Chapter Ten
TEN
Rocky
While most parents trained their children to “never take candy from strangers” and “always wear your seatbelt”—my parents would run drills where they’d accuse us of grifting.
I’ve practiced this scenario hundreds of times. But there’s a distinction here that I weigh carefully—Jake never called me a con artist.
I raise my brows. “A con artist? Phoebe?”
“I don’t know her real first name, but she goes by Graves.”
How the fuck does he know her last name? The wire is hot on my chest, and I wish I were back at the loft. She’s likely freaking out hearing that she got exposed, and I’m doing all I can not to burst a blood vessel in my neck.
This has never happened before to Phoebe.
Not once.
In the short pause, my phone vibrates in my leather jacket pocket. I dig it out and peek briefly at the message beneath the table.
Phoebe: WTF
Eyes on Jake, I text back without staring at the keys. Fuck him.
“Graves?” I act like he’s feeding me a bullshit story.
“I’m serious.” His expression is grim with the gravity of what he’s sharing. “She’s not who you think.”
I could laugh—because, really, who the hell does he think I am? But my face pulls in a painfully contorted frown. I’m going to have to borrow Oliver’s retinol cream after this. “I’d know if she were playing me.”
“You wouldn’t. She’s that good.”
Well, I hope Phoebe relaxes with that small kudos.
I have so many questions. How long has he known? How does he know?
Jake rests back and fists his beer. “She doesn’t go after regular people. She fleeces wealthy dirtbags who deserve it.”
And who exactly told him this? “Yeah?” I sound skeptical.
“I figured she got cold feet with you.”
I brush a hand through my hair. “With me?” I wrap my head around this. “She tried to fleece me?”
He skims my features, but my face isn’t conveying a semblance of truth. “I think she abandoned her plan.” He thinks. “Then she divorced you and tried to get away from you with Hailey. A friend she’d made when she was with you.”
“Oh, is my sister a con artist, too?”
He sighs at my mocking tone. “ No. Hailey knows nothing about what Phoebe does. She’s just as in the dark as you are.”
Don’t laugh.
Do not fucking laugh.
I force a brittle smile before taking a hearty swig of beer.
Jake explains, “Phoebe moved to Victoria for a fresh start with Hailey. And you followed her here.”
I swallow the pissy taste of Koning Lite.
He thinks I was Phoebe’s mark.
A scumbag.
An abusive scumbag. Hence, the instant lack of trust he’s had in me from day one. It wasn’t just my “grating” personality then, but I’m sure that only validated his suspicions about me.
My mind rapidly backtracks to our first meeting. Hailey, Phoebe, and I were waiting on the main street for Jake to unlock the door to the stairwell. So he could give the grand tour of the loft. Once he emerged, I tried to read him, but I couldn’t get a good grasp of his intentions at all.
I didn’t understand the intensity with which he checked out Hailey from head to toe. Or how he did the same to Phoebe, too. I concluded that he was an uptight, snobby prick who was judging his tenants based on their appearance. That’s why he was trying to get a good look at them.
I was wrong.
He was casing them.
He must’ve known before they even arrived that one was a con artist.
“You don’t think I just followed her,” I correct him. “You think I stalked her here.”
Jake expels a resigned breath. “I don’t know what the truth is there.”
He is throwing darts in a pitch-black closet, and he doesn’t even realize the lights are off. Being kept this far in the dark—where you can’t crawl your way to the truth—it’s not a pleasant spot to be in. It’s where I’ve never wanted to be, but it’s where I currently am when it comes to a huge portion of my life, my childhood.
Jake is giving me the type of honesty I wish my parents would. He really has more to lose by showing me his cards, but he’s taking the risk anyway.
Blind faith in someone you barely trust.
It’s dumb as fuck, and yet, I admire his ability to try.
Because if I don’t extend the same honesty to him, am I any better than the people who raised me? I could open the door and let him see the light. Or I could keep him in the dark.
And protect the people I love.
Yeah.
I’m not spilling shit. “Phoebe told you all of this?” I ask a question I already know the answer to.
