Chapter 13
ASHLEY
Mike D’Arenberg: I think this will go better if you come with me. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how little my son cares for me or my opinion, but yours, he will listen to.
Max Essex: Noted. Pick me up and we can strategize on the way over. I’ll warn you now, though, the whole lot of them think they’re invincible. They won’t walk away easily.
Mike D’Arenberg: I expect nothing less from our boys.
T o all of our surprise, Royce’s plan held the most merit.
Or maybe it was just that compared to Carter’s plan of having Jocelyn assassinated by sniper, anything would seem more reasonable.
Not that I wasn’t tempted by the quick end to that psychotic bitch, but as Royce pointed out, the experiment was bigger than just Jocelyn.
There was government or possibly military funding involved, which would mean they’d simply continue with another mad scientist at the helm.
Which was why, a day later, Royce was stress-cleaning the apartment in anticipation of his father’s arrival.
“I still don’t know why he has to come here in person,” I said as I sipped my coffee and watched Royce scrubbing the inside of the oven.
Like his dad was going to check whether there was anything baked onto the element?
“Surely this is as simple as us telling him what’s going on and then him being like cool, thanks, I’ll look into it . And then that’s that. No?”
“The Colonel doesn’t allow any confidential or personal information to be shared over the phone,” Heath informed me with a shrug. “Which in itself sort of says how rife government phone taps must be, if a man of his position doesn’t trust the security of his own phone line.”
“He’s always been like that, though,” Carter added. “Remember when Royce fell out of that tree at your uncle’s place and broke his arm? We weren’t allowed to tell him the name of the hospital we were going to.”
I frowned, confused. “Wait, so how did he know where to go?”
All four guys stared at me with varying degrees of confusion over my question, but it was Royce who sighed and looked away first. “He didn’t.
A broken arm was not worthy of the Colonel’s attention, and honestly, I think he was annoyed that I was dumb enough to fall out of the tree in the first place. ”
Nate grimaced, rubbing his chin as he remembered. “Yeah, after you got the cast off, he made you enroll in that survivalist camp for the rest of summer.”
Royce nodded. “Yep. And suspiciously, one of the core drills was scaling trees.”
“He sounds like a real dickhead,” I muttered, drowning my anger in another sip of coffee. “Remind me again. Why do we think he’ll be any more useful than an old banana in this situation?”
Royce snorted a laugh and shook his head, still scrubbing the oven. “Old bananas are probably more useful. At least you can make cakes out of them.”
“Funny, but not totally true,” Heath replied with an eye roll.
“But the fact that he’s coming here to speak with us in person speaks volumes about how concerned he is— and about how useful he might be.
If this was entirely out of his control, he’d have fobbed us off, handed it to another department. ”
“Even though it’s his son directly involved and possibly the target of brainwashing or murder?” I was still wrapping my head around what an epic deadbeat Colonel Mike sounded like. “What a gem.”
Royce’s shoulders sagged a little more, and I instantly felt bad. He already knew his father was a bastard; he didn’t need me pointing out the obvious and rubbing salt in the wound.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling like an asshole. “But I guess if he’s coming here, it might mean he can help?”
Nate clapped his hands sarcastically. “There you go, looking on the bright side. Good job, you!”
I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t try copying my mom’s gentle parenting. It only makes me wanna junk punch you again.”
Heath and Carter both chuckled at that, but further conversation was cut short by the buzz of the foyer intercom. At that sound, Royce jumped so hard, he almost smacked his head on the oven, then spent a whole minute battling his yellow rubber gloves to peel them off.
“They’re heading up,” Heath announced, having answered the video intercom while Royce threatened his rubber gloves with bloody, painful death. “Max is with him.”
Nate’s brows shot up in surprise, and he pulled out his phone. “Dad didn’t tell me he was coming. Did Carina text you, Layne?”
I checked my own phone and shook my head. “Nope, nothing. Maybe it was a last-minute decision?”
