Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
I had to make it out of this alive.
I had to get back to Cara.
My brother’s demonic eyes locked with mine.
“I’ve waited a long time for this,” Damion spat.
I had no doubt. Two decades was a long time to get revenge on the person who’d blown your spoiled-trust-fund life apart. Not that he’d ever hurt for money. The funny thing about generational wealth and rubbing shoulders with other rich pricks was they were good at a cover-up.
Every dirty secret I’d exposed had been swept under the metaphoric rug. It wouldn’t do for the world to know that Percy McKnight, financier to the uber wealthy, had been funneling money to terrorists. Especially the same organization that had been responsible for 9/11.
Twenty years ago, the attacks were still fresh in every American’s heart—patriotism was at an all-time high—my father should’ve been burned at the stake, or better yet hanged in the town square. Instead, his death had been deemed an accident and all his felonies buried alongside him.
My only consolation was he was burning in hell.
It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“Blair!” my brother shouted. “Are you listening to me?”
I hated that name.
The day I’d shed that name was the best day of my life up until I’d met Cara. A few minutes into our awkward meeting I’d fallen in love with her. That didn’t mean I didn’t think Michael and Donna were crazy for having a child, but on some distant plane I could see the appeal.
A hard smack across my face brought me back to the dingy room my brother had locked me in. Well, I was assuming the door was locked—even with my legs tied to the chair and my wrists bound, the smart thing to do would be to lock the door.
“There’s the brother I not so fondly remember.”
“You always were a pain in the ass. A stupid pain in the ass,” he quickly amended.
Yeah, and you were a sadistic asshole who followed Daddy-dearest’s orders to beat me.
My reminder would’ve been needless. At some point during our teen years the abuse was less at our father’s orders and more for his pleasure.
One would think our shared parental neglect would bond us as siblings. And if one thought that, they would’ve been oh-so-wrong.
I’d been the family punching bag.
“You’re the one forcing this lovely family reunion Damion, not me.”
“Unlike our father, I’m not stupid,” he said as he straightened and took a step back. “And I don’t leave loose ends.”
I took the deepest breath my broken ribs would allow in an attempt to extinguish the spark he’d ignited. Unfortunately, it did nothing but add fuel to the match he’d lit.
“Loose ends? What, are you going to kill me like you did Michael?”
He didn’t take my bait, though I didn’t need his verbal confirmation. All the intel led back to him.
“Unlike that empty grave next to mother and father, this time when Blair McKnight dies it’ll be for good.”
Just because there was no body in the casket didn’t mean that Blair McKnight wasn’t well and truly dead.
“I never got a chance to tell you,” I started. “Your performance at my funeral was top-notch. The tears were a nice touch. But did you really need to invite Rutherford the Douche? I knew you hated me, but that was just plain mean.”
“He was your fiancé, of course he was there.”
The absurdity was no less disturbing twenty years later than it was on the day I turned seventeen and my father told me he’d chosen the man I was going to marry.
The slightly more troubling part was Rutherford was twenty-five.
The most unsettling was, no one thought it was strange that I was engaged at seventeen—a minor to a grown ass man.
My parents had even thrown a party, announcing the McKnight-Kensington union.
That had been the straw that had broken the camel’s back, so to speak. Thankfully, my parents were murdered before they could force the nuptials.
After their deaths, Damion had been too busy cleaning up the mess my father had left to worry about me. As long as I towed the line and played the role as the grieving socialite, he didn’t give a shit what I did.
My brother’s only directive was to stay out of his way and keep my mouth shut. Which worked for me.
I heard the door open, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the snake in front of me.
“Let’s begin, shall we.”
Light hit my brother’s eyes.
I knew that look, I’d seen it enough times to know that pain would soon follow.