“No.” Guilt pinches his Abercrombie-model face. I sincerely wish it made him look ugly. He twists the beer bottle in his hand. “She…she doesn’t know I’m aware of what she really does for a living. I’m a little terrified of telling her because she’s been helping me and I’ve been lying.”
Oh, she knows now, sweetheart.
She’s also been lying to him.
We both have been. So weighing the scales of morality when they’re heavy with lies? Not our thing. No one is the better person here.
“The plan was to come clean soon,” Jake professes, “but you’re trying to cut the con short, so I need you to get on board first. I think there’s a way we can all work together that’ll benefit each of us in the end.”
My head pounds. “Who told you about Phoebe? How do you even know they’re a credible source?”
“I just know.”
“That’s too vague, Jake.”
“Yeah, I thought you’d say that.”
“Because you know me so well,” I quip, stuffing a hand back in my jacket.
His attention veers to his Rolex again. “He’s actually on his way.”
My father. Did he expose Phoebe? Makes no sense. It wouldn’t benefit him. And he wants us to leave Connecticut.
Jake clearly wants Phoebe to stay.
I down another gulp of piss beer.
“I know, it’s a lot,” Jake says, consoling me like he’s petting a kitten and not a brown recluse. It’s a little insulting he thinks I’m na?ve enough to be played by my ex-wife.
And then I hear an old song. It’s muffled in Jake’s peacoat, but once he retrieves his phone, it blares more distinctly throughout the galley.
“The Boys Are Back in Town.”
Before he answers the call, the sound of footsteps swerves our attention to the entryway. Blood pulses in my ears, and my muscles flex. I force myself not to reach for my gun yet.
“Knock knock!” a male voice echoes toward us. “Anyone home? Ah, I love this song!” His accent sounds English. East London, maybe. The familiarity explodes an ember of anger inside my chest. I grind down on my emotions until they’re dust.
First thought: I’m going to kill him.
“In the galley!” Jake calls out.
My fingers twitch on instinct, even as my pulse slows into a calm, alert rhythm. I take off my Rolex, which feels like a thousand fucking pounds on my wrist.
The thump thump thump of feet headed our way dials up my vigilance.
Jake stands to greet his source, and as soon as a guy in his late twenties saunters into the galley, I try to pretend he’s no one I’ve seen before.
He’s very tall—well over six-three, Black, built like a pole vaulter, and dressed sharp in a black houndstooth twill suit like he might attend the funeral, too. He has dark brown eyes the same color as his skin, short-buzzed hair, a squared jaw, and a charming smile that I’ve been the recipient of once or twice.
“Carter,” Jake says with a smile and hugs his old boarding-school buddy.
Fucking Carter . Our forger. We rely on others to keep their mouths shut, and they rely on us to do the same. It’s a very, very small network of like-minded criminals, and he entered the fold when I was eighteen.
Seven years later, and he sold out Phoebe.
Fury flares inside me, but I’m burying it so far down.
“Jakey,” Carter says warmly, slapping Jake’s arm with lighthearted mirth as they retract from a friendly hug.
Jake smiles brighter. “It’s good to see you. It’s been too long.”
“We won’t make a habit of it now, will we?” He grins. Jake grins back, as if there’s an inside joke there. The song cuts off when Jake ends Carter’s phone call, and that’s when they both rotate toward me.
I raise my beer to Carter in greeting. “Grey Thornhall,” I introduce myself.
His face fractures in a flash of confusion. “Mate, you can’t be serious. He wants to work with you, and trust, you’ll want to work with him, too. And this’ll be a hell of a lot harder if I got to go about lying to my oldest friend.”
Jake frowns at him. “Lie about what?”
“ Oldest friend?” I ask.
Carter swings an arm over Jake’s shoulder. “Roommates grades seven through twelve. We survived Faust Boarding School together. We’re bonded for life.”
Jake smacks a hand to his chest. “We’d be more bonded if you stopped by more often.”
“Places to be. People to see.” Carter plops down on the cushioned seat beside me. I wish he’d sit five fucking hundred feet away. The urge to punch him is a desire I’m wrestling with. He reaches for my beer like we’re besties, but I pull away.
“You mean passports to forge,” I add bitterly. “Papers to counterfeit.”
