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She tripped over the last, the words abraded as they fell from her mouth.
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“You had nothing to do with it? There’s a contract and now the man is dead? I don’t believe you, Caleb.”
Tears blurred her eyes, and she began to shake, her hands fisting in the fabric of her sweater as desperation took her over. “Tell me what you did.”
“Kimberly.” His teeth grated, and revulsion at this life hardened his voice. “You never should have been involved in it in the first place. Dad never should have brought you into this company.”
She suddenly threw herself against his desk, her fingers clawing at the wood as she angled across at him. “Tell me you didn’t do it.”
He gulped. “I can’t.”
Because in the end, he was responsible. This was his company now. And it was time he fully stood for what that meant.
Change it.
But he doubted there was anything he could ever do to erase the way Kimberly was looking at him right then.
His teeth ground harder as tears fell faster down her cheeks.
His heart thundered, and his stomach twisted.
She was the one person in his world he couldn’t stand to look at him like that. The one person he cherished. The one person he’d ever allowed himself to love.
She shoved off the desk, nodding as if the reality of what Greyson Industries was had just sank into her consciousness.
She turned and walked out, quietly clicking the door behind her.
Still, it rang with finality.
Because it was the last time she ever spoke to him.
TWENTY-THREE
CALEB
Agitation crawled across my flesh as I sped along the barren two-lane road in the direction of Time River.
Seattle had left me on edge. Edgier than normal.
That bitter taste still boiled, both for myself and Tarek Paltrow, the sickness of that life that I would never shake. Each time, it only grew worse, this life I had come to not want to live.
There was something about the way he’d reacted to the images that had left me shaken, a gut sense that he was seeing that horror for the first time.
And that left me starting from the beginning again.
Digging back through every person we had wronged because it wasn’t like the detective had found any clues or leads. Most of the time, I thought he believed I deserved it.
Karma.
But none of those people had deserved what I had earned.
Allen had already been through everyone, all the way back to when my father had first taken over the company. Most had moved on, accustomed to the money that had been forced into their hands.
Rebuilt.
Others had moved away and started new lives.
Some had passed.
We’d pressed the three who’d seemed most likely. Other business owners who’d been hurt the most. Their livelihoods taken.
The whole time, I’d scanned, searched, looked over my shoulder as if I could dig him out of his hiding spot.
Sense his depravity.
Taste the wickedness.
The hunger to destroy him, hurt him, cause him the type of pain he’d inflicted, had intensified with each step that I’d taken around the city.
A year had passed since Kimberly’s body had been found. She’d been the last. Now, I waited for him to strike again. I knew he was out there lurking. Waiting for the moment to come for me.
I would find him first.
Cut him off.
End him for what he had done.
Ensure that Evelyn would forever be safe, the last to hold the Greyson name.
I glanced at the screen on the dash. Irritation clawed at me that Paisley still hadn’t returned my texts.
The whole time I’d been away, my stomach had felt hollow, filled with worry at being away from Evelyn for so long. I itched with the need to see her for myself. To know she was safe and whole and fine.
Last night hadn’t helped this anxious energy in the least.
Fuck.
What had I been thinking, giving into the lust that Paisley Dae incited?
I didn’t know which of us had pushed for it first, but it’d been me who couldn’t do anything to stop myself from making the video call.
Desperate to know if it was real.
If in that moment, she was consumed with thoughts of me the way I was of her.
I scrubbed a palm over my face like I could rid myself of the image of that riot of a girl spread out on the bed, white hair all around her, pumping herself with that vibrator while she lie there drooling over my cock.
How could I be in her space now without thinking of reaching out and taking her?
Touching her.
Bending her over my desk and fucking her from behind.
I’d wanted to ever since I’d found her perched on the corral fence that first day with her ass in the air.
Gritting my teeth, I glanced at the screen, willing a text to come through as I barreled down the two-lane road in the direction of Time River.