“I guess we’re about to find out,” Nate replied, frowning after Royce, who raced out of the kitchen. A moment later, he returned in a perfectly pressed dress shirt, still buttoning it up as he rejoined us in the living room, looking all sorts of nervous.
He paused in front of me, his hands shaking ever so slightly as he finished the last button. “Do I look okay?” he asked softly, his eyes pained.
Reaching up, I cupped his freshly shaved face in my hand and drew him down to my height to kiss.
“You look perfect,” I whispered against his lips, after a lingering kiss that warmed me from the inside and seemed to calm Royce’s nerves significantly.
“Your dad is a fucking idiot for not loving you the way you deserve.”
A pointed clearing of someone’s throat made me wince. Apparently I’d been too focused on Royce to realize the door had opened and Royce’s coldhearted father had most definitely heard me call him a fucking idiot.
“Oops, sorry about that,” I apologized, shooting Royce a sheepish look as he snapped to attention and took a step away.
“Apology accepted,” the prim-and-proper bald man standing in our living room said in a clipped tone.
I arched a brow at him and shook my head. “I was apologizing to your son, Colonel, not you. You deserve to hear that, and if it hurts, then it’s probably because it’s true.”
Someone hissed a breath between their teeth, but I wasn’t sure which of the guys it was, since my angry glare was locked on Royce’s father. What a douche canoe , seriously.
He stared back at me for a long, tense moment, his expression totally blank and unreadable, then he huffed a sound and shifted his gaze to Royce. “So that’s the girl you’ve been dating? I see why your manners have slipped so much lately.”
I scoffed, but Max beat me to a response. “That girl is my stepdaughter, Mike. I’d watch what you say about her, if I were you.”
The colonel sniffed in surprise, glancing to Max, then back at me ever so briefly before utterly dismissing me from his attention as he looked around the apartment. “It smells like dog in here, boys. Why is that? Do you not clean?”
“Because I have a dog, sir,” Carter replied, indicating the balcony, which was firmly Lady’s palace. The dog in question was sleeping like she was dead, legs spread wide and her tongue lolling out.
Colonel Mike looked positively horrified at the mixed-breed mutt, which brought a grin to my lips. He was such a twat, and that reaction only confirmed it.
“Okay, Mike, let’s stop picking on the boys’ living arrangements, shall we?” Max suggested with a pointed stare. “Let’s sit and discuss what we came here to discuss, yes?”
“Can I get you a coffee, sir?” Heath offered, seeming to be fighting a laugh. “Or, um, water?”
“Sparkling water with lemon,” Colonel Mike responded, taking a seat in the living room as though it were his own home.
Dick. “I’ll get it,” I offered quickly. “You go sit, Heath. Tell Royce’s sperm donor the relevant information so he can get back to whatever he deems more important than his only son’s health and well-being.”
The guys all stared at me in some degree of shock, and I shrugged.
Was I laying it on a bit thick? Maybe. Okay, sure, yes, we wanted his help in dealing with Jocelyn’s insane experiment, but Jesus fucking Christ, just being in the same room as him was making my blood boil.
I could still remember how utterly broken Royce had been when Colonel Selfish didn’t turn up for Thanksgiving.
A man like that did not deserve my respect.
I took my sweet time refilling my coffee and pouring one for Royce before sorting out Colonel Mike’s water, then carried the drinks over to the living room, where Nate had taken the lead in outlining all the craziness that we could attribute to Jocelyn thus far.
Thank fuck no one was expecting me to tell the story again.
“There you go,” I announced, placing a glass down in front of Royce’s father. “Enjoy.”
He glanced down at the glass, then narrowed his eyes at me. I smiled back at him, silently daring him to comment on the lukewarm still water with a slice of apple I’d presented. He just drew a visible breath, then sipped the water and offered a tight, cold smile.
“Thank you,” he gritted out. “It’s exactly what I wanted.”
Rolling my eyes at his refusal to be baited, I placed my own coffee down and found a space to sit on the sofa beside Royce.
It was so tempting to sit in his lap, but as much as I wanted to irritate Mike, I didn’t want to cause Royce any additional stress.
