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His jaw clenches. “I was not working with them. I had nothing to do with their crimes.”
I laugh, not believing him for a second. “Who else is in on this shit? What about Montgomery? Nah,” I continue, answering my own question. “Montgomery is even more of a sheep than you are.”
Anger bubbles in his eyes, and I stop walking, watching as he continues his way around the desk until he’s standing right in front of me, his eyes blazing with the cold, hard truth. “I’d kill you myself if I—”
“If what?” I question, grinning wide as I take his comment as a confession. “If I could just give you a second to get your puppeteer on the phone to give you a little guidance? Who is that by the way? All the other assholes are dead, so that only leaves Paris. Does she have your balls hanging by a thread? What does she have on you, Michael?”
The cockiness in his eyes quickly fades, and within seconds, he’s left with nothing but panic, scrambling and unsure of what to say. “Nothing … I ... I didn’t do anything. I have nothing to do with Paris Moustaff. She’s working on her own. Her, Carver, and Scardoni. They were all in it together.”
I step into him, the low growl in the back of my throat evidence enough of just how pissed I’m getting. “Stop being such a little bitch, Harding,” I demand, my hand pulsing at my side as the need to beat the living shit out of him rages heavily through my body. “I’m no fool. I know you’re in on it. You know how I work, and you know I won’t stop until I get what I need out of you, just like with Scardoni. I killed Carver for crossing me, so what’s it going to be, Harding? Are you a fucking bitch or a man?”
His eyes burn with rage, and in an instant, his hand snaps around my throat and he throws me across the room until my back is slammed right up against the wall and the tip of his knife pressed hard against the healing bullet wound on my abdomen, his panicked façade quickly fading away to reveal the real Michael Harding, the one I didn’t know existed.
I suck in a gasp. I guess he’s not as much of a bitch as I’d always thought.
“Call me a bitch one more time and I will take this knife and fuck up your pretty little face,” he growls.
I narrow my eyes. “You’re not going to kill me,” I say, knowing that I’m wrong. “You don’t have what it takes.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Elodie,” he says, leaning into the knife and piercing through my skin as a sick grin stretches over his too-confident face. “I’ve been wanting you dead since the moment your bitch of a mother pushed out a baby girl, and if I hadn’t promised Paris that she could do the honor, you’d already be bleeding out on my floor.”
“You’ve been pretending for all these years?”
He grins down at me. “Eighteen fucking years of sitting in silence, plotting and planning to move against you. Royston moved too fast. He was too cocky and proud. He wanted it all for himself when I told him to sit back and wait it out. Scardoni though, he gave his kid power that he wasn’t ready for, and because of that, they fucked up their chances.”
“You’ve been working with them this whole time?”
Harding scoffs and pushes the knife just a little deeper, making me suck in a sharp breath as I will the tears not to fall. “Working with them?” he laughs. “Those little assholes were working for me. I’m running this show.”
Oh, fuck.
“You have no idea what you’re getting yourself involved in here,” he tells me, taunting me as he slowly pushes the knife a little deeper. “Breaking into my house was the worst possible move you could have made.”
I take slow breaths, trying to keep myself calm despite the pain tearing through my abdomen, though it’s only going to get worse. He’s only got the tip in and something tells me that he won’t hesitate to sink it right in, slamming it deep inside me until the hilt is pressed firmly against my stomach. Kinda like the way Grayson likes to fuck—tease me with the tip and then slam it deep inside me until I feel his balls smacking against my ass.
“You’re making a mistake,” I tell him, playing any angle that I can, knowing there’s only a slim chance of me getting out of this. “Let me guess, her endgame is to take over leadership while claiming the identity of my mother, and she’s prepared to kill me to do it—her own flesh and blood. So, tell me, do you really think you’re that special to her? Do you really think she’s going to take you along for the ride? You’re just as fucked as I am. You’re a pawn to her. Nothing more. Eighteen years of playing her game and she’ll slit your throat the second you deliver me and she won’t think twice about it.”
