Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
My heart is pounding like that time I miscalculated the jump off the hotel scaffolding, barely catching the ledge before I hit the ground.
It was the same day Koen stopped talking to me—when everything between us cracked, and I should’ve known better than to make a move with my mind a mess, just like I should know better now.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I’m staring at the tangle of wires spread out across the sheets and running my hand over my face, trying to calm down.
This is it.
I pick up the small recorder and loop the wire around my chest, clipping the mic beneath the collar of my shirt. The wire is thin, practically invisible, but I still take my time adjusting it. No mistakes.
Not today.
My nerves threaten to get the best of me as I stand, moving to the mirror.
I have to force out a breath at the reflection staring back at me.
I look pale, tired, but also determined.
I tug the front of my shirt down and smooth it out, twisting to check from every angle, ensuring the mic doesn’t show.
“You’ve got this,” I mutter under my breath. “This show is happening in two days, with or without the evidence.”
But Oscar…
He died because Veronica wanted him to, and she thinks she gets to walk away clean.
No.
My hand brushes the small button on the recorder. Then, with another deep breath, I straighten my spine, pressing it. A faint beep signals that it’s running, capturing everything.
This is the final push. If I don’t get her to admit it now, we’ll still do the show with what we have and leave for Italy. Koen has everything in place—police, lawyers, and backup plans.
But I want this confession.
No, I need this confession.
There’s a part of me that knows I might be pushing too far today. If she catches on, if this goes sideways, I’m the one who’ll pay for it. But it doesn’t matter.
I grab my jacket and head for the door. Every step toward her office feels heavier like I’m walking straight into the lion’s den, but I don’t slow down.
By the time I reach her door, I’m steady again, on the outside, at least.
I step into the office without knocking, and the first thing that hits me is the scent—her perfume, thick like floral poison. But underneath it is something else—musk, sweat, and the unmistakable sounds of skin against skin fill the room.
A low grunt. A breathy moan.
Belmont’s bare ass.
Heat rushes to my face, rage and disgust swirling together in a sickening wave. “Mother!”
They jolt apart like they’ve been shocked. Belmont stumbles back a step and yanks up his pants with a jerk. His shirt hangs untucked while his belt swings as he fumbles with the buckle.
Veronica’s hand shoots to her blouse, pulling it together as she turns, her hair looking fucking disheveled. Her wrinkled skirt clings to her thighs where his hands must have been.
“Nicholas.” She fixes me with a hard, cold glare. “What part of knock do you not understand?”
I barely hear her. My pulse pounds in my ears. It’s as if I’m trapped in slow motion, watching them smooth down their clothes.
And then…
… I see red.
She’s always been this way.
If she could treat Belmont like a pawn, if she could wield sex like a weapon, leverage, then what was Oscar to her? The one good thing she ever seemed capable of loving. I’d convinced myself that whatever darkness lived inside her, at least that was real.
Even if she didn’t love me, she at least loved him.
Because maybe I wasn’t lovable. But Oscar was. Always had been.
Belmont finishes buckling his belt and adjusts his cuffs. He’s already moved past this, like I’m nothing, and I snap. “Is this what you signed up for? Laundering money for the Harringtons so you can get under her skirt?”
He catches my eye and smirks.
Fucking smirks.
My vision tunnels. I don’t even register the sound of my own breathing. It’s drowned out by the roar in my head.
Veronica waves Belmont off like he’s a dog. “Leave us.”
He hesitates but then grabs his jacket and heads for the door. His shoulder brushes mine on his way out, but I don’t move. I don’t even look at him.
Oscar was just another Belmont. A stepping stone. A convenience. A man too brilliant to see that he’d been played.
Fuck.
When the door clicks shut, it’s only the two of us, and the words are out without thought. “You’re disgusting.”
“Careful,” she warns as if I’m a child stepping too close to the fire. But I’m not a child anymore. And I finally see her for what she is, what she’s always been.
I take a step forward. “Oscar loved you. Do you even know what that means?”
Something flickers in her eyes—annoyance, maybe. Or maybe I imagined it. She smiles, twisting the knife deeper. “Oscar knew exactly who I was.”
“No. He thought you could be better. That’s the difference.”
“You’re such a disappointment.” Veronica turns to pour herself a drink. “Do you really think coming in here with some holier-than-thou attitude changes anything?” She takes a sip, her eyes flicking to me over the rim.
“Change what? What the fuck is this, Mother?”
“A game you don’t understand. With your emotions and melodramatics.”
“I only want the truth. Why?”
She sighs, setting the glass down. “Why what, honey?”
“You know what I’m talking about. Why did you do it? Why did you have him killed?”
Veronica’s expression freezes for half a second before she laughs, a sharp, bitter sound.
“You’ve always been obsessed with that man.
You want the truth, Nicholas? Fine. He wanted to rat me out after years together and was supposed to rot in jail for that.
But no, he came back out. And I let him live, didn’t I?
For three years, I let him stay in his little circle of misery, wasting away in that house and doing his stupid little magic shows. ”
Her words dig into me like nails.
“But then…” She pauses, tilting her head.
“Then he started poking around where he shouldn’t.
He wrote his own death sentence. And you know what is the funny part of this?
Why I found out that he was scheming against me in the first place?
” Veronica’s eyes flicker with cold amusement.
“He slipped because of you. Because he wanted to make sure you wouldn’t get caught in the fallout. ”
What?
“You’re lying.”
“Wake up, Nicholas!” Her hand slams onto the desk.
“He wanted to shield you, but there was no way. No way for you to get out of this mess and not sink with me. And when he understood that, he was okay with sacrificing you. He would have come for me. For you. I did this for you, Nicholas! To save all of this.” She gestures around the office, at the framed empire she’s built, at the life I’ve never wanted. “For you.”
I feel like I’m breathing shards of glass. “Don’t put this on me.”
“Everything I do is for you. Don’t you see it?”
I scoff. “Everything you do is for yourself.”
She stares at me, eyes darkening, and the mask slips. I see the raw, desperate thing beneath, hungry for control, for legacy, for proof that all of this wasn’t meaningless. But it was.
It always was.
“What do you want from me, Nicholas? What do I have to do to show you that I’m on your side? That this is us against the world and not me against you, the way you always seem to believe.”
“Tell me the truth. Give me something. Show me that you trust me. Give me a fraction of trust, and I’ll give it to you in return. I want to be in this with you, Mother, but if so, I want to know everything. Be involved in everything.”
She freezes with a flicker in her eyes that I can’t place.
Fear? Guilt? I can’t be sure.
Then she turns suddenly, snatches a sticky note from the desk, and grabs a pen. I watch, frozen, as she scribbles with long, furious strokes. When she’s done, she turns and slams it against my chest with enough force to sting.
“There,” she spits. “Is this what you wanted?”
I pick it off my shirt and turn it over to read.
I killed Oscar Lane.
Signed.
I was bluffing, pushing her, testing the limits of her self-control. Trying to see if she’d give me anything to prove where her loyalty lies. I never thought her wish to have me involved was so earnest that she’d share this secret with me.
That she’d hand me the evidence on a gold platter, asking me to trust her, to keep her trust.
And the fact that guilt spreads through my chest, making me feel nauseous, is not a good-fucking-sign.
“Want me to frame it for you? Or maybe I should sign it in blood.” She laughs, but it’s jagged. “I killed him. I killed Oscar Lane. For you. For us. For this legacy. For the Harrington name.”
I glance at the note again before folding it carefully and tucking it into my pocket. The note alone could be dismissed as a dramatic outburst, something her lawyers would twist into a misunderstanding. But the recording? The way her voice cracked, the jagged way she laughed? That’s harder to spin.
This isn’t just a smoking gun. It’s a fucking cannon.
But she’s Veronica Harrington. Her legal team could turn a murder confession into a bedtime story.
Still, this is a crack in the foundation. Enough to make them dig. Enough to make them start looking for every skeleton she’s buried.
And that has to be enough.
God, I hope it’s enough.
“Thanks.” I’m not able to keep the sarcasm out of my words. “I’ll be sure to hang it somewhere meaningful.”
The shift in my tone catches her off guard. She flinches. Just a tiny movement, but I see it. She looks away for a second, collecting herself. When she turns back, her face is cold again, but her eyes are still wild.
“Can you stop acting like a brat now? I don’t have time for this. And you shouldn’t either. Have you read over the reports I sent you?”
She’s grasping for control, for normalcy. Acting like she didn’t just confess to murder. Acting like she didn’t just burn down any chance of redemption.
You’re trying to pretend this didn’t happen. But it did.
You lost the second you tried to make this about me.
“I will, Mother.”
She presses her lips together, nodding, satisfied, but her fingers are trembling as she adjusts the papers on her desk. “Good. Leave. I’ll await an apology tomorrow.”
The audacity almost makes me laugh.
“As you wish.”
I start toward the door, pausing only to glance back once. She doesn’t move. She stands there, staring down at her desk.
For the first time ever, she’s the one who has to hope for my love.
Or at least my loyalty.
But if she thinks she ever had even that, she’s more deluded than I thought.
She never did.
I only stayed because I had nowhere else to go.
Walking out of the office and toward the elevator, I press the stop button on the recorder hidden in my pocket and pull out my phone to text Koen.
I’ve got what we need. Meet up at the mansion in twenty.
She thinks she’s still in control, that I’ll come crawling back like I always do, tail between my legs, ready to play my part. But not this time.
The sticky note is a gravestone for everything I once believed. I always thought Oscar was the one unshakable truth in her life. The one person she couldn’t ruin.
But she did. She chose ambition over love. And in doing so, she buried herself.
I’m not her pawn anymore.
She wanted a legacy? She’s about to get one.
But not the kind she thinks.