Chapter 24 #2
“Do not put your hands on me!” she yelled.
“Melody, Victor is twisted! Listen to me! You have got to listen! I first began to suspect the truth months ago. Sebastian was rambling about a fire. Saying it shouldn’t have happened…
I did some digging because I was all like…
what the fuck is he talking about? What fire?
And I found out that there was a horrible fire at a Mage factory in Alabama years ago.
It was ruled an accident, but—God, corners were cut!
Managers weren’t following safety protocols.
People died. Victor’s father was one of the people who died at the Mage factory! ”
A sharp inhale from Melody. “Victor?”
Fuck. Change of plans. The fuck now. Because his world had just exploded right in front of him.
“In the boardroom,” he snapped. Dario and Olivia had been far busier than he’d realized.
“I want Olivia in the boardroom.” Before she blurted out more secrets for even the freaking guards to hear.
“Get Dario in there, too. Now.” Because too many secrets were coming out, and if he wasn’t careful…
“Victor?” Melody said his name again. Confusion. Pain. Fear. Sorrow.
If he wasn’t careful, he’d be losing her.
The door to the boardroom closed quietly.
Melody rubbed her chilled arms. The big boardroom almost felt like—like a tomb to her.
It shouldn’t have. The place was gorgeous, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the city.
The middle of the room was dominated by what appeared to be a fourteen-foot conference table.
Leather chairs surrounded the oval table.
A Christmas tree—tall, white lights, green ornaments—waited in the corner to the right.
A little crowd had assembled in the boardroom. A glaring Dario. A tearful Olivia. A silent Victor. Calista and Luis waited just beyond the closed boardroom doors. Melody figured there were some things Victor didn’t want the guards to overhear.
She was almost afraid to hear the truth herself.
Victor loves me. He loved me a year ago. He loves me now. He wants to marry me.
“His only goal was to destroy Mage Industries.” Dario swiveled in his chair as he jabbed a finger toward Victor.
Her temples began to ache. Her gaze darted around the boardroom. The colors on the tree were wrong. The ornaments shouldn’t just be green. They should be a variety of colors. Red. Blue. And an angel should be at the top of the tree, not that red ribbon.
Her breath shuddered out. This place, this boardroom…
I’m done being your dirty little secret. She could almost hear those words. In her voice. Because they were—or had been—her words? From a different time?
“He holds Mage responsible for what happened to his father,” Dario continued as rage vibrated in his voice. “His dad died, his family fell apart, and the guy wound up shuffled around in foster care.”
Yes, Victor had been in foster care. He’d told her about that time. He’d told her about his father’s death, but she hadn’t realized his dad had been working for Mage. “Is it true?”
“My father worked for Mage.” Victor sat at the head of the boardroom table.
His hands gripped the armrests on either side of his body.
“He died when I was six. My family did fall apart, yes, my mother turned to drugs and alcohol. I got passed around to distant relatives and eventually wound up in foster care. All completely accurate facts.”
“See! See!” Dario crowed.
Olivia sniffled.
“He found out that Mage cut corners. Safety protocols weren’t followed like they should have been.” Dario slapped his hand down on the table.
Olivia jumped.
Melody didn’t move. Unlike the others, she wasn’t sitting. She stood near the tree, almost seeing two scenes in her head. This scene, with the angry group and another scene…another tree… another time…
Just her and Victor in that scene.
“You’re breaking my heart.” Again, her voice, whispering through her mind. A memory?
Olivia pushed back her chair. “Victor made it his mission to destroy Mage, by any means necessary. He got a job here. Worked his way up the corporate ladder. Manipulated your father. Manipulated you.” Pity flashed on her face. “You asked me if you were engaged to him.”
Had she asked? Melody thought she’d told the other woman they were engaged.
“I thought it was a joke, but the more I considered things, the more I realized—shit, it’s true. Only you don’t remember it, do you? The engagement, I mean?”
Melody felt rooted to the spot.
“If you are engaged, he tricked you,” Olivia informed her flatly. “Part of his effort to really screw over the Mage family.”
Her breath shuddered in and out. “Didn’t think you could break a heart that someone didn’t have.
” That voice running through her head—it wasn’t hers this time.
The voice—the words—had been Victor’s. He’d said those words to her, right in this very room, even as he looked at her with ice cold, dark eyes.
