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I was seeing red.
I snarled, my top lip curling up. “You think I don’t know your play? You’ve been on offense this whole fucking time. You think I don’t know the power in that? ’Cause you got the control. You know where I am. You know where my anchors are, because I’m always going to come back for them, for the people I love. Who doyoulove? Who’syouranchor? Tell me who your fucking weakness is and I’ll ghost, then try to take them out from under your watch. Let me slip away and do some fucking offensive play.Yoube on the defense. You tell me how that feels!” My voice was rising. “Now this last stunt? Where I’m jumping throughfuckinghoops to get you out? Start goddamn talking, motherfucker, or I’m going to blow a hole in your brain, then go find Grandpops and do the same to him. I’m at my end, so start. Fucking. Talking!”
This was no idle threat. This wasn’t a bluff. I was dead serious, and my brother saw me, looked deep, and read me right, because his hands lowered and he moved back one more step. He was still cautious, but he was losing some of the smirk on his face.
“Okay.” His voice was gentle. The smirk was gone. He was dropping the walls.
Fin-fucking-ally.
I placed my second hand on the gun, steadying it, and he let out a sigh as I took the position. My feet readied themselves, becoming my foundation.
He noted that, too. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Okay. Okay. I get it. You’re done with this dance. I’ll tell you everything.”
I didn’t move, but I waited.
Then I arched an eyebrow. “You slow in the head? Need my guys to set a timer so you know when your time is running out?”
At that comment, two more guns were raised and cocked.
His hands dropped down to his sides. “Okay. Okay! Just… Jesus.”
“You think you know me,” I started up again, giving him my last piece, and I was speaking it low and quiet, but I knew he was hearing the dark promise in my words. “You don’t. Start talking.”
He straightened up, and all pretense was gone.
Sitting on the edge of the couch, he leaned forward. His elbows rested on his knees, and his head was turned toward the floor.
“All of this, everything that our grandfather has done, has been for one thing and one thing only. Money.” He lifted his head, his gaze finding mine. I saw the loathing in him. “Our mother gave you that inheritance and that’s what Calhoun has wanted this entire time. He gets his way by two methods: control and destroy. Our mother was first in power of the inheritance. He couldn’t control her, so he destroyed her. You were next, butyou were a child. He wanted to first control you through women.” A mocking, bitter laugh slipped from him. “He believes they’re only good for sex or as a tool to use sex to control their target.”
I knew all this. None of this was new.
“You went after his assets, but you didn’t see the two assets he had in your camp, under your nose. Quinn and Victoria.”
I knew about Victoria. Quinn? I knew she knew Calhoun, butworkingfor him?
“Victoria was supposed to seduce and control you. Quinn was sent in to control your environment. She targeted Peter, seduced him. She cemented her hold on Peter by having Cyclone.”
Wait.
I frowned. “But not Seraphina?”
He shook his head, his features tightened, as a haunted look flared in his eyes. “Calhoun is old. He doesn’t respect women. He looks at people how he can use them, and the only use he could see for a daughter is as someone to sell for further gain later. He only believes in sons. Calhoun didn’t trust Quinn, thought that she didn’t have as much control over Peter as she claimed she did. All that changed when she had Cyclone. Only then is when Calhoun eased back and gave Quinn some freedom to just live. She brought in Victoria to seduce you.”
My irritation was flaring. “Keep talking. As of now, none of this is surprising me.”
Surprise flashed over his face before he covered it up. “He let me loose because he wanted me to observe you. I was to transition and take over your life. That was his plan for me. But when I got on that airplane from Thailand, I never had any intention of doing anything to harm you. I know you don’t have to believe me, but it’s the truth. I’ve been living under his control until you, until you started fighting back. Then I saw my chance.”
“Your chance?”
Now his nostrils flared. “For freedom.” The haunted expression came back, coupled with an almost dead look at the sametime. “I’m tired of hurting people. You want to keep your loved ones alive; I just want tohavea loved one. I want the chance to live a normal life, as long as I can.”
“You were going to defy Calhoun?”
“I didn’t think it would happen, but you kept fighting him and you kept winning. He’s so far hidden and isolated right now. I’ve never seen him this vulnerable. You did that to him. He’s a cornered animal now. I made my move when I went in and took your woman’s mom from her guards.”
Nowthiswas new.
“Explain why Bailey still has nightmares seeing her mother’s head getting blown off.”