Jake freezes midway into taking off his own peacoat. “You two know each other?”
“You know about his extracurricular activities?” I question with furrowed brows. What the fuck?!
“Yeah, of course,” Jake says. “He was counterfeiting money in school.” He pauses, then decides to share, “And he helped get Kate a new name, a new passport. She lives in the countryside in France. Once I pay you back for her horse, I’m hoping to send her Bowie.”
I want to inwardly groan, but I’m thrown at how much Jake is sharing. He’s hoping I’ll do the same, but the truth is glued to the roof of my mouth.
Carter claps his hands. “Koning, grab me a Koning, would ya?” He nudges my shoulder. “I love being able to say that.”
“You’re in a good mood for someone who just signed their death warrant,” I tell him coldly.
He gives me a look. “Who’s going to kill me? You?” He blows a raspberry. “Bruh, try to find someone who can make a better fake. I’ll wait.”
Jake doesn’t move toward the fridge. He folds his peacoat over the granite counter. “Is no one going to explain this?” He waves a hand from Carter to me like it doesn’t compute.
I take a bigger swig of beer. I’m on the bow of the Titanic and I see the black depths of the water ready to pull me under.
All because I trusted Carter.
I’ve never blown my own cover to anyone. I can’t even will the words to do it now.
“You think he needs to know,” I say to Carter, “then you tell him.”
Carter gives me an annoyed look like I’m the asshole. “You can trust Jake.”
“I don’t even think I can trust you anymore,” I snap at him.
Carter shakes his head, a flash of genuine hurt crossing his face. “You think it’d be better if I gave your sister a brochure to Antarctica?” he questions. “I know Victoria. I know the people here. I know Jake. Here I was, thinking if she wanted to risk pulling away from your parents, it’d be better to do it in a place with allies.”
He had a hand in this? He purposefully sent Hailey to Victoria? “Did you also give her a link to Jake’s loft?”
“I said it was a good place to rent. I knew the landlord.”
So it wasn’t random. This place. He led her here, knowing Jake would be here.
Does he also know why our parents wouldn’t want us in Connecticut?
I shake my head repeatedly. “Why not be up-front about it? What’s with this layer of deceit?”
“I was honest with Ailey.” His accent drops the H of my sister’s name and pretty much every other word with the letter. “Just didn’t tell her everything about Jake. Just like she never tells me everything about anything. We’ve got a system. It works. I knew she wanted a fresh break. She knew I had ties to Victoria.” He nudges my arm. “I even tipped you off that she’d be coming here so you could join her, too. Though, I think she knew I’d do that.” He grins. “Ailey’s too smart for the likes of us, really.”
I can’t picture their reactions at the loft. Nova is probably cursing at his steering wheel, though.
I knew my sister reached out to Carter to get new licenses for their new start. I didn’t know he was the one to suggest Victoria.
When my phone buzzes again, I’m more careful to check the text with Carter beside me.
Phoebe: Hailey is confirming his story. It’s all true.
She’s fast with another message.
Phoebe: Don’t be upset at her. She didn’t think it was something we needed to know.
Hailey withholding more than I assumed—it’s not an earth-shattering revelation. It’s not the first time she’s thrown us crumbs when she has the whole loaf of rotten bread. I can’t even be angry. Not when it’s what she was taught to do.
Give selective information to us.
She was our mom’s little protégée in planning and logistics, and she worked closer with the godmothers than she did with me and Phoebe. Now I wonder if they kept her close because they were afraid she’d figure out what they’ve done.
Unable to type out a lengthy response, I send a thumbs-up emoji.
Then I run a hand through my hair while Jake passes his friend a beer. He’s waiting patiently for his turn for answers. It’s almost annoying how, even under this amount of mindfuckery, he’s not bum-rushing to cut the line for an explanation.
I look from Jake, then back to Carter. “You didn’t send Hailey here to help her and Phoebe. You sent her here to help your oldest fucking friend.”
“Not true,” he defends. “Ailey reached out to me first. Then I called Jake and let him know who he’s renting to.”
Jake takes a seat across from me. “Carter explained that two girls were coming to town, and they were looking to rent the loft above the bookstore. He said their names were Hailey and Phoebe. He said one, or maybe two, but possibly just one was a con artist who screws over dirtbags.”
