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Heaving sobs pull from within her, and with each one, I see the pain that overtakes her body. “I don’t know what to do. If she knows I’m alive, she’ll try to hurt me again. She had her guards beat me … the things that they ….” she cuts herself off with more sobs, surely remembering the way that they touched her. “What am I supposed to do?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, but it’s not my problem anymore. The second you sided with Paris, you lost all your rights within Dynasty. You know that. I’m not under any obligation to help you, and after what you did, why the hell should I?”
She swallows hard. “Because I know things that you don’t, information that could help you.”
“What a fucking joke,” Carver scoffs and steps forward. “If you think that we’re going to barter with you for information in exchange for your safety, you’re dead wrong. How about you give up the information in exchange for us not slitting your throat.”
Ember’s swollen eyes bug out of her head, knowing damn well that the boys are capable of that and so much more. Her brows crease in concern and I watch as she falls into silence, quickly trying to weigh her options.
Grayson quickly gets bored and fiddles through the first aid kit, pulling out a syringe and making a show of filling it with some kind of drug. “Start talking or you’ll get to know the effects that a neurotoxin has on the human body firsthand.”
Ember’s eyes flicker around the room, silently begging for help as she tries to find an escape. “I … what ... I … what do you want to know?”
I find myself grinning at her performance, certain that it’s only water in Grayson’s syringe, though, I could be very wrong. “Where’s Paris?” Carver asks, his tone flat and filled with a vicious calmness that sends chills shooting down my spine.
Ember shakes her head, cringing with the movement. “I don’t know,” she rushes out. “She never let me see where she was staying. She would always come to me.”
Carver groans. “Then what’s her next plan?”
Ember shakes her head again. “I … she never told me,” she rushes out, turning her gaze back to me. “What’s going to happen to me? Please, I just want a clean break. Let me go and I swear, you’ll never have to see me again.”
King scoffs. “You’re not going anywhere until you’ve told us something worthwhile because so far, you’ve been pretty fucking useless.”
Ember breathes hard and presses her lips into a tight line. “Fine,” she says, not sounding happy about it as she cringes and turns her stare on Grayson. “Paris has been trying to get your father on board, and she seems to think she’s close but I think that your dad is just keeping her around to know what’s going on—either way, it’s bad fucking news for you guys.”
“That’s it?” King questions, looking completely deflated and pissed off. “That’s your big revelation?”
Ember rolls her eyes and lets out another breath, giving King a hard stare before turning to Carver. “Your mom has been working with Paris for years. She’s so deep in her pocket that there’s no way out for her. She knew Paris’s plan for kidnapping those children and allowed it to happen.”
“What?” Carver says, rushing right into the side of the bed and gripping Ember around her throat, pulling her straight up until her knees are dangling over the sheets and she’s pulling at Carver’s fingers. “The fuck are you talking about? My mother would never do that to my sisters.”
“She did,” Ember croaks out, her voice breathy and muffled from Carver’s hand around her throat. “She said some bullshit about it being an experience that would help shape them. Ida knew the guards were going to raid the party and even helped them take the kids. She all but threw them in their hands while your sisters screamed for help.”
Rage burns through Carver and he releases Ember so quickly that she crumbles back to the bed in a broken heap, screaming as the pain tears through her.
Carver storms out of the room, his voice roaring through the quiet house. “She doesn’t fucking leave until I say so.” And with that, Carver is gone, leaving us all staring around the spare bedroom, unsure of what the fuck will come next.
CHAPTER 28
CARVER
My boot slams against the front door of my own fucking home, splintering the wood into a million pieces. The alarm blasts through the house and I have no fucking doubt that my little sisters are flying out of their beds, terrified that their worst nightmares are coming back to haunt them, but once they see my face, they’ll understand what’s going on. I know they will because as of two minutes ago, I learned that my sisters are going through the same bullshit upbringing that I suffered through and I won’t allow it to happen to them the same way it happened to me.
