Chapter 2

Peyton

“How hard did you hit her? She’s been out for ages!”

“Nah, she woke up earlier and screamed like a banshee. I shoved the rag in her mouth to get her to shut the fuck up. She must’ve passed out again at some point, but I’m not taking the heat for smacking her around.”

One of the voices chuckled hoarsely. “Regina did say to get her by whatever means necessary. I figure roughing her up a bit is just part of the process. If she wanted her in one piece and unharmed, Regina would’ve sent a fucking limo for her.”

Peyton kept her eyes closed and her breathing steady as she listened to the bastards who had kidnapped her.

Her head was throbbing and her throat was so dry that it felt as though she’d swallowed a gallon of sand.

She had no idea how long it had been since she was chased down by the van and a bag was stuffed over her head, but Peyton felt like it had been an age. Some time ago, her tears had dried up and she had stopped begging to be let go. Whoever her captors were, they weren’t going to change their minds. They were on Demi’s payroll, and they didn’t seem the types to want to swap vocations.

It felt like a slap as she thought about that woman and the layers of deception she’d concealed her life with.

Demi Treyva. Her biological mother .

What a cruel fucking joke.

Peyton had been passed around foster families throughout her early years, each one subjecting her to a different kind of torture. When she was finally adopted by her parents, she thought that it meant the start of a better, brighter future. But it didn’t work out like that.

Kids who come from the system aren’t damaged goods, but the world treats them like that. Peyton’s parents wanted to fix her, wanted to make her a perfect little lady who never misbehaved. But with the trauma she had endured before being adopted, Peyton couldn’t act like the angel child her parents wanted her to be.

No, instead she lashed out. She hated being touched—especially by her adoptive father, who used an aftershave that was a bit too close to the one she’d be smelling for hours after her foster brother left her room in the middle of the night, her silent cries tasting like the salty tears which stained her cheeks.

Now that she was an adult and had figured out her own ways of coping, she felt pangs of guilt whenever she thought of her father. He had been the one to raise her for the better part of her life, and he had never once blamed her for how she reacted to him whenever he tried to hug her or put his hand on her shoulder. But she blamed herself. Every time he’d hug her big sister, she’d feel the jealousy burning up inside of her, but it didn’t change how her body reacted every single time.

And her mom…Peyton wished she didn’t resent her the way she did. But her mom had adopted a kid from the system, and it was the entirely wrong thing to do. She didn’t know how to handle a child with any sort of issue, never-mind the long list Peyton brought with her. When she lashed out, her mom would yell which only made Peyton angry and upset. But the times she didn’t yell were worse. Silence was a punishment and Peyton found that she hated being alone with her own thoughts. It was like her mom sensed that and doubled down, learning over time that the only way to really hurt Peyton and get her to behave was to let her stew in the dark palace of her mind.

Her parents weren’t bad people. They were severely inexperienced and privileged. Their lives had been easy and the biological child they had was perfect. They wanted a clone of her, and Peyton resembled her adoptive sister an eerie amount. They say you have a doppelg?nger somewhere in the world, and it was like fate had messed up the timeline somehow, stalling her birth a few years too late. When she first met Melina, it was like looking in a mirror, though the features of the older girl showed more maturity.

Still, Peyton loved her adoptive parents. They had taken her in, given her a home and a safe place. If she was a normal girl with a normal childhood, she’d have thrived in the environment they gave her. But Peyton was complicated and the only person who could deal with her was Melina. Her darling big sister, her best friend, the hand helping to guide her through the darkness.

But Melina was dead. She’d chosen to leave Peyton, and that hurt more than anything she’d been through in her short twenty-one years.

Melina was her hand in the dark, but somehow she hadn’t noticed her darkness seeping into the light her sister created. Peyton would never be able to forgive herself for not noticing just how badly her sister was hurting. She always seemed happy, striving to make the world a better place.

Until she wasn’t happy anymore.

She wasn’t anything.

A floating corpse in a river of blood, and Peyton had been the one to hold her as she found her lifeless body, the sea of red seeping into her soul.

Melina was the only thing that made her home feel like home . Losing her meant losing part of herself, and watching her parents grieve for the child they cherished. Peyton couldn’t be a replica of Melina in life, and she definitely couldn’t be her replacement in death.

So, Peyton had left and started her life over. A fresh start. Someplace new, with no ties to Willowbrooks.

