Chapter 15

Phoenix

Ipace back and forth in my office downtown. My phone rings, and McKenzie's name pops up. I'm about to swipe to answer it, but my father walks in at that moment.

It's strange that I look more like my mom than my dad, but the older I get, the more I see the resemblance to him. His hair is sandy brown, he has a mustache and beard, and he has green eyes. I have a similar build to him, but that's about it.

He walks in like he has better things to do than be here, and it pisses me off. I have felt he's been hiding something from me for years now and after what McKenzie told me, I'm wondering what it is.

"What's so important, son?" He doesn't sit, instead he stands by the door, hands in his pockets, like he's already ready to leave. I gave Rex instructions to stand outside the door and not let him leave until I give the okay.

Standing in front of my desk I lean back against it, crossing my arms across my chest acting like I don't have a care in the world when that is the furthest thing from the truth. "Where's mom?" I ask.

His eyes widen slightly, the only show of surprise he shows. He tilts his head and arches an eyebrow. "How should I know? We've been searching for her for eleven years."

I lower my head and narrow my eyes at him. If this man has been lying to me all these years, I'm going to beat the shit out of him. "Let's look back over the past eleven years," I say. He gestures to me with his hand as if saying go on then. I grind my teeth, but continue.

"Mom wanted you to go to an auction with her in the early summer, but you didn't want to go because I would be home that weekend." I watch him and wait.

"Yes," he says, sounding annoyed.

"And you just let her go?" I ask. I've never asked him that outright, but I've always wanted to know how that conversation went. I know if McKenzie told me she wanted to go to an auction without me, it wouldn't happen.

"You know how your mother is." Is not was. "She threw a tantrum when I told her we weren't going to go that weekend. She was finally beginning to act like herself again, so I told her to go."

"Why did she have to go? Why couldn't she miss one?"

"It was her auction. She never missed any."

The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I tilt my head at him. "Her auction?"

Dad blinks rapidly as he sucks in a sharp breath. "I…uh…" He exhales and pulls his hands out of his pockets.

"What the fuck, dad?" I ball my hands into fists, forcing myself to stay where I'm at.

He runs his hand down his face. "She didn't want to tell you until you graduated; then everything happened." He stumbles over his words, saying them as quickly as possible. "I didn't want to tell you after that."

I huff. "If it was her auction, how the hell would she have been sold at it?"

He grimaces and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Son," he murmurs.

I step forward until I'm only a couple of feet away from him. "Was she sold?" I say through my teeth.

He shakes his head. "No." I pull my hand back and punch him in the face. He grabs his nose and falls back against the door. I want to punch him again, but I walk away. Shaking my hand at the slight sting, I walk to the window and look over the river. Rex comes bursting in, but I keep my back to him and my dad.

"Sir?" Rex says.

I look at him over my shoulder then glance at my father who's taken a handkerchief, a fucking handkerchief, out of his pocket and put it against his nose, trying to stop the bleeding.

"Fucking hell. I think you broke my nose." His voice is muffled as he glares at me.

I shrug. "Be glad you're still alive." I look back at Rex. "We're okay for now, but be prepared to get rid of a body, just in case." I eye my father again and he snorts, then moans. Rex turns and leaves, closing the door behind him.

"I need to go to the doctor." I roll my eyes. I'll get Dr. Chamberland to check him out in a little while.

"Stop being a little bitch. You're not going anywhere until you tell me everything." I walk to the chair behind my desk and sit staring at him until he finally sits in the chair on the other side.

"She wasn't sold or taken. She left."

My father talked for almost an hour, telling me everything. Things I had no idea about. McKenzie's father never started the auctions. The auctions started a year after Brighton Academy was founded. It was used as a breeding ground to raise the next world leaders and sell off their pretty little daughters.

I stop at one of my bars on River Street and order a bourbon. Rex walks in a few minutes later. He made sure my father got medical attention for his nose since I couldn't get in touch with Dr. Chamberland. Any other day I'd be tracking him down, but today he's the least of my concerns.

