Vicious Hate (Westbrook Blues Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  SYNOPSIS

  EPIGRAPH

  PLAYLIST

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  WOAH!

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  BOOKS BY THANDIE MPOFU

  CONNECT WITH THANDIE MPOFU

  VICIOUS HATE

  Thandiwe Mpofu

  Copyright © 2019 by Thandiwe Mpofu

  All rights reserved, No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Resemblance to actual persons and things living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  To girls like Mercedez and all the Jenns, I adore your strength and your will to fight—you make this girl power thing a little more awesome, and to all the Astraeas of the world.

  Devastation tastes a lot like ash in your mouth.

  It feels like looming death hanging over your bones.

  It sounds like the violent shattering of your soul.

  It has an acrid smell much like that of rotting hearts. . .

  But most of all, devastation looks a lot like the beautiful, fiery girl with her fake sincerity and lies. Now, she thinks we are somehow an option that she can discard at any fucking time.

  Does it surprise you then, sweetheart, that I would show you what real hate is?

  Isn’t it a tragedy after all? To wish on a star that has fallen from grace? Because baby, that’s what you are to me now. A beautiful tragedy that I desperately want to make atone for all her sins.

  I guess we were two mismatched, vicious and tragic souls flourishing in hate, headed straight for the sweet experience of deep devastation.

  “Darkness can be seductive, beguiling to the senses, calming, and maybe even addictive.

  There are those that find comfort in it. Those that can’t handle it, but you baby, you thrive in it.”

  Theme songs

  “Sorry” by Halsey

  “Hands” by Orkid

  Playlist

  “I feel like I’m drowning” by Two Feet

  “Dressed in black” by Sia

  “In my head” by Peter Manos

  “Secrets” by One Republic

  “Lonely” by Noah Cyrus

  “When the party’s over” by Billie Eilish

  “Not in that way” by Sam Smith

  “If you’re feeling sinister” by Belle and Sebastian

  “Revenge” by Pink ft Eminem

  “If the world was ending” by JP Saxe ft Julia Michaels

  If you’re reading this book right now, then I’m sure you have read the first book, Reckless Hate, Westbrook Blues #1 because Vicious Hate is a continuation of Ace & Astraea’s story from the ending of Reckless Hate.

  Thank you for picking up Vicious Hate. At the end, I hope you feel these characters as much as they need to be felt.

  Have you ever heard the sound of devastation?

  Have you ever experienced the incendiary feeling of your heart breaking, as shock moves through your system like the worst kind of poison known to man?

  Have you ever felt your entire being crumble right in front of your eyes? As if it were in the hands of someone else and you watched them crush your heart, your soul and everything you hold dear in the palm of their hands?

  If you haven’t, let me walk you through just how fucked up everything in my life is right about now.

  At the end, will we know what devastation feels like? I don’t think you will. . .

  ♥

  Twelve years ago

  At school, I have heard the whispered rumors about my father, Philip King and his ruthless, bleak reputation. I wouldn’t know any of these words if it weren’t for the things I heard whenever people looked at me, as if they saw my father.

  It didn’t matter where I went, all over Westbrook Blues and beyond, whenever people of the prosperous town saw me, they immediately knew who I was.

  They knew whose name was attached to my first name. They knew what the throne and crown on the plates of every vehicle that was parked outside the mansion meant. They knew the emblem on the crest of the front gates.

  They knew the Kings.

  They knew me.

  I’m just seven years old but wherever I go, they almost tremble in fear. They cower like fools, backing away from me and they especially avoid making me angry.

  Even at school, they all stay clear from me. None of them willing to be my friend.

  But my father was in a league all on his own.

  His dark, penetrating gaze was as expressionless and as empty as the organ that makes that huge chest of his heave each and every day.

  I get my jet black hair from him, as well as his lips that seem to be permanently pressed in an unimpressed line, his matching facial expression always bordering on anger.

  But my eyes, those come from my mother and I think it’s those blues that have gotten me in this kind of painful trouble. After all, I remember that was his first compliment to my mother the day he arrived here, a few weeks before he slipped into my bedroom.

  “Mrs. King, your eyes rival the beauty of the blue sky on a clear summer day.” He had said, pressing a lingering kiss at the back of her hand, but his prickly gaze, sending all sorts of alarms through my tiny body? That was on me.

  Dread, that was the first time I ever felt it.

  However, as I force myself to look up and meet his bottomless gaze, I know without a doubt that my father was something else entirely.

