Page 175 of Lethal King

The last thing I want to do is take her bait. I’m so raw and open right now that the slightest cut could make me bleed out.

But I’m desperate for Rozalia to catch my mountain.

“What good news could you possibly have?” I reluctantly ask.

“Plenty.”

“Go ahead, then.”

Taking a sip of her wine, Rozalia swirls it around her mouth, letting me stew in my self-inflicted wound before she finally decides to swallow it. Hell, she even waits until the servers have refilled our table with fresh food before continuing.

“You weren’t wrong, Rian,” she sighs, seemingly unimpressed with the wine. “Those union fuckers were on the verge of betraying you. The only reason they didn’t get the chance was because you stopped them.”

“… What?” I ask, stunned.

“You may not have had any hard evidence, but your only mistake was not looking hard enough for it. Because that shit definitely existed.”

“How… how do you know that?” I ask, hardly believing my ears.

I’ve been carrying the weight of my mistake for so long now that I never expected it to be lifted. Yet here is Rozalia Dorn, my enemy, dangling relief just above my head.

“Because Drago was the one who bribed them to betray you.”

Picking up a spring roll, Rozalia considers whether or not now is an appropriate time to continue eating. To my surprise, she decides against it.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I mutter, not quite sure how to feel.

“It never came up,” Rozalia shrugs.

“You could have saved me so much pain…”

“And why would I have ever wanted to do that?”

She’s right.

“Then why do it now?”

This time, Rozalia doesn’t deny her appetite. “I don’t know,” she mumbles, gulping down a big chunk of the steaming spring roll. “Maybe because I’m starting to actually like you…”

I barely hear her, but somehow, that revelation is even louder than the last. It’s so loud and bright that I can’t even bear to confront it head-on. Not now.

“Tell me everything,” I blurt out.

Rozalia seems relieved that I decide to ignore her slip up, but even as I beg for more information about my own past, I can’t get my mind off what she just said.

Did Rozalia Dorn actually just say she’s starting to like me?

“What’s there to say?” Rozalia recalls, distracting herself with another handful of spring rolls. “Drago and Krol kidnapped Congressman Dean Olsen’s daughter. Their plan was to use her as a test run for when you moved up to one of your cousins. But Krol got carried away. The poor girl died. The plan changed. Those two morons thought it might be even more beneficial to frame your family for her death. Get some federal attention on you. Spread your attention around and lower your defenses. But how were they going to blame the Kilpatricks for the death of a congressman’s daughter? No one was going to believe a couple of crooks...”

“The union reps…”

“That’s right,” Rozalia swallows. “Drago fabricated some evidence against your father, and paid those unions reps a hefty sum to take that evidence to the FBI, but before they could—”

“I killed them.”

“That’s right,” Rozalia nods. “My question is: if you didn’t have any evidence, then how did you know it was them?”

“It was a gut feeling,” I remember. “A strong fucking gut feeling.”