Page 39 of Fallen Dane

He doesn’t say anything, and the disappointed expression on his face makes my chest hurt.

I can’t do this anymore. I’ve fucked everything up, and whatever happens next, I’ll face the consequences. I’m capable of whatever dark and ugly thing needs to happen next, but I can’t keep it in any longer.

I clutch his shoulders, needing to feel him to center myself to find a way to say the words out loud.

“Dane . . . I murdered Gerald.”

Chapter 8

DANE

Iconsidered the possibility that my wife had killed him, but Harrison seemed the most likely person responsible for Gerald’s death.

“I need you to explain. And you’re going to tell me everything this time. This bullshit ends now.”

“I poisoned him with arsenic for weeks.” Her voice breaks. “Then I staged the car accident as the cause of death. But it wasn’t an accident, and I killed him. Harrison helped to cover it up, and now he’s blackmailing me.”

The remaining pieces fall into place. Harrison paid off the coroner. That’s why she attempted to give that fuck any information about my accounts and businesses.

I seize her throat and slam her back against our headboard.

“Are you feeling fucking guilty about killing that bastard?” I tighten my hold. “Goddamnit, Whitney. You don’t think I would put an end to Harrison fucking Lockwood?”

“I didn’t feel guilty for a fucking second about killing Gerald.” Her eyes are wild as she grips my wrist. “But you're going to hand me over to those fucks on the Council. Once they execute me, then who protects Sloane?”

“You really think that I’m letting you go anywhere? That I’m letting a single person touch you? That I’m willing to go a single day without what’s mine?” I laugh. I make sure it sounds harsh and bitter. “God, you got that one wrong, kitten.”

“You didn’t go against the Council before—”

“I know you want me to regret that. And I do regret that I didn’t have you, that you had to suffer Gerald in your bed for a single fucking night. But we would both be fucking dead. Now, I am in the position to give you the goddamn match to burn Harrison to the ground, kitten.” I release her throat and catch her jaw instead, forcing her eyes to meet mine. “Now tell me exactly what happened. Every fucking detail. And don’t you dare leave anything out.”

She’s shaking so hard she can barely speak. “Harrison came to me a month before Gerald died. He told me about the arrangement.”

My jaw clenches. “What arrangement?”

“Gerald had promised Sloane to Victor Ashworth. He told Victor she’d be his when she turned eighteen.” Her voice turns cold. “Harrison said he could make it go away if Gerald died, and that he would buy me at auction and then I’d be able to pay him back for helping me.”

“And you killed Gerald.”

I’m not upset about that revelation at all. In fact, I’m hard as fuck. There is even more fight in this woman than I realized, and I’m hungry for her.

“I was desperate. Victor is seventy years old with three dead wives, and my husband was selling our daughter to him.” Her hands curl into fists. “Harrison made it sound like he was helping me. Like we were in it together.”

“What did he actually want?”

“To take control of the trust that Gerald had set up for Sloane.” She lets out a sharp breath. “Then when you outbid him at the auction, he had to find another way to get the money he wanted.”

She grips my thigh. “If you expect me to feel bad for killing Gerald, I don’t.”

The fiery woman from twenty years ago is right in front of me. God, I’m fucking obsessed with her.

“I wanted him to suffer.” Her chin juts out. “I wanted him to feel his body failing and be too stupid to realize that it was me.”

The bastard deserved it. She won’t get an ethics or morals lesson from me. All she has to do is tell me who she wants dead and I’ll help her do it.

My wife is a fucking killer.

“And Harrison covered it up.”