Or so she thought. Because somehow her life had imploded and now she knew more about her biological parents than she ever wanted to. If she could erase the knowledge from her mind, she would.

But no. Her life was a cosmic fuck-up and Demi Treyva was her biological mother. A backwards karmic joke, that’s what it was.

Though, Peyton wasn’t laughing.

No, she was tied to a chair with a dirty rag in her mouth as a gag, her body bruised and aching. A prisoner, in captivity at the hands of the person who gave her life. What a fucking joke .

The chime of a text message broke through her thoughts. Peyton slowly opened her eyes, keeping her head forward and tilted at an angle so that the men wouldn’t know she was awake just yet. One of the men nudged the other with his elbow, showing him the phone.

“Regina is outside.” Old Smokey , Peyton thought to herself, remembering the rough voice.

His partner in crime grinned, showing off his crooked teeth. “Time for some fun, then.”

Peyton listened to their heavy footsteps retreat before she let herself breathe, stretching her neck as she looked around her. They were in some sort of abandoned house. Dust clung to the walls and coated every surface. The old fireplace had been boarded up but the wood was old and rotten, breaking away in parts that lay discarded on the floor. The wallpaper had marks on it from frames that were long gone and there was no sign of any furniture around. Peyton figured it had been a long time since anyone had lived in the house and somehow, she didn’t think there was a caretaker looking after the place.

“I see you’re awake.”

She had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't heard Demi arrive in the room. Not dignifying her with a response, Peyton kept her mouth shut as she waited for Demi to come into view. Her gag was roughly pulled from her mouth, causing Peyton to choke on the sudden freedom to breathe properly.

“What? No ‘ thank you’? No ‘ I love you’ for your momma?”

Peyton narrowed her eyes. “Have you known all this time?”

Demi laughed, dragging a chair into the room with her. Her blonde hair was tucked behind her ears, showing off the sharp features of her pretty face. It was a pity she was so beautiful on the outside and so rotten on the inside.

“God, no. I thought I had sorted out that little problem long ago. It was a shock to see you at the restaurant with the Adis crew.”

“What the hell does that mean? Sorted that problem long ago? You literally gave me up for adoption.”

“And yet,” Demi said, waving her hand in Peyton’s direction, “here you are. Fucking up my entire organisation with the help of that entitled little bitch of yours.”

A growl hissed through Peyton’s teeth at the disrespect of Hadina. “Don’t talk about her like that!”

Demi grinned, showing off her perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. She looked like a predator, waiting to pounce. “Aw, you really are in love aren’t you? How foolish. Let’s just hope that love of yours is reciprocated, because I’m counting on the type of wrath that only a lover can have.”

Peyton tried to lunge forward, fighting against her bindings. “You won’t touch her!”

“Oh, darling, I don’t need to lay a hand on Hadina to cause the type of pain I have in mind. She thinks she’s a queen, but she’s just playing dress up. No, I’m going to show her the pain of losing the person she loves most.” Standing from her chair, Demi walked over to Peyton, running her finger softly across the cheek of her daughter. “I’m going to break Hadina Adis until she’s an empty shell. And then I’m going to crush her and watch as she shatters beneath my heel.”

Pulling back, Demi crouched in front of Peyton, meeting her eye level. “But first… I think I should introduce myself properly. Let me show you the love of a mother’s touch, darling daughter.”

Peyton opened her mouth to inform her that she was her mother by genetics only, but she didn’t get the chance to say anything. Demi was quick as she backhanded her, the rings on her fingers cutting into Peyton’s skin as they connected with her cheek. The force behind the slap threw Peyton’s head back, apparently creating the perfect angle for Demi’s fist to connect with her chin.

She groaned as the chair fell backwards, her head thumping off the wooden floor. Her breath came out in a painful whimper as blood trickled from her mouth.

“Pick her up,” Demi demanded to someone. Suddenly, Peyton was being lifted—still attached to the chair by the ropes biting into her skin—by Old Smokey. The disgusting odor he emitted filled Peyton’s nostrils and made her gag.

Grabbing her by the hair, Demi pulled her head back so that she was sneering mere inches from her face. “Tell me, Peyton, am I everything you hoped I would be?”

A cruel smile spread across the woman’s face as she brought her arm back, swinging her fist into Peyton’s face again. She felt all the anger and hatred from her childhood rise to the surface again as the hits continued. A thousand vows of revenge filled her mind until unconsciousness finally blanketed her.