Chapter 39 Everett #2
“This is one sentence you won’t get to finish.” I bang his head on the floor again. A low thud, and he’s silenced. Aurora chuckles. I get off on that sound. “And to your question. What’s in it for Winston fucking Clarke?”
“Yes?”
Winston’s face is inches away from mine.
Me and the man who took so much from Aurora and me.
“For the right price, anyone’s up for sale.” I offer him a smirk, which I hope will terrorize him for the rest of his life. “You know better than most, I’m sure.”
“You’re going to pay me for my secrets?” Hope twinkles in his eyes. “Gonna cut me a deal?”
“No.” I’m more than happy to snuff out his hope.
“What I will do is pay not one, not two, but ten inmates to become your new best friends in prison. By the first week, your asshole will stretch as wide as the Atlantic. Your organs will be irreparably damaged. No one’ll be there to stop them.
Even the prison doctor will be on my payroll. Unless you answer Aurora’s questions.”
At his ashen cheeks, my smirk widens. “No matter what I’ll tell you, you’ll keep me safe?”
“I never said that.”
The prick scowls. “No deal.”
“Best I’m willing to offer is solitary confinement. For you and your wife.”
He’s earned this. His sanity will be stripped from him when he’s locked up by himself. With no one to talk to for years.
“Fine. Fine. We have a deal.” He slams his hand on the floor, tapping out. Defeated. Pathetic. He might be thinking about cutting his own deals behind our backs. I’d like to see him try. By the end of this, he’ll be broke. A nothing. “Lotus came to my house—”
I shake him, growling, “Look at Aurora when you’re talking to her.”
“She came to our home one night. It was a few months after I married Molly.” He’s wise to do as I say and look at her. Aurora presses her body against mine. “It was late. Dark. I hardly recognized her. Hardly saw she was holding a baby in her arms. She cradled you in so many dirty fabrics.”
Regret hits me, burning through my body.
We could’ve done more for my sister. Could’ve told her how loved she was every waking hour. Maybe then she would’ve believed us.
We failed her.
No use. No point in wallowing in self-deprecation and misery.
What’s done is done. Sadly.
Holding on to Aurora matters. It’s the only thing that matters. I won’t fail her.
“Then I realized she was carrying you. When she told me you were mine, I could tell she wasn’t lying.
” His eyebrows scrunch at the pressure I’m putting on his throat.
As much as I hate the idea of letting him live, I loosen my grip.
“Lotus wasn’t like that. She was na?ve and trusting.
That was how she fell for someone like me. Why she was obsessed with me.”
“Careful,” I warn.
“Fine, fine. Let me just get it over with. During the Royalty meetings, she’d wait for me near the bathrooms. Every time I stepped out to take a call, she was there.
” His shrug is pathetic. “She was too young. I wasn’t interested.
But she kept insisting. It dragged on for a year before I snapped.
Told her I’d be in one of the bathrooms at the mansion once the adults left.
And from there…you know. Boys will be boys, and all that. Anyway—”
I let Aurora have that slap. It’s mild compared to the hell I’m this close to unleashing on him.
“She wasn’t lying. I matched our DNAs later, Aurora. However unnecessary it was. Though it wasn’t why I kept you.” The corners of his eyes crinkle. “My father married me off to Molly. Problem was, he didn’t bother checking if she was able to bear children or not. She wasn’t.”
“It’s not my fault,” she cries.
“Shut up,” I bark. Their marital problems are none of my concern. They’re free to resolve them later, in the back of the police car.
“My inheritance depended on me having at least one kid. Taking you was the perfect solution,” he continues.
“On top of that, adopting an orphan would’ve done wonders for our image.
The idea of selling her off as someone’s wife was another plus.
Perhaps to a senator or a high-ranking official.
Maybe use her to run for governor one day, if I played my cards right. ”
I can’t help it. I laugh. I laugh so fucking hard, because—seriously? I haven’t taken him for being delusional. Abuser? Yes. Rapist and murderer, that too.
This is another level of unhinged.
“You don’t think I could?”
“I think you’re a piece of shit,” Aurora growls at my side. Her fury is gorgeous. Blazing. Mine. “Finish the story, asshole.”
He snarls at her. “She had no place in my future. She begged me to come with her to her parents, to help her make things right. I won’t press charges, just tell them and the rest of the Royalty that we were foolish.
We made a mistake, and it wasn’t a big deal.
I can’t bear the thought of Mom, Dad, and Everett being the center of a scandal.
That’s what she asked of me. I lied to her and promised I’d help, inviting her inside to take a hot bath and have something to eat before we left.
While she was in the bath, I snuck in behind her. I strangled her.”
“You killed her here?” Aurora chokes on the words. Her hand claps over her mouth, her face turning green.
I’m equally repulsed by the idea, my stomach churning.
“Yes.”
“Here?” She looks around the room, then back at him, her face twisted in pain. “Where I grew up? I walked on the—God, fuck—my feet touched the floor where my mom’s body lay?”
“Again, yes.” No remorse. No sugarcoating his heinous crimes. “She handed you over to Molly, and I murdered her as soon as she had her back to us. I got rid of the body, hid you so your grandparents wouldn’t recognize you, and that was that.”
I’m not in control of myself. Of my fist, as it connects with his stomach over and over and over.
That was that.
That. Was. That.
He’s ruined five lives, and he has the audacity to say That was that?
“Everett.” Aurora jumps on me, hugging me from the side. Both her arms are wrapped around my shoulders, lending me the warmth I don’t deserve. “Everett, stop. I won’t let you go to prison for this. I won’t.”
That one small kiss to my cheek, and I can breathe again.
Sucking in air, I turn to look at her. Tears stream down her cheeks. Her pained gaze cuts me deep.
“We have our closure.” She strokes my stubbled jaw, her voice as unsteady as I feel. “It’s time for us to start healing. It’s time to move on.”
She’s right. So right that I bark for Randy to come.
Together, we watch him haul Winston and Molly out of the room, humiliated, pathetic, and done.
They’re done.
I can finally see my future, and it’s with this woman whose cheeks I’m cupping.
“Thank you,” she groans between one passionate kiss and another. “For finding me.”
“I’ll always find you.” I touch her everywhere my hands reach. The need to feel her beneath my fingertips is as urgent as a dead man’s last breath. “Wherever you go, wherever you are. I’ll always find you.”
“I believe you.” Pulling back, her forehead presses to mine. “I love you.”
“I love you too. With everything I have in me. Until my dying breath. You’re mine.”