AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 25
Kincaid~
I’d been prepared to tell the gang all about my conversation with my father and go from there, but then a telephone call from Donovan fucking Cooper changed all that.
After coming home from talking with my father, the plan had been to come home, sleep through the rest of my classes, then call everyone over, so that I could tell them what was going on. I had sent both Fox and Saxton a text when I’d gotten back into town, but when I hadn’t gotten immediate responses, I assumed they were in class. Honestly, I hadn’t given the time much thought. Had I been paying better attention, then I would have realized that classes were over for the day. However, Donovan’s text had jacked me up something good.
So, now I was waiting for Donovan on the north side of Serenity Springs, past the city limits. He’d wanted to meet somewhere private, and that was just fine with me. If I didn’t already know what I knew about him, I might have been more cautious, but Donovan Cooper was a coward. The fact that he’d had to run to Alexander to clean up his mess was proof enough of that.
Leaving my phone at home, I had prepared for the worst. While I’d been protected enough to get away with a minimal investigation into August’s death, another dead guy at my hands wouldn’t be overlooked so easily. Detective Cole was still ‘randomly’ bumping into me, and it wouldn’t take much for him to want to make an example of me. Plus, my attorney had humiliated him enough for him to still be holding a grudge, even if I were in the right.
So, I’d left my phone at home after texting Donovan that I would meet him. His text messages and mine would show the exchange, but the police would have no way to prove if I’d met him or not. I hadn’t opted for all that satellite crap when I had purchased my car, so there was no tracking me that way. If it all went to hell, the plan was to give myself a flat tire on the way here, never having met Donovan as agreed. With my phone ‘accidentally’ left at home, my timetable was open to all kinds of reasonable doubt. There was no way to call for help, and any help would have to come in the hopes of a good Samaritan stopping to offer their assistance.
I was out of my car, sitting on the hood, when a black Cadillac came driving down the path. We weren’t super secluded, but we were far off enough from the main street to be hidden. Donovan picked a good spot for whatever this was.
When he got out of his car, I jumped off the hood, but I let him come to me.
No way was I going to go to him.
No fucking way.
As far as intimidation went, Alexander was the only one with a wife and children. Donovan had gotten married about a year ago, but he had no children yet, and Jacob was single. Jacob had the least to lose here, so there’d been no point in going after him as hard as Alexander or Donovan. There might be some video or pictures of Donovan, Jacob, and Arlene’s little three-way romps, but that would hardly ruin Jacob. It might piss off Donovan’s wife, but money and power were big motivators for wives to look the other way. I wasn’t big on infidelity, but I also wasn’t a gold-digger. I had my own gold.
“I’m not going to prison,” he said as soon as he was close enough to be heard.
My lips twitched in amusement. “Is that how you want to start this off, Donovan? Seriously?”
“It was an accident,” he hissed. “A-”
“Listen, you sonofabitch,” I hissed back. “An accident is slipping on some black ice, hitting your head just right, then dying from your injuries. An accident is someone’s brakes failing, causing a freeway crash. An accident is eating something that you had no idea that you were allergic to.” I stepped to him. “Those are accidents. What you did wasn’t a motherfucking accident, Cooper. You played with someone’s life because you didn’t like how he was better than you. You didn’t like being the only fuckup of the group.”
“It was a joke, Kincaid,” he argued. “A joke gone bad.”
“A joke,” I echoed.
“Where’s your proof?” he asked. “I thought about what you said, and where’s your proof? It would be your word against mine. You might be a Black, but I’m a Cooper, and that means something in the organization.”
I cocked my head. “And what makes you think that I don’t have any proof?”
“You would have presented it by now,” he scoffed. “Why wait if you had proof?”
I arched a brow. “Maybe I just like playing with my prey a little first.”
“Like Alexander kept telling you guys about August, it’s all about proof,” he replied with enough arrogance to make me wish that I’d killed him the second that Alexander had given me his name.
“Well, then let me fill you in on what I do have,” I told him, taking a step back and getting comfortable against my car. “I have proof of an affair between Alexander George and Donald Remington.” His eyes widened. “Pictures, text messages exchanges, all sorts of neat stuff.” I grinned at that sonofabitch. “So, tell me, Donovan, this whole your-word-against-mine thing? Are you that confident that Alexander will choose protecting you over himself?”
He started shaking his head. “He…he can’t confess without going down himself,” he stuttered. “He…he…he helped cover it up. He’ll go down, too.”
“True,” I conceded. “However, he has a choice of going down for conspiracy after the fact or going down for murder while his dirty little secret destroys his entire image and the lives of his wife, children, and parents.” Donovan balked at that. “There’s no doubt that he’s going down for his involvement in my brother’s death, but it’s how he goes down that he’s still in control of, Cooper. Do you think you’re more important to him than his wife, children, and parents?”
“Jacob will vouch for me,” he blurted, grasping at straws. “He likes me better than he does Alexander.”
“No doubt,” I smirked. “I imagine you and Jacob have become super close, what with all those late nights with Arlene.”
“Ho...how did-”
“The easier question would be what don’t I know, you stupid fuck,” I snapped.