He actually cared what his father thought of him, despite what a crappy father the guy was.
In light of that, I kept my mouth shut while Nate shared all the information, with small interjections from Carter and Heath. Once Nate finished, Max jumped in to explain what we’d already discussed around Jocelyn’s mental state and her obsession with my mom.
“That’s quite the story,” Mike said once he had the whole picture.
Anger bubbled up in my throat. “It’s not a fucking story, you patronizing dick,” I growled with exactly zero respect for him as an elder or an authoritarian. Fuck that, he was a deadbeat with a fancy title and lots of money.
Max shot me a stern glare, though, and that shut me up. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Sorry, Max ,” I corrected.
Colonel Mike just gave me a deadpan stare before shifting his focus back to the guys.
“After what Max already told me yesterday, I managed to gain some additional insights from my connections that seem to support elements of your story—enough that I do have reason to believe Jocelyn was receiving military funding, but that is currently in the process of being cut off due to her failure to deliver results.”
Great. That was just fucking great . Jocelyn wasn’t just a mad scientist with jealousy so severe it’d turned into an obsession—she was a mad scientist with funding. Or was.
“Colonel, should we be concerned that Jocelyn may start to act more erratically once she’s cut loose from the project? If she has nothing to lose…” Carter was raising good points. Thank goodness his head was clearer than mine was.
“You just leave Jocelyn to me, son,” Mike cut him off condescendingly. Twat-bucket.
“With all due respect, sir,” Heath replied, his voice barely concealing how concerned he was, “she’s directly targeting the five of us.
I almost died thanks to her manipulations, and Ashley has just escaped a forced stay in a psychiatric hospital.
She’s not playing games, and it’s literally our lives at stake. ”
Mike jerked a nod, glancing at Max as he answered. “Yes, I’m aware. We think the best option would be for the five of you to leave town for a bit, until the threat can be neutralized.”
Nate looked over at his dad and shook his head. “Nice try, but that’s not happening. You know full well that Layne won’t leave if Carina is in danger, and if she’s not leaving, then neither are the rest of us.”
Max just shrugged. “I told you,” he muttered to Colonel Mike.
Mike shook his head with a sigh. “Worth a try. Just try to stay out of trouble and let us adults handle things, okay? Go to class, pass your exams, don’t do anything stupid or reckless. Understood? Don’t you all have a Society event to plan for this weekend anyway?”
Nate ran a hand over his hair, clearly irritated, and Carter shot me a look that told me to keep my mouth shut. They wanted to wrap this conversation up, and I couldn’t argue with that.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Heath stood up, brushing imaginary lint off his pants. “We actually need to get down to Dominic’s Basement for a fitting this afternoon. Have you got all the information you need, sir?”
Colonel Mike thankfully recognized that as the dismissal it was and stood up himself. “Yes. I will be in touch if I need anything more, but I think we can have this handled without any further impact on your lives here.”
Both Mike and Max started to make their way toward the front door, but Royce pushed to his feet with a sharp inhale.
“Wait, there’s one more thing,” he said in a croaky voice.
It was the first time he’d spoken at all since we sat down.
“We’re pretty sure Mom was one of Jocelyn’s early test subjects. ”
Mike’s brows shifted with surprise, and it was the first time I’d caught any emotion other than irritation on his face. “You think your mother committed six murders under the influence of hypnosis?”
Royce nodded firmly. “If the combination of hypnosis and medication can push someone to commit suicide or, hypothetically speaking, set fire to a building without checking if anyone were inside, then yeah, I do think it’s entirely possible, and more than that, it makes sense .
You’ll agree if you let yourself consider the facts. ”
Colonel Mike stared at his son for a long moment, then jerked a short nod. “I’ll look into it. Remember what I said: let the adults handle this from here on out.”
As he and Max exited the apartment, I gave in to instinct and flipped both middle fingers to their backs. Mainly aimed at Mike. Total cuntasaurus, right there. Royce was one hundred percent better off not knowing the man.