I make a face at Carter. “One or maybe two or possibly just one?” I repeat.
Jake answers, “Carter can be elusive about the truth, and I’ve always understood that he can’t tell me things outright. That I need to find the answers myself.”
Carter slides me a smile. “And you said I wasn’t trustworthy.”
“Just because you failed to give him all the information doesn’t mean you didn’t leak like a sieve,” I retort.
Jake frowns, his interest shifting between me and his friend like he’s trying to discover a new answer in a hidden temple. He rolls up the sleeves of his black button-down. “At first I thought the grifter was Hailey,” he admits, “but then getting to know them more, I was sure it was Phoebe.”
“And then what?” I snap back. “You saw her as someone to use?”
“I honestly didn’t even think about faking a relationship with her. Not until she mentioned it. Then at the clambake, the opportunity came to tell my mother we’re dating, and yeah, I took it. Carter didn’t bring Hailey and Phoebe here for my gain. It was genuinely for theirs, because he knew I’d take care of them in this town. I have influence and money and authority. But I did see a way Phoebe could help me, and I can’t let go of that.”
He can’t let go of her.
I clench my jaw.
Jake studies the surface of me. Uncertainty in his eyes. “Carter never told me you were coming. You were rich, confrontational, an asshole. So when Phoebe said you were divorced, I assumed you must be her dirtbag mark, so obsessed with her that you stalked her to Victoria.” He scans me again. “Up until five minutes ago, I still believed that.”
I smile dryly. “Belief is funny like that. Whoever wields it has the most power.”
He looks right at me. “So who are you?”
I tip my head to Carter and raise my brows. I won’t say it.
Carter finally relents and says, “He’s the guy pretending to be the dirtbag to fleece other dirtbags.”
Jake’s face steels itself. “You’re a con artist, too?”
I force a smile in confirmation. Then I lean forward, my lips slowly turning down with my emerging glare. “I’m not her mark. I’ve known Phoebe since I was a child. I’ve known her my entire fucking life .”
He careens back like I shoved him. “That’s why…” He closes his mouth, realization washing over him like he’s seeing the leaves on the tree for the first time. “You came here to look out for them.”
“Accurate. For once.”
Jake laughs, looking stunned. “It’s almost unbelievable.” He’s staring at me like I’ve changed shapes. Square to octagon.
“Don’t get excited. I’m still an asshole.”
He’s still smiling. Though, it softens.
“You never saw it?” I ask him. “Even knowing Phoebe is a con artist, you didn’t think I could be one, too?”
“Honestly, no,” he says. “I thought you were too unfiltered and unhinged to be one.”
A laugh rumbles out of me. With Jake, yeah , maybe I have been those things. I never would’ve thought it’d help protect my identity.
Jake sizes me up. “I would think you’d be a little more…stoic, I guess.”
“Con men aren’t going to look like ice-cold killers. We’re going to look like the people you surround yourself with every single day. So when we appear, you won’t realize that we’ve crawled into your foundation. Just to tear it all apart.”
He’s processing with a slow nod. “So you’re not rich?”
“I’m rich.”
“He’s rich,” Carter asserts. “Self-made millionaire, this one.” He shakes my shoulder.
I jerk so his arm falls off me, and I scoot farther away.
Carter tsks. “Sensitive, are you, now? I won’t touch.” He tells Jake, “He has a skin thing.”
“It’s not a skin thing.” I internally groan.
“Sensitivity issues. Gets a little—” Carter makes a brrr motion.
“Would you shut up?”
Carter grins. “You love me, come on.”
I pinch my eyes.
“You’re rich by stealing,” Jake concludes.
I drop my hand to the table. “Is it really stealing if they willingly give it to me?” I toss my head side to side. “But…” Yeah. I don’t exactly confirm out loud.
Jake stares off for a long beat. “And Hailey?”
“Also a grifter,” Carter says so casually that I slide him a deeper glare. He ignores it.
Jake dazedly rubs his mouth. “What about the triplets? And your brother?”
“Nova, Oliver, Trevor,” Carter says, “are the names you currently know them by. All grifters.”
