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“You’re shitting me, right? You think of all the people in the Districts, my father, Kennedy Harlow, hiredme, his pathetic daughter who wasn’t allowed to leave the grounds, to kill Rhivers?” she questions. When she puts it like that, it does sound ridiculous.
“Then why did you kill him, if it wasn’t for your father or for money?”
It’s a long shot. Dax still hasn’t been able to find out why she killed my father.
She sighs and doesn’t utter another word for almost a full minute. The silence is deafening.
“I didn’t kill Carlo for money or for my father,” she starts, hesitating before continuing. “I… I did it for revenge, for justice.”
“Why?” I question. It makes no sense. What would Carlo have done to her to give her ammo for his murder?
“Because he killed my mother,” she says, looking straight into my eyes. The revelation surprises me, but I don’t let it show.
“How? Your mother drowned, Theodora. She killed herself.”
Theo sits on the floor, shaking her head, her arm propped up higher than the rest of her body whilst it’s cuffed to the back of the chair.
“She didn’t kill herself. Carlo killed her.” Her voice is harsh and certain. There’s no doubt in my mind that Theo believes what she’s saying.
“Prove it.” I can’t deny it’s something he would’ve done had he had motive, but why?
“There isn’t any proof. I just know,” Theo whispers. She must realise how ridiculous she sounds without the proof, but that’s not the matter at hand right now. I need to know what Kennedy Harlow is playing at.
“Regardless, Theodora, I need to know why your father is making a lot of money where you’re concerned,” I reply firmly.
“King, I swear I don’t know. I’ve barely had anything to do with my father the past two years. Since we lost Mum, I don’t even know the man anymore, if I ever did.”
I don’t want to tell her the conclusion Dax and I have drawn.
What if I tell her and it’s all been part of some grander plan? I’d be playing right into their hands. But what if it’s not?
The look in her eyes, the defeat in her voice, tell me all I need to know. I believe her. And that’s the reason I choose to come clean.
“Then I have reason to believe he was going to sell you.”
18
THEO
“Excuse me?”I try to stand, but the chair drags heavily behind me, my hand still cuffed to the back of it. I still can’t believe that bastard cuffed me to the chair.
“I believe your father was going to sell you,” King replies calmly, as if he hasn’t just dropped a massive bomb on me.
“And why do you have reason to believe such a ridiculous assumption?”
“Your father admitted to me four months ago that you were supposed to be making money for him. He was refusing to pay for your keep here at the prison and disclosed that you should’ve been making money for him, not him having to be out of pocket because of you. I believed it was because he’d used you to kill Carlo. Whilst I think your claim of him murdering Elisa is absurd, I do believe that you didn’t do it on your father’s orders.
“I’ve been checking your father’s accounts discreetly for months now and he gets a payment every Friday evening, for thousands, from an anonymous payer that I am yet to find out. Yesterday, they left a message to your father saying he wasn’t getting any more payments until he can promise ‘her’. I believe the ‘her’ they’re referring to is you and that you were going to be sold or something of that extent.”
My mind moves at a hundred miles per hour, trying to process everything he’s said.
“Theodora, this is all speculation, but I have enough to go on to believe it’s what your father’s planning. I just need to figure out who the anonymous payer is and what your father intends to do about it considering you're locked up in here. I’m going to see to it that I can guarantee your safety.”
I laugh loudly, although none of this is funny in the slightest.
“Guarantee my safety? I’m in a fucking prison filled with men who try to attack me daily and in case you forgot, one nearly did. You can’t guarantee my safety! Besides, why the fuck do you care?”
“I don’t care, but I need to know what Kennedy is doing behind my back and you, alive, and in my possession, are my leverage.”