Rex leans his back against the bar, keeping his eye on the exit. Another one of his security, Jason, stands at the door. "You punched your father." He says it like it's an everyday occurrence.

I down my drink then raise it to the bartender, letting her know I want another. "He's lucky that's all I did." I run my hand along my jaw and shake my head. "He's lied to me for years." The knot that's been forming in my stomach gets tighter. The bartender gives me another drink and I down it too, the warmth of the liquor settling in my stomach.

Rex doesn't say anything. I rarely drink to the point of getting drunk, but I might do just that tonight and Rex would let me. He's the only man I trust with my life. I met him a couple of months before I bought McKenzie. I was working my way up through the ranks of my father's men. One of them got pissed and tried to kill me after one of the fights. Rex killed him instead. I hired him as my security on the spot.

Rex was there looking for Anna or a lead to find out where she was. When he told me about what happened to her, our mission became the same. To take these assholes down. I had no idea my mother was the main asshole. I give Rex a sideways glance, wondering how he's going to react when I tell him. I lift my glass to the bartender again and exhale.

"I've been chasing after the wrong person all these years," I finally say. Rex glances at me and waits. "Marcus Knight never took my mother or sold her at an auction."

Rex stills. He shares a look with Jason and turns to face me, giving me his full attention. "What does that mean?"

The bartender brings me another drink, and instead of downing it, this time I hold it between my hands. "My mother's family started the auctions a year after Brighton was founded. The majority of the girls in the first graduating class were sold. The top twelve girls that were sold for the most, their fathers were considered the founding fathers of the Society and were sworn in as council members."

Rex's eyebrows furrow, and he tenses as he processes my words. When he doesn't speak, I continue. "It was their way of having a way to influence members to do their bidding. They'd hang it over government officials' heads if they needed them to look the other way or pass a bill or law that was in their favor. They'd hang it over those who did illegal business as well, telling them they'd out them and disrupt their entire world."

I down my drink one more time and cut myself off. I have to be coherent when I get home. I know McKenzie is probably worried.

"What are you going to do?" Rex asks. I haven't told him about what McKenzie told me earlier today. I wanted to deny it, but I knew she wasn't lying. Either it was really true or she believed it was true. Until the conversation I had with my father, I wasn't sure if the memory she had was distorted. Now I know it wasn't.

"I'm going to find my mother and I'm going to let Kenz kill her."

The smell of chocolate and brown sugar hits me the moment I step inside the house. All the worry and unease I've felt all afternoon disappears. Even though McKenzie and I never said I love you before I got her back this last time, there were ways we showed each other. Her way was making me chocolate chip cookies.

I confessed to her once after she made them that they made our house feel like a home. Growing up, I always wanted a mom that did normal mom things. Like bake chocolate chip cookies or come watch my lacrosse games. She never did those things, so I tried and tried to do anything and everything I could to please her, to make her love me, but it never worked.

I swallow and push those thoughts aside. The signs have been there all along, and I chose to ignore them. Walking into the kitchen expecting to see McKenzie, I frown when she's not there. Phillip turns to me and offers me a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Where's McKenzie?" I ask.

"She went to get Anna a little while ago because dinner's ready, but she hasn't come back." His brow wrinkles slightly as he looks back at the hallway that leads to Anna's room.

"I'll go check on them." Walking down the hallway, the light streams out of Anna's door. As I get closer, I hear them talking. I know Anna is having a hard time adjusting since we've found her. Hopefully now that Kenz is back she can help her more than Rex or I have been able to.

Stepping inside the door, I open my mouth to say hi, but stop at the words Kenz says. "I had some memories return a few days ago. The woman with the eyes that look like Phoenix." What the hell? "That's Phoenix's mother. And I remember Dr. Chamberland drugging me so I'd lose my memory." My ears begin pounding as my blood pressure rises. Anna glances at me over McKenzie's shoulder.

"What the fuck?" I growl.