  I think I was born with hatred for him already. I mean, the nannies always said that I would cry whenever he was close by without him ever picking me up—not that Philip King could be bothered to hold his only son, that’s not his thing.

  But now, I’m almost shaking, standing in front of my father’s huge office desk, waiting for him to say something after having opened my mouth and let him know all the horrors and things that I know should not be happening to me.

  As I stare at him, with tears almost welling in my eyes, it’s the first time I am fully realizing that my father is not just the monster of the town, but also of this very house.

  The monster who is looking at me like I’m his most regrettable mistake.

  He looks at me the same way my mother does at times when she thinks I’m not aware of her gaze. Like there should be more to me but I somehow fell short.

  “Get out.” His voice booms, bouncing off of the old, ancient binders and books
that contain the history of Westbrook and the makings of it—literally. He makes me read each book every Wednesday night, right here in this office that my whatever great, great, great grandfather built.

  “But Dad. . .” I try again, my fists balled at my sides, desperately trying not to cry, shaking with repressed anger or maybe it’s fear. I don’t know anymore but I just want my father to believe me. Trying to let him see reason. I just want him to know and be on my side.

  I want him to be a father, I want him to protect me. But in this moment as he cuts me off—I want him to just drop right there and die.

  He doesn’t resemble any of the dads I see at school. Fathers who smile at their kids, play little league baseball with them and pick them up after class. But according to him, those other men are weak, and Kings are simply made out of sterner stuff. But really, what he meant to say was, Kings only care about growing their wealth and dominating all things.

  He is a tyrant, like the ruthless men in the books he makes me read.

  My father looks like a monster in the skin of a ruthless tyrant, who will not believe or hear what I came down here to report. He refuses to hear or believe the horrors that happen to me every other night under this very roof.

  “How dare you barge into my office on such a busy day and start making up those ridiculous, crazy accusations?” His deep voice barks as he stands up from his chair across the large mahogany desk.

  Philip King’s voice is not just a bark, it has the bite to back it up. I’m not sure which is worse though.

  “I’m not making this up though.” I grit out, forcing myself to stay in check. I don’t want to be angry like him.

  “I’m telling you the truth.” I repeat, my heart pounding as my voice trembles. His face changes immediately as he detects the fear in my voice but I don’t look away from him. Pleading with him through my eyes.

  Please believe me.

  Please believe me and do something about this.

  Please help me.

  Please be my father.

  Be my protector.

  There goes that begging again that I’ve always hated. And why not? Each time I did it, I was met with disappointment. Like right now, he is looking at me like I’m a pathetic creature not worthy of his last name or what it represents.

  “Boy, I won’t repeat myself.” He starts and I start to shake as he starts moving, pushing away from his large chair that almost looks like a throne of sorts.

  Philip is really good at role-play, that’s something I later discovered. Manipulating your senses, coming across as one thing when really, he is another, yeah, I guess that was also in my DNA.

  I maintain eye contact with him, looking up to where he stands, now towering over me, his huge gait intimidating as all hell, a true king. I’m not that big of a kid and he has repeatedly complained and punished me for being too little for a King. But I’m just seven years old. All the kids in my class look like me. Same height and everything.

  But I don’t need to be big to feel his ire and the coldness from where I stand. Almost shivering as his eyes cut at me, looking at me like I am a disappointment when really, I’m his son who is being treated in a painful and wrong manner by the man who he brought here to the estates.

  “It was him, he’s the one who came in my room. . .” I try again.

  “Silence!” His booming voice cuts me off. “Larry would never do such a thing.”

  But Larry would and Larry definitely did what he did to me. Throughout the entire night.

  I can feel the disbelief of what I came to tell him radiating from him. I can see that he doesn’t believe me, but I wonder if I should turn around, pull down my shorts and bend over to show him the fissures on my poop hole. But I can’t do that. I can’t bend over without letting out a scream of pain.

  I can’t walk right.

  I can’t move or run without feeling the pain. Not after what happened last night.

  I look up at my father, I dare not ever look away when he is looking at me. He stands there like an intimidating force of evil, looking down at me with contempt and displeasure—as if I can ever make something like this up.

  “Dad, I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Boy, for as long as you stand in my presence and live under my roof with my muscle and blood flowing through you—it's sir whenever you speak directly to me.” He barks again, this time with a booming thunder that makes me jump from my spot, unprepared for the harshness in his voice.

  “Do you understand me, boy?”

  “Yes, sir.” I quickly concede, but my heart is thundering. I’m in pain. I’m disgusted and I feel sick.

  “Stand up straight when I’m talking boy! You don’t ever stand like you’re a defeated liar!”