“Damn.” He rocks back again. “I would’ve never known.”
“Okay, Stuart,” I snap at the guy beside me.
“It’s Carter,” he reminds me with a flash of a smile.
“Stuart Cartwright.” I say his full name now. “What is this? Your version of recruitment? Bring Jake Waterford into the family business? He has morals . He’s not cut out for this. Leave him alone.”
“See, mate, that’s how I know he’s perfect for this,” Carter tells me. “When have you ever tried to protect someone who didn’t belong to one of two families?”
I don’t feel great that Carter knows this about me. We’ve had phone calls that’ve lasted five seconds to two hours. He ribbed me about why I needed a new marriage certificate and divorce papers with Phoebe, but he wouldn’t pry, knowing I couldn’t involve him. We always talk less about the details of a job and more about our personal affairs.
How are your parents doing, Carter? Still living the single bachelor life? Are you liking Manchester?
Over the years, he’s understood that I hate everyone I’m around. Except my family and Phoebe’s. That’s it for me.
That’s why I’m here.
I’ve known Jake for three months. I could ditch him in an instant. That’s not love.
My teeth ache from grinding down on them. “Or maybe I don’t want a liability.”
“Is he one?” Carter asks. “His family owns half the town you’re in, and your sister wants to make a permanent residence here.”
We could go anywhere. That’s not true anymore. Most of us want to stay in Victoria. I physically twist more toward Carter. “Why do my parents want us out of Connecticut?”
For the first time, Carter is puzzled. “Didn’t realize your parents had an issue with this state.”
“Who are his parents?” Jake asks him.
“Tinrocks. Addison and Everett.”
I tip my beer at him. “When did you become a name-dropping whore?”
“Only for my oldest friend,” Carter says, but his grin has vanished. He’s thinking.
“Tin rock ?” Jake is staring at me. “That’s where your nickname comes from?”
“No.” I turn back to Jake. “My father hated my name, but Phoebe kept using it, which made Hailey and the others use it. So my parents decided that our last name would incorporate rock in the event that people overhear them calling me Rocky. They wanted it to make fucking sense, and I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”
Jake’s frown deepens. “Rocky,” he contemplates. “But what’s your real name?”
“That is my real name.”
“Your birth name,” he clarifies.
“I don’t know,” I say, almost under my breath. Why am I sharing this?
Jake seems caught off guard. “You don’t know the name you were given at birth?” His voice is nearly a whisper, as if he, too, understands the damage.
“Connecticut.” Carter draws our attention away from each other and onto him. He’s waking from his deeper thoughts. “I’ve never made a fake for them from this state. But I know they’ve been here before.”
“How?” I ask.
“They got my contact through my mum and dad. Both my parents are bit of sharks, ya know. Best of the best in Fortune 500s, wheeling and dealing, and they’ve known I am good at making fakes. Said it’s a God-given talent . I love ’em for that, so they’ve always passed my name along to their friends.” He takes a tense beat. “Which is how I got to know Addison and Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth?” Jake asks.
“Graves,” Carter explains. “Mum to the triplets. Their dad got locked up years back for fraud.”
I blink hard. This is really fucking happening. I’m on edge because Jake hasn’t given enough in return. But he could give me his firstborn, a kidney, and a kneecap, and it still wouldn’t feel like enough.
“Thing is,” Carter continues, “my dad grew up here. We all lived in Victoria before they moved us to Stratford. I don’t remember much. I was just a toddler at the time, but it’s why Jake and I got on so well when we first met at Faust and part of why I came back for the Wolfe funeral. My parents wanted me to pay our respects as a family. They couldn’t cancel their business meetings to make the flight.”
So Carter is in town for the funeral, too.
With his arms crossed, he holds his chin in thought. “I’m almost positive Mum told me she met Elizabeth and Addison in Connecticut.” He points. “Yeah, that’s how she knew ’em. I don’t know how long they were here or what they were doing. It was before me, mate, but they’ve been here. At least once.”
They don’t want us in Victoria, but we only came here because of Carter. We only know him because of a connection they made from years past in a place that’s suddenly off limits.
They’re getting caught in their own web.
