38. Vicious King Sneak Peek

Vicious King Sneak Peek

Chapter 1

Senior Year of High School

Age 18

MICAH

The roses were red like the blood I’d watched dripping from her veins. That’s what I noticed today. Not how the casket was my mother’s favorite shade of pearl pink or how the portrait we’d chosen to display was a lie, showing a version of her she hadn’t been in years. And especially not how the crowd spilled out from the pews to fill the back and edges of the room with powerful people I barely knew. They were just here to impress my father, hoping to appease the great Drew Pierce. Either to escape his wrath or to gain his favor and obtain something they wanted from Summer Ridge’s most cut throat lawyer, The Decimator.

My family was seated in the first couple of pews around me–aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents–but the only one I cared to have there with me was my brother. Ryder sat to my right, his hands clenched into tight fists against his thighs, rage and grief pouring off him strong enough to match my own. How I’d been at first. Now, with the funeral underway, I was surprisingly…numb.

I didn’t know how.

Ryder and I had been the ones to find her. Our mansion was often overwhelmingly silent when only adorned with our mom’s meek presence, but three days ago when we’d come home, the silence had felt…ominous. We’d called her name for nearly five minutes as we rushed through the rooms, our voices growing more and more panicked until we found the locked bathroom door. Ryder had been frantic, beating against it, but when I shoved him away and used my shoulder to bust through the door, my world had come to a sudden stop.

I’d never forget the red.

Just like I wasn’t sure I’d ever forgive my father for the stunt he was pulling now, staring every one of these strangers and even our family in the face and telling them all it was an accident. That Sheridan Pierce had slipped in the shower and fallen through the glass door. How none of us were home to get to her in time.

At least the last part was true.

My father’s voice still droning in the background, I looked at my mother’s portrait again. It had always been my favorite of hers, showing a stunning, vibrant woman. One that I’d always wanted to know. I hadn’t known her that way in my lifetime. Not with her crippling depression.

Ryder and I tried not to be bitter. We knew she’d changed after having us, but I blamed it more on our father for not getting her the help she needed. For not insisting she see a different doctor that wasn’t going to just brush her off or shove pills down her throat.

I hated myself for not suggesting it, too.

Now, I’d never get the chance.

An overwhelming swell of emotion tore through me in that moment, robbing me of breath as rage and torment flooded my chest. I shot up from my seat, ignoring the slight narrowed glare of warning from my father as I took off, but I’d deal with whatever shit he wanted to dole out later.

Pushing through the crowd at the edge of the room, my eyes locked with a stunning blue pair a couple of rows from the front, the blatant concern in that gaze almost breaking through the torture ripping through me. I stripped my eyes away from hers like I had so many times before and shoved through the doors to pace the side hall, my hands balling into fists at my sides so I wouldn’t give into the urge to punch anything.

I could feel the pressure weighing against my chest. How I’d failed to be a good son. How I’d just failed again, walking out of my own mother’s funeral. How my younger brother was in there just as angry and tortured as I was, and here I was, abandoning him to deal with my own grief. I was only older by a year, but that didn’t matter.

Forcing myself to stop, I pressed my hands against the wall, leaning my brow against the deep green and gold accented patterns of the wallpaper to take a deep, steadying breath. Then another. And another. Counting to whatever obscure number in my head until I felt calm enough to go back in.

When the rage finally started to subside, I opened my eyes, my hands sliding from the wall. I lifted my head up and pulled my shoulders back, marching right back through the doors.

I was Micah fucking Pierce. I was a king, a legend in my own right, and like hell I was going to fail again.

Keep Reading Vicious Hearts Book 1: Vicious King