  I straighten my back, broaden my shoulders, hating him more now than I’ve ever hated him before.

  “Now, I won’t say it again. Get the hell out of my office and make sure you get that lying ability out of you before I cut that tongue out.”

  I don’t want to get back out there.

  I don’t want to go to my room. I don’t want to be touched at night.

  I don’t want someone touching my weewee. It’s wrong and painful, making me scream. But he muffles my screams. I don’t want to be anywhere near him. I just want my father to hear me and do something about it. So I try again.

  “Sir, you have to believe me. I’m telling you the truth.”

  My voice is now broken and I think that is why what happens next, was probably my fault for dropping my guard in front of him. It took everything in me to come in here and tell him. Despite the warnings that he gave me, I decided to seek the monster that is my father, hoping against hope that he would have my back.

  But when has my father ever had my back? Yeah, that’s right, when he is teaching me a lesson. Trying to toughen me up.

  “Are you going to cry, boy?” He demands.

  I quickly shake my head, but that’s the wrong thing to do because the tears immediately start falling and that does it.

  The next thing I know—through the blur of my tears, the huge, intimidating man that I call my father pushes away his chair in agitated anger. I can hear his footfalls treading heavily and quickly over to me.

  I know I should move, maybe run away while I still have time to do so because the next thing I know—a heavy and quick slap cracks in the room like the striking of lightning.

  My father struck me right across the face and that wasn’t the first time he did it either. But just because it wasn’t the first, it didn’t lessen the impact, the pain, the shock and the hate that grew in me.

  The need to cry disappears altogether with that one strike.

  Small. He made me feel so small.

  I knew better than to clutch the throbbing and stinging bruised cheek in front of him. I knew better than to continue crying. I knew better than to look away from him. I. Knew. Better.

  “Are you fucking crying, boy?” He demanded again, with venom in his voice that I should have known would spark my own—but who am I kidding, I was already a messed up boy and it was all their fault. All of them. My father, my mother and him.

  Philip King had no qualms about cussing in front of me. It wasn’t shocking that it was now part of my language too, getting me in trouble at school because of my nasty attitude. But I’m quickly realizing that I don’t care at all. After all, both my parents don’t care about what’s happening to me.

  “No, sir.” I quickly say, steeling myself to brave the pain and stand up straight.

  In this moment, the price of pain and hate cemented in my subconscious. I’m in pain, but something else is growing in me more intensely than the pain from where my father struck me or from where he abused me.

  “I’m not crying sir.” I grit out, my teeth grinding against each other as I look up at him.

  One day I’m going to destroy you.

  That's what I want to say because I hate him. I hate him so much, just as I hate this very office, this mansion.


  One day I’m going to destroy you, kill the man you brought here to hurt me and I’ll let my fucking mother who lacks maternal instincts, suffer the worst pain imaginable.

  “And why is that?” He fires at me just as quick and I look him straight in the eye as I answer.

  “Because Kings don’t cry.” I grit out, unblinking, bitter and hateful.

  “Kings don’t have fucking tears. Tears are a weakness, especially from anyone that is joined to us. You never let them fucking fall!” He booms.

  And wasn’t that the truth? Be a man, don’t ever cry. No one wants to see your tears. Tears are a weakness that the world should never, not once, know that you have. You never show anyone that you have a weakness. Kings reign, they don’t run and they don’t cry!

  Kings are the rulers of the world. Kings dominate. Kings are tough, big and they raise hell, the high waters and the heavens all at the same time. That’s who Kings are, but they don’t cry and they don’t make things up.

  I listen as he drones on and on—feeling the burn of not just where he struck me, but other parts of my body. Parts that I don’t think were ever meant to be violated in the way that mine have. Parts of me that are literally screaming for attention but I have no one who wants to hear me. No one to help me.

  “We don’t have time for useless and false accusations boy. Have you done what I asked you to do last year?”

  I stand there, still shocked, unable to let him see the pain that I am in. Hating the fact that I’m so small and was not able to defend myself. If I was a bit bigger, I would be able to save myself.

  I have to be bigger. I will be bigger, meaner and stronger. I have to defend myself.

  I think back to the very detailed instructions he gave me last year, when school started and I look down, which he translates correctly.

  “I’m guessing you haven’t.” He sighs heavily, looking down at me, then he straightens, smoothing out his silk suit shirt and walks back to his chair, plopping down in it like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  “Boy, I’m not telling you this again. I will show you what real pain is if you don’t do your duty as the heir to this town. You march over there and find a way to be friends with those boys.”