Melody’s hand rose and pressed to her chest.
“While you were gone, he took everything.” Dario surged to his feet.
Both of his hands shoved down against the top of the table.
“He doesn’t just have the business. He owns the estate.
The freaking cars. Hell, I think he even owns your home, Melody.
That’s what I was looking for in his office.
Proof. And I found it. Deeds, paperwork. He took everything.”
The drumming of her heartbeat seemed to echo in her ears. “Do you own everything, Victor?”
A curt nod from him.
And she had a flash of them. In this room…
“You have everything you ever wanted.” She’d worn a red dress, one that left her arms bare, one that fluttered near her knees. High heel shoes. Her voice had trembled with pain.
“The hell I do.” Victor’s voice. Hard and grim. As hard and grim as his expression. “But I will.” And he let go of her wrist.
He’d been holding her wrist as they faced off in this very room. Then he’d let her go.
Victor…he had everything now.
“Did you want to destroy Mage?” Melody asked through numb lips. All of her just felt numb.
“When I started, yes. All I wanted to do was rip the company to shreds.”
She flinched.
“He’s a bastard!” Dario declared. “But we’ll fight him, Melody. Take his ass to court and take back what belongs to us!”
Her head turned toward him. “How?”
Dario blinked.
“If he has the legal paperwork…if Sebastian signed the company over to him…if—if I was gone the last year and couldn’t stop anything…” OhGodohGodohGod…no, please no. She shook her head hard. No. Victor couldn’t have been involved in her disappearance. He could not have—
The boardroom disappeared. Darkness swam before her eyes, and suddenly, she was inside a vehicle. Back down in the parking garage. Gripping a black steering wheel and staring at the closed elevator doors.
“This is a gun, Melody. I can blow your brains out here and now, or you can start the damn car.”
Her hand flew to her temple because, just for a moment, she was sure that she’d felt the muzzle of a gun pressing against her.
“Victor sends his regards.” The man with the gun had said those words. Victor, who hadn’t come out of the elevator. Victor, who should have been there, but wasn’t. “Drive the fucking car.” An order from the man with the gun.
And, she’d driven…
Melody doubled over as pain knifed through her, cutting as savagely as any knife.
“Melody!”
Pain and betrayal coiled within her. Footsteps rushed across the boardroom floor.
“I have to get out of here.” Melody tossed back her hair and looked up just as both Dario and Victor closed in on her.
Both men looked worried. Victor, though…
Fury. It burned in his eyes.
“Dario, please,” she heard herself beg, “get me out of here.” Because she was going to be sick. Melody could feel the nausea and pain rolling within her.
Dario immediately nodded. “Yes, yes, come on. Let’s go.” He put his arm around her waist. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
“Get the fuck away from her,” Victor snarled.
Olivia flew for the door. She yanked it open.
Dario curled his body protectively around Melody’s. “My sister doesn’t want you near her.”
“She’s not your sister.”
“Fine, stepsister. Now back off. Melody wants out of here, and I’m getting her out. You know, I never trusted you. Never. Steamrolling into our lives. Always acting so perfect. Smug. Arrogant SOB. And I swear, if I find out that you had anything to do with Melody’s disappearance—”
“I didn’t!” Victor thundered.
Olivia jerked and gasped.
“I’m the one who has been fighting like hell to get Melody back while you just moved right on with your damn life!
” Victor snarled. “You and Olivia. You never looked for her. You never did shit but spend Sebastian’s money.
My money.” His words fired out with fury and—desperation?
“Melody, listen to me. Please. I didn’t tell you about my past because—”
“Because he wanted to fuck over our whole family,” Dario fumed as he pushed her toward the open door.
“Because I didn’t want to lose you!” Victor was right beside her.
She couldn’t look at him, though. Right then, she just hurt too much.
“No, because he didn’t want to lose his position,” Dario corrected.
“He didn’t want to lose his wealth. His power.
He didn’t want you telling Sebastian to throw his ass out of the company.
Sebastian would have done it. Of all the people in Sebastian’s inner circle, you are the one he always listened to.
You told him to go to the doctor—he refused when everyone else said he needed to be checked out.
But one word from you? He went. Done. That’s the way it always has been.
Sebastian bends the world for you.” His hold was tight on her.
“My poor sister, with no memory? Why the hell didn’t you just