“Where are they now?” Carter wonders. “The godmothers and godfather?” He angles his head to Jake. “That’s their code for their parents.”
I have a splitting migraine. “I don’t know,” I lie. Evading on instinct. It’s ingrained down to the bone. Do not blow their covers. Do not incriminate yourself or others. Do not tell anyone what we really do. And even now, when I wish the plague and eternal hell upon my mother and father, I’m still protecting who they are and what they’ve done.
My phone buzzes.
This text isn’t from Phoebe. It’s from a burner phone.
Tell them everything.
The black heart emoji is Hailey’s signifier. We each picked one out when we were teenagers.
Even knowing my sister withholds information from us, I trust her with my life, but she hasn’t slept in fuck-knows how long. So, yeah, I’m hesitating to take direction from Miss Sleep Deprivation.
“Your parents are con artists,” Jake realizes. “And they raised you doing… this ?”
Before I can respond, another quick text vibrates my palm.
They can help us.
I don’t disagree. But Carter is also their forger, their contact. In my head, he is no more loyal to us than he is to them.
Carter’s phone pings. His brows do a weird crinkle. “Huh.” He looks up from the message. “Your little brother just sent me a middle finger.” He laughs, his charismatic grin filling the whole galley. “Is he listening in? Are you wearing a wire?”
I pull down the neck of my shirt to show it taped to my sternum. “Say hi.”
Jake bows to me with eagerness. “This is great—we can bring them in.” He’s a puppy that just saw a bone, and I want to take it away. I can’t tell if I’m being protective or petty.
“Hi, Ailey!” Carter calls out. “Miss you, hugs and kisses. Let’s grab a bite while I’m in town, yeah?”
“Bring them into what?” I ask Jake.
“You all go after bad people, right?”
“A ‘bad person’ is subjective. To many out there, we are the bad people.”
He isn’t tearing away from my gaze. “You’re the insidious ones who take from those who abuse their power.”
“Not always. We’re not fucking Batman. Sometimes we just take because there are easy marks.”
“Am I an easy mark?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not actively conning me, though. Why?”
Maybe I am , I could lie.
I grind my jaw, struggling to be anything but honest with Jake Waterford. Ever since I first met him, it’s been unnatural deceiving this upstanding, morally driven, do-the-right-thing Abercrombie model.
He is right in one sense.
The six of us try not to fuck over people like him, and as much as his hero antics annoy the shit out of me, he is that . Good. Protective. Caring.
“They genuinely like you,” I tell him. “Phoebe. Hailey. Even Nova. But what we think about a person’s character means less to our parents. They wouldn’t care about you. You’d either be the main mark or a poor bystander getting fucked by association.”
“They call the shots? Your parents?” Jake wonders.
“They’re pulling away from them,” Carter answers first after a sip of beer. “Ailey didn’t say why. Just that she and Phoebe needed distance after a bad job. Hence, the fresh start. ’Bout time, if you ask me. Their parents sank their claws in deep. I’ve wondered when they’d tear them out.”
Could he be on our side then?
Hope.
It’s so foreign, it feels like a tumor in my chest.
Jake focuses back on me. “Your parents don’t want you in Victoria, but you want to make a new life here,” he says, seeing our goals in bright Technicolor now. “A safe life after all the crimes you’ve committed, everything you’ve done and maybe still plan to do. What if we can achieve that together?”
I’m suspicious.
Doubtful.
Cautious.
“How?” I ask. “With your so-called influence?” I sit forward, closing in on him. “You don’t own this town. Your mother does, and even then, you’re not the firstborn or even the second born. You are the third-born errand boy to your mother and brothers. You take care of the leftovers. The real estate. The rentals. The country club. You are nothing more than a gopher to them.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he retorts. “How they treat me—it’s not even why I hate them.”
I nod. “You already told me they were controlling toward Kate. That they suffocated her to the point where your sister tried to take her own life.”
“It’s even more than that,” Jake professes. “You don’t know my family. You can’t even imagine what they’re capable of.”
“I’ve been around hundreds of people just like them my entire life. I think I can crack a fucking guess.”
“Then you know they shouldn’t have this much control over an entire town. There are good people here who get bulldozed and abused all the time by them.”
