My hands fall at my sides, defeated. “I’m sorry, okay? Regardless of everything, believe me. Believe what I say about how I feel, because I’ve never lied about that before.”
His eyes are shiny, like he’s going to cry, but no tears fall. He’s quiet, like usual, when he doesn’t see a point in sharing his thoughts.
“Of everything I’ve lied about,” I add, taking his hand in mine, “I’m not lying about this.”
But he snatches his hand back, and my palm goes cold. “It doesn’t matter. What we feel doesn’t matter because I’m never going to see you again.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” I press. “Think logically about all the time we’ve spent together. Do you honestly believe I was making it up? I can’t leave with you thinking I never cared, like I wouldn’t break the neck of anyone who evenbreathesin your direction the wrong way. The thought of you being with someone else puts feelings inside of me it shouldn’t, Kingsley. Don’t you get that?”
“You murdered Sylvie!” he shouts.
My eyes dart around the room. The music in the other room should be overpowering our voices, thank fuck.
He jabs me in the chest. “You murdered my fiancée, Rip. You should be dead for that alone.”
I turn to my brother, who looks as though he’s seen a ghost. That wasn’t me, but revealing that information won’t make this any better. All it does is prove that I’ve lied again.
“Fine. Then I?—”
“I killed her.”
Kingsley snaps his head to face Thomas. They hold each other’s gaze, both taken aback but not unprepared.
“Rip didn’t kill Sylvie, Kingsley,” he repeats. “I did it, not Rip. He wanted to take the blame for me.”
Kingsley doesn’t flinch. He gnaws on his lip, not saying a word, taking it all in.
I can’t react fast enough when I hear a gasp. In the doorway, Odette has her hand over her mouth, stunned. Shawn is beside her, a smug grin on his lips, the bastard. Why is he even here?
And then the door slams, and Odette’s got a gun pointed at Thomas. I try to grab mine, but Kingsley slaps it out of my hand and shoves me against the wall. He’s got me pinned, and if his sister’s gun wasn’t aimed at my head and Thomas struggling to take on Shawn, I’d put up a better struggle.
So much for leaving unnoticed.
30
Kingsley
“We need to make decisions,” Dad says steadily, eyes locked on me. “This is an invasion from the Requiem, and we don’t know what they’re after. Rip and Thomas aren’t speaking, and it’s only a matter of time before their people find out we’ve caught them.”
“If we spent less time talking to them and more time beating the information out of them, maybe we would know more,” Shawn sneers.
“It’s only been two days,” I say, ignoring his sass. “They’d be terrible spies if they gave up everything within the forty-eight hours they were captured.”
I’m sitting at the long table with my family, Shawn, my uncle, cousin, and some other respected people from Crowncrest for a much-needed chat. Shawn showed everyone the proof, and their shocked faces were priceless. Given the extensive background checks, private interviews, and the fact that we force all higher-level employees to live on the property, realizing they’ve been deceiving us from the start is a real slap in the face.
For two days, Rip and Thomas have been chained up in our underground jail like animals. They were grilled for answers, but no one has laid a finger on them. I’m to thank for that. When we captured the Redgraves, I gave everyone a clear warning before going down there: harm them and you’ll lose a hand. Plain and simple.
“Let’s think about this. So, they’re part of the Requiem,” Uncle Santiago thinks aloud, “but are we sure they’re the reason Aralynn is in prison? How would they even get information about shipments and such to tell the police?”
All eyes fall on me, as if I’m the culprit. Shawn and Mateo are the only ones who know the real deal about me and Rip, but since everyone thinks I’m with him the most, I’m the first one to point fingers at.
“Do you all think I was giving them our secrets?” I say emotionlessly.
“Of course not,” Dad says with a sigh.
I shouldn’t trust Rip’s lying mouth at all. Anything he says is bullshit because our whole relationship has been built on a lie, but when he told me he wasn’t the reason for the crumbling of the Crown, the look in his eyes was genuine.
When Thomas said he, not Rip, killed Sylvie, he meant it. It’s ridiculous, but knowing it wasn’t him felt like a weight vanishing from my shoulders. At least that’s one less way he’s betrayed me.
