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Chapter 24
Fox~
When Kincaid sent me that text about going to visit her father, something inside me snapped. This was no longer a formed idea inside the head of a heartbroken teenage sister. This was no longer some impossible hope at revenge. Kincaid had gone off to tell her father, involving him in the same way that I had involved my father. Plus, to some extent, Jonathan Lexington was involved, too. Kincaid’s need for revenge was now branching out, touching other people, and that…bothered me for some reason.
All during my first class of the day, I couldn’t shake this foreboding feeling that something bad was going to happen. That something was going to complicate things more than they already were.
That was how I found myself purchasing a burner phone and texting Alexander George to meet me in the same abandoned atrocity where we’d been initiated. I had sent him a text, pretending to be Donovan, telling him that we needed to talk about ‘that’ night. As soon as he had agreed to meet me, I’d driven back home, leaving my phone at my condo, the burner phone getting me through until this was over.
Knowing that my condo’s security had a blind spot near the maintenance quarters, that’s where I exited, doing my best to provide an alibi in case I needed one. Three blocks down the road, Saxton picked me up in Hastings’ car. Our cars were so damn noticeable that Alexander would have been immediately tipped off had he seen my car when he pulled up.
So, after asking me if I was sure about this, and after assuring Saxton that I was, he’d driven me out here in the middle of nowhere. To make sure that he had an alibi, after dropping me off, he’d driven two towns over to visibly being seen shopping for diamonds. Serenity Springs was a big enough town, but not big enough to have a more than a couple of modest jewelry stores. According to him, he was killing two birds with one bloody stone. He’d have an alibi and also get Hastings a nicer wedding set. Ross had replaced Sutton’s a few days ago with something more becoming of the Carmichael last name, and Rylee already had that huge rock Stone had gotten her for the night of our initiation.
Even though we were in the middle of some serious shit, Saxton’s ramblings about buying Hastings a new wedding set had me thinking about the kind of ring I’d be putting on Kincaid’s finger. The girl wasn’t the fancy sort, but since I was going to be the only one allowed to see that fox playing on her pussy, I needed something to scream out that she was taken. I also hoped that Kincaid didn’t think I’d been playing about that fox tattoo, because I wasn’t.
Not at all.
It was easy to break into the building. The place had plenty of broken windows all over the place. Once I got inside, I fired off another text to Alexander to let him know that ‘Donovan’ was here. I only had to wait about an additional ten minutes before I heard the sounds of a vehicle driving up. His lateness was no doubt a power play to remind Donovan who was in charge.
“Where are you?” I heard Alexander call out, and it didn’t surprise me that he still had a key to the place. “I’m here.”
I followed his voice, and there was immense satisfaction in seeing his eyes widen as soon as he saw that it was me and not Donovan who had called him here.
“Alexander,” I greeted.
His head whipped around, probably looking for Kincaid. “What is this? What are you doing here?”
“This is your last chance to save yourself with the least amount of backlash for you and your family, Alexander,” I told him.
“I already did-”
“Who ordered the second autopsy?” I finally asked. “Who helped you cover it up?”
“Mr. Harrington, you have to understand-”
“I don’t have to understand shit,” I spat. “This is about what you need to understand. You’re standing there, and you’re acting like Kincaid Black won’t kill you. You’re acting like Merrick Black won’t kill you for what you’ve done. Trust me when I tell you that there are worse things than just losing your wealth and status in this life.”
Alexander didn’t say anything for a very long time. I watched as he paced quietly, weighing his options, though he really didn’t have any. No matter what he did, he was going to suffer a horrible fallout from his involvement with covering up Apollo’s death. He knew it just as well as I did. Kincaid’s viciousness came from somewhere, and it came from Merrick Black. One way or the other, Alexander was going to feel their wrath.
“Growing up, my father wasn’t exactly…discrete about The Order and its members,” he finally said once he stopped pacing. “Gary George loved the…importance of belonging to a group such as The Order of the Cronus. He loved the connections that he had, and that when he called people, they answered.”
“Power is quite an aphrodisiac,” I remarked. “Understandably so.”
Alexander didn’t agree or disagree. “Well, he used to talk about Donald Remington a lot,” he continued. “Used to talk about how Donald was going to probably wind up on the governing panel one day because he had the…foresight to understand that not everything was black and white.”
It was starting to make sense now. All of it. “Let me guess,” I drawled out. “You went to Donald for help, and the price for his help was a little slap and tickle, yeah?”
Alexander shot me a look, and it was clear that what we had here was probably a Stockholm Syndrome type of situation. Donald had blackmailed Alexander into bending over for him, but if the affair has been going on for eight years, there had to be feelings involved, even if Alexander wasn’t gay. When someone had the power to destroy you but didn’t, it was easy to start seeing them as some saving grace instead of the monster that they really were.
“Donald Remington is gay,” he announced as if that fact could clean this mess up a little nicer. “His wife, kids, family…all that is just a…façade to fool the public and The Order. He’s gay, and Donovan’s fuckup handed him the perfect solution to his problem. By helping us, he got to keep his public image intact while satisfying his sexual desires.”
“Why you and not Donovan? Or Jacob? Or all three, really?” I shrugged. “Seems like he had the perfect set up for variety.”
“Considering what Donovan had just done, and his reckless partying, Donald felt that Donovan couldn’t be trusted with a secret that big,” he answered tiredly. “As for Jacob, Jacob’s dad is Simon Townsend, and way more powerful than my father or Donald himself. I was the easiest…option.”
“And just like that? You agreed, even though you’re not gay?”
“By the time I reached out to Donald, I’d already helped Donovan move the body and toss him off the cliffs.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, and I wanted to kill him for it. “We were in Mexico. It started out like a simple enough plan, but then Jacob had mentioned his concerns about the autopsy, and that’s when things got complicated.”
