King? Why?”
“He’s the one who was threatening my parents,” Aubrey replies.
Well, that’s convenient.
“So they’re safe, then?” I ask.
With a nod, Aubrey smiles.
“What’re you going to do with Holloway’s body once you’ve killed him?” Sparrow asks.
“Probably—”
“If you need to get rid of it completely, pigs eat everything—even bones,” Mom says.
I laugh. One of Mom’s cousins is a pig farmer, so I’m not surprised she knows that. We’ve stayed with him a couple times when we were kids. The last time was when my dad disappeared. After that, I think the place held too many sad memories, so we never went back.