I feel the rage burst through Harper’s tight control a second before she explodes, “You will not touch a hair on my son’s head! I’ll kill you first.”
Again comes Senior’s big laugh. He looks to his lieutenants, who smirk on cue even as they yet again shift uneasily.
“So it was you,” I say, wanting to offer Harper a moment of distraction so she can plan her next move. “You who pulled all those jobs and then blamed it on Silas when Harper was a kid? The robberies, and the deals that went bad? You’re the reason he kept landing in jail over and over?”
“Well, if you mean, did I commit the crimes with my own two hands,” he says, laughing and making eye-contact with his soldiers stationed all around the room, “then no. But I’ve always been aiming soldiers like arrows with my bow. So after I took Melissa, slitting her throat when the bitch was no more use?—”
I feel the shockwave through Harper’s body at his casual admission of murdering her aunt.
And he’s clearly still on a roll. “—I pushed your mother into Silas’s arms instead. What better revenge than to give him the broken, bitter sister and then set him loose in the world with the false confidence of believing he was finally free of me and the mountain?
“Let him build a little life for himself, I thought. Let him believe he’s fallen in love, and start making plans for a life.”
His eyes glow. “And then, just when he thought he’d managed himself a life in suburbia right after you were born, I struck again to remind him he’s never free of his debt of being born my brother.”
His smile is a knife. He’s clearly waited a long time to tell this tale, and he’s savoring it.
“I revealed your mother was my property all along, and by defiling her and making her fat with you in her belly, he owed me a great debt. She hated him for how I threw her away instead of making good on my promise that she’d be the queen at my side in my kingdom. She was never the same. Never could love him the way he desperately wanted to be loved.”
I watch the pieces click into place for Harper—she’d told me about her mom’s drunken rants about how Silas had ruined her life.
Her whole childhood—the poverty, the instability, her father’s constant stints in jail, her mother’s drinking—it all traced back to this man’s horrific jealousy of his own brother. And his petty need for revenge against a brother who was loved more by a father they’d already buried.
This bastard destroyed Harper’s entire life, and she hadn’t even known he was the cause. Until now.
“Ihateyou,” she spits, and I can tell she means it with every cell in her body.
“Good.” He leans back, looking satisfied. “Hatred is my bread and butter, sweet girl. It’s what sustains me.”
Harper breathes out, her whole body shaking. I wish I could do more than squeeze her thigh—like leap across the table and bash this motherfucker’s head in instead of uselessly checking exits and elevated heart rates.
“Well that sounds fascinating and all,” Harper finally says, and I know she’s grasping for equilibrium, “but if you’ll just sign here, here, and initial here,” she scoots the papers Torresprepared across the table toward him again, “then we can all exit this lovely establishment and be on with our day.”
Pride swells in my chest watching her sit across from a crime lord without flinching or taking the bait.
Senior is still recalibrating and watching her with that look that might be appreciation or might be something more unsettling—the recognition of a worthy opponent.
“My client understands the terms of the proposed agreement,” Torres says, setting out pages with efficient economy. “We’ve reviewed the trust documentation, the grandfather’s original will and testament, and the addenda filed in 1987 and 2003. We have conditions.”
Senior’s eyes don’t leave Harper’s face. His expression doesn’t change, but I catch the slightest curl at the corner of his mouth. Like a man watching a mouse run through a maze he built.
My pulse ticks up. One-thirty. One-forty.
“The renunciation of Adam Tucker’s inheritance rights,” Torres continues, “will be executed only upon simultaneous execution of a bilateral dissolution agreement.”
“Reasonable,” Senior says, and the word drips with amusement. Like he’s listening to a child explain how they’d redesign the solar system. “What’s your counteroffer?”
I watch Harper’s hand on the table, and her fingers don’t relax.
She’s not buying the pleasant act after he revealed his forked tongue.
Good.
“Our counteroffer includes an additional amendment,” Torres says, “with a protective trigger clause.”
She reads it without inflection, which makes it land harder.
“If Adam Tucker dies before a natural life expectancy under any circumstances other than documented natural causes, theland trust automatically converts to a public conservatorship pending independent investigation.”