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“I had no choice but to finish it.”
“What?” Her jaw dropped. “Rupert… what have you done?”
“I’ve destroyed it,” I said, striving to keep my cool while inside my heart and soul were dancing on the fucking ceiling. “It’s all been burned to the ground.”
Her jaw dropped and she blinked in slow motion. “How?”
“Just now. We torched it. All of it.”
Her teeth ground shut before she muttered, “Who’s we?”
“Me and a bunch of people who’ve been trying to stop this family for years.”
“Rupert…” She shook her head. “Which people?”
“You don’t need to know the details. All you need to know is, it’s over. The Bas business has now, literally, gone up in flames.”
“But… what about…” she started, then dropped her gaze.
“My inheritance?” I asked, blankly.
“I don’t know,” she replied, suddenly flustered. “I mean, are you even a Thorn?”
“No,” I replied, letting the facts sink in before I delivered the final blow. “And that is reflected in Sinclair’s will.”
Her eyes glazed over as she tipped her face slowly towards mine. “What? What are you saying, Rupert?”
I took her hands in mine. This was the only reason she’d done her father’s bidding – to own a slice of the Thorn fortune, the Thorn family name. It was fast becoming clear she wasn’t entitled to that either. “I’m sorry Elspeth,” I said. “If I’d known any of this, I would never have allowed you to marry me. You deserve better than to be tied to someone who won’t be able to keep you in the manner you’d become accustomed to. You deserve the truth and to know exactly who it is you’re marrying. Just as I deserve to know exactly who my parents are.”
“I don’t understand.” Her eyes flicked from side to side as though they couldn’t find anything solid enough to focus on. “How could my father do this to me?”
“Because he doesn’t know,” I said. “He thinks he has married you into the inheritance of a goddamn lifetime, but that was never going to be given to me. If you stay with me, you’ll have nothing. If you leave, at least you’ll have a chance at something.” I lowered my voice because even though it was one of the island’s most persistent rumours, I couldn’t be entirely sure Elspeth’s affair with one of the fishermen was true. I could only suspect. I couldn’t even truly bring myself to care.
“So… Ossian gets all of it?” Elspeth’s face twisted into a grimace of epic proportions.
I winced a little. “Not quite.”
“Okay…” she huffed. “Explain.”
“Ossian’s dead,” Hector blurted out, stealing the punchline I’d been waiting my whole life for. I shot him a glare, only to receive a nonchalant shrug in return. “You really weren’t getting to the point,” he said.
I turned back to see Elspeth’s eyes stretched wide. “Is that true?” she whispered.
“Yes, it’s true. He’s very dead.” I was the one who got to see Marcia drive that bullet into his skull – I would always have that over Hector.
“How is he dead?” she said.
“He was inside the building when we destroyed it,” Hector said with a shrug.
The whites of her eyes gleamed. “Does anyone know?”
“Not yet.”
“Not even Sinclair and Iris?”
I shook my head. “Iris is taking a break over on the mainland, but we were on our way to see Sinclair now.”
Her mouth tensed again and she turned a bitter stare to Vivian who was still standing quietly by the door. “We? You mean you and her? Why her?”
