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I shake my head. “No, I don’t believe that for one second. He was like the father that I never got the chance to have. He … he took me in when I was a baby. I lived in your home. He said he was devastated when I was sent to live in foster care. He wanted me to stay.”
“I’m sorry,” King murmurs. “We confronted him a few nights before the ball and he admitted to working with Royston and Scardoni, but we knew how much you valued and trusted him. He was going to die anyway so we decided not to put you through the pain of learning that he couldn’t be trusted. You’d already gone through so much, we couldn’t bear to see you in pain over him.”
“So, you just poisoned him in the living room and hoped that I’d never find out and instead, have me shit-scared of being alone with all the other heads of Dynasty, fearing that they’re about to kill me too. You had no right to keep me in the dark, and absolutely no right to kill a member of my organization without my approval. You crossed a line.”
Grayson shakes his head. “Listen to yourself, Ellie. Are you seriously going to stand against us on this? Tobias was a dangerous man. He had you believing that he was some kind of substitute father to you, when in reality, he was the one who had access to your whereabouts all these years. He was the one who was telling Paris where to find you, and he was the bastard who told Royston where your parents were staying that night. For eighteen years, he built a sob story around you being a long-lost daughter to him, that he even had his own son believing it. Don’t be fooled, babe. The second everyone else was out of the picture, he would have worked his way right up beside you, and the second you looked away, he would have stabbed you right in the back.”
I back up again, not liking what I’m hearing, but there’s too much evidence. I’ve never had a reason not to trust these guys and while my head is screaming that they are wrong, this is just too big to lie about.
Are they really telling me that the man I trusted was the one responsible for giving up my parents' location to the man who ended their lives?
Fuck no. How could I have been such a fool. I trusted blindly. “He took me in as a baby,” I remind them. “How could he do that?”
King stands, taking my hands and this time, I let him. “He didn’t,” he whispers. “You never stayed with my family as a baby. It was all a story that my mother went along with. Hell, they even had me fooled too.”
“Then … who did take me in after my parents were killed?”
King shakes his head, having absolutely no idea, just like the rest of us. “That’s a good question,” he says. “But I promise, we will find out. I want you to know who you are and where you come from, even if that means digging through eighteen years of bullshit just to figure it out.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, feeling completely broken and alone, despite the four boys standing around me.
Cruz steps in beside me, placing his hand on my lower back. “We told you from the start that you couldn’t trust anyone in this world,” he reminds me. “We just never realized just how far that was supposed to run.”
I tip my head to meet King’s stare as the tears begin to run from my eyes. “He really was working against us?”
King nods and pulls me in against his chest. “He really was,” he murmurs, holding me tight. “I’m sorry. We didn’t intend on you finding out like this. We were planning on telling you when this had settled down. We just wanted to find a way to explain it all without hurting you, but I guess that plan is all shades of fucked up.”
I wipe my face against King’s chest as the smell of Carver’s cologne strengthens in the air and I pull back to find Carver standing right at my side. “Please don’t hate me,” he murmurs. “The thought of not being able to touch you kills me. Don’t push me away.”
I meet his dark gaze and stare right into his eyes, hating the wall that’s sliding in between us. “Why did you have to do it? Why not King?”
Carver gently shakes his head. “I couldn’t let King go through the pain of killing his own father. After all, he was still the man who raised him. Cruz … no, and Gray … he could have done it, but it would have weighed on his shoulders. It had to be me and I had to do it then. He was getting too close to you, and I swear to you, Winter, I fucking hate that we decided to keep it quiet from you, but you’re the most important person in all of our lives and the thought of you hurting over this …” he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t risk it any longer. I spiked his drink with cyanide and stood back to watch him die.”