“That’s life.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” Jake is grasping for an ideal world. “I’ve watched girls be torn down by my mother for too many years. Most especially the ones she sets me up with. And the greatest effect I’ve ever had stopping it was Phoebe.”
My jaw aches from gritting on my molars. I shake my head profusely. “Your mother hates Phoebe for accidentally dumping a glass of champagne on her dress and being whiplashed at your sudden ‘relationship’ with her.” I use air quotes. “What do you think happens to Phoebe at the end of this? Because you can’t protect her from a woman who overrides you in every way, Jake.”
“Help me then.”
“Help you what?”
“Take control.” He rests his forearms on the table, closing in on me now. “Trent stands to inherit everything . The land, the brewing company, the money, all assets. It sickens me. Knowing he’s what my family’s centuries-long legacy is going to boil down to. It can’t end up with someone like him. It shouldn’t even be with someone like my mother.”
“You want to be sole heir,” I realize.
“I want it all,” he confirms. “If there’s a way to push my mother off the board of directors for Koning, and push Trent off, it’d leave me as the most prominent voice. And then I slowly take everything else from them. The cars. The estate. The inheritance. Until there is nothing left.”
He’s not looking to backstab them. He wants to slit their throats. I arch my brows, almost impressed. “You want to leave them destitute?”
“I’d rather have them behind bars, but I’ll take what I can get.”
Yeah.
I feel that. Deeper in my soul than he knows. Because if I could put my parents in the slammer without also joining them, I’d do it.
“What you’re hoping for,” I tell him, “is a miracle. You’re not even close to being first in line. You have two older brothers.” I’ve never met the oldest, but I listen around town. “The way women talk about Trent—they act like he’s Koning Jesus .”
“It’s what he likes people to believe. In fact, I’m not entirely sure he doesn’t also believe it about himself.”
Easy to manipulate. Hard to be around.
I don’t tell Jake that. “And your other brother? He’s desperate for validation from your mother. I’ve seen him practically slobbering at her feet.”
“Jordan is…inconsequential, for lack of a better word. My mother doesn’t take him seriously.”
I widen my eyes. “Great. Now we can just give you a pat on the back and push you ahead of the firstborn favorite and the woman already in power.” I add more seriously, “It’s not that easy.”
“I didn’t think it would be, but with Phoebe, there’s a chance. My mother feels most in control when she can toy with women to manipulate me, but Phoebe won’t bend to her wishes. It makes my mother angry, and her real nature is more likely to come out.”
Her real nature? What heinous things has she even done before?
“You want to blackmail her?” I ask.
“That’s exactly what I want to do. We can record her. Use the damning evidence against her. We can do the same to Trent. Maybe my father, too, if he gets in the way, but I doubt he will. He spends most of his time traveling. He’s never been considered a part of the Koning inheritance. He’s not even on the board. He signed a legal agreement that says he’ll get a small amount upon divorce or her death, and nothing more.”
In this moment, all I can think about is Phoebe. Of what this would mean for her, for us.
I rake two hot hands through my hair.
Jake must read the slight anguish cinching my face. “I know it’d extend the time I’m fake dating Phoebe, but if I end up with this kind of power, I can offer it to you, too. You can stay in this town. You can make a home here, and I’ll protect you. Even if it’s from your parents, if that’s what you want or need. I can pay them off. I can keep paying them off indefinitely.”
He’s offering me freedom.
In a way, I’m also the key to his.
A life without living under the control of our manipulative mothers. A life that’s mine. Not theirs.
It’s what I’ve always wanted.
But I’ve also always wanted to have Phoebe—for her to be mine.
The idea that she could continue to be his (even in a fake capacity) isn’t making me want to clink beers and sail into the fucking sunset. But it also wouldn’t be the first time I hated a piece of a job.
I’m expecting Phoebe and my sister to text their opinions.
When none come, I shove my phone in my leather jacket. “This is a long con,” I tell Jake. “It’s massive, even for us.”
Carter smiles as he says, “For a job that big, you’ll need all of them, mate.” And that’s when I realize, they’re here.
It’s relief and worry, seeing each person I love enter the galley and this fucked-up mess.