Dior chuckled. “Mummy Deandra is too smart to owe anyone money, Virginia. Everyone knows that.”
“Exactly.” Ginny smiled, and it was not kind. “Which means it was someone else’s debt. Someone else who knew exactly how much Mom inherited when your father passed. That narrows it down to only a handful of the people in this room.”
Dion gripped his armrests until his knuckles went white. Dior reached over and grabbed his wrist.
“Just what,” Dion managed, sweat beading across his usually perfect face, which was now covered in rapidly growing red blotches, “are you suggesting?”
Ginny stared at him down her nose like a librarian dealing with a bratty child. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m saying that, once again, your poker debt got you into trouble. Isn’t that right?”
The room had been near silent before, but this was a different kind of silence—the kind where everyone was collectively holding their breath, collectively on the verge of freaking out.
Ginny was amazing. Fierce, commanding, gorgeous. So scary. Completely his.
Dion opened his mouth. Shut it. His entire body shook. When he managed to get his mouth open again, he couldn’t stop the confession from tumbling out. “He wasn’t supposed to hurt anybody! He was just supposed to grab her, put her somewhere nice, get the money!”
“Dion!” Dior hissed. “Shut up!”
“He said she’d be home the same night, I swear! And it wasn’t even her money! It wasmymoney! Dior’s money! Dad should’ve left it to us, anyway!”
Dior slapped a hand over his mouth. “You stupid idiot, stop talking!”
Ginny’s expression didn’t change, standing before them with her father and grandfather behind her, looking like the heir to an iron throne. “So you did tip the kidnapper off. You sold out my mother to pay off your debt.”
Shepherd sat back, heart pounding in his ears. And there it was. The confession. Ginny had gutted them without ever raising her voice.
She spun around, arms wide. “Gentlemen,” she said to her ancestors, “the floor is yours.”
Bradley pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes clenched shut, face pulled into an uncomfortable grimace. Behind him, Elwin’s gaze was blazing fire, his hands fists at his sides.
“You admit it,” Bradley said, his voice low and oddly soft, but no less dangerous. “You conspired with a criminal to have your stepmother kidnapped.”
“She’s fine!” Dior snapped, trembling hands pointing blindly at the woman in question. “She’s home, she’s drinking martinis—she’s not even traumatized!”
“Excuse me?” Deandra asked, breaking protocol by speaking when not spoken to. “I am very traumatized! I had to use a bathroom blindfolded, Dior! Do you know how difficult that is? And also, my gentleman friend was killed!”
“She was kidnapped!” Elwin thundered. “Our family name—”
“—cannot afford a scandal,” Bradley finished. He glanced at Vincent, who didn’t bother to look up from his phone, then at the stepmothers, whose whispers had turned sharp and urgent. “If this comes out, it won’t just ruin Dion. It will destroy your brother’s campaign. Everything we’ve built will go up in smoke.”
Ginny’s mouth fell open. She laughed, once, although it was more of a cackle, before getting into her father’s face. “You’re not serious. They confessed! They fed Mom to the mob as a debt collection!”
Bradley didn’t flinch. “Virginia, think this through. The FBI already believe this was random. We leave it like that so we can control the narrative.”
Dior grasped Dion’s hand and held tight, forcing a wobbly and wet smile. “Mr. Kent is right,” she said, her voice full of false warmth. “Bringing in the police would only make things worse for all of us. Why should the whole family suffer for one little mistake?”
“One little—” Ginny sputtered, but Elwin’s fist came down on the desk, silencing the room.
“We’ll vote,” he declared.
Of course they would. Shepherd slumped lower in his chair, every bone in his body screaming that this family was hell incarnate. If they started handing out ballots, he was walking straight into the ocean and praying for a shark attack.
Ginny stood frozen except for her jaw, grinding back and forth over her molars, as the people she shared blood with calmly began deciding whether to bury a crime. She looked at Shepherd. Shepherd looked back. He could almost hear all the creative swear words swirling between her ears at that very moment.
Bradley rubbed his fingers counterclockwise on his temples as he asked, “All in favor?”
Vincent had the decency to put his phone away as he raised his hand. One of the stepmothers was next, and then she was whispering to the other until she, too, raised her hand. Dior raised both her own and Dion’s joined hands, like a mother helping a child across the street. Bradley was next, seemingly exhausted by the effort. The last hand raised was Elwin’s.
Ginny went, “Uh, come on!”
