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A frown brushed his forehead. "What would be your preferred lifestyle choice? If you could be anything you want. Anything at all, what would you choose? Would you choose the same lifestyle as Sam and the rest of the Bell family? Or would you walk away and do something completely different?"
"I don't get to choose—"
He cut me off. "If youdidget to choose. If you could walk out the door right now and go and live your best, ideal life, what would you do?"
"I don't know," I said slowly. "Maybe I'd just get a regular job, get married and live in the suburbs." That sounded harmless, but as boring as hell.
He raised his eyebrows at me. "Doubtful. Try again."
I rolled my eyes at him. "Fine. I think I'd start a company and build it from scratch to something huge. Maybe an airline, or a line of boutique clothing stores."
"CEO of an airline," he mused. "Lila Air, to rival Devlin Air."
"Something like that.” Devlin Air started as a small company, but under the leadership of Anderson Devlin, the oldest of the six Devlin Brothers, was now a billion-dollar company, with offices all over the world. Apparently Anderson Devlin was a massive asshole, but he was a wealthy one.
"If anyone could do that, it would be you," Zachary said. "Have you ever thought about walking away? You have enough money to start whatever company you want. A legitimate one."
I snorted. "You sound like Chloe. Maybe you should have this conversation with her. That would solve all of our problems." Some of them anyway.
"You could both walk away," he suggested.
"And leave you to take over from Dad?" Was that what he was getting at here?
"Would that be so bad?" he asked. "Look, I'm not saying you should walk away for my benefit, but think about doing it for yours. How long do you think the family can go on defying the law? What if it catches up and you're at the helm? You would be locked away for the rest of your life. Is that what you want?"
I smirked. "Have you forgotten how easy it is to pay to have any number of things disappear? Even if the law caught up, there's nothing they can do. No one I can't pay off. Honestly, any investigator would know that and not bother to come sniffing around anyway. They could spend years trying to pin things on us and we'd just walk away from it. Their time would be better spent investigating matters that can be prosecuted. Or crimes that aren't victimless, like husbands hitting their wives."
There was nothing I hated more than a bully. If anyone in my organisation was violent towards their partner without their consent, they could look forward to being buried alive. I didn't tolerate it.
"I guess so." He didn't look convinced. "I want what's best for you, okay? I'd hate it if you looked back someday and regretted not walking away when you had the chance. Once you’re head of the family, it's going to be a lot more difficult to untangle yourself from that web."
"This is what I want," I said firmly. "If Chloe wants to turn her back on the family, she's welcome to do that, but I won't. Hell, if you want to walk away with her, I'll support that. But I've never backed down from a fight and I'm not going to start now."
"Neither am I," he said quickly. "Whatever happens, I'm not backing down either. I'm in this thing until the bitter end." He nodded to punctuate that declaration. "So, you believe me about the teddy bears? That it wasn't me?"
I sighed. "I don't know what to believe. But I will say this. If I find out it was you, or if you do anything to betray me, I will kill you. With my bare hands if I have to."
He sat back, a guarded expression on his face. "Noted." He looked like he had more to say, but he fell silent after that.
CHAPTER22
LILA
"The twins?"
I looked up from frowning at my screen to see Slade watching me with concern.
He nodded towards my phone. "You were looking at that like you weren't impressed. Is it the twins? Have they finally checked in?"
It was five days since they went off for whatever Reuben needed them for. Apart from a couple of text messages, I hadn't heard a thing. They'd probably turn up in a couple of days with tans, and act like nothing happened.
"No, it's not them." I put my phone aside and finished my coffee. Like everything else here, the food was amazing. The best coffee money could buy. Of course it was, we did better with a good breakfast every day. Whatever Brutham Academy had to do to maintain a high academic standard, they'd do. The school board ruthlessly hunted down the best chefs and the best ingredients and paid well for them.
Slade raised an eyebrow at me expectantly.
I sighed. "My father is coming. He'll be here in about twenty minutes."
"Let me guess, he likes to spring visits on you at the last minute?" Slade bit down into his toast and washed it down with tea. I'd never seen him drink coffee. As far as I know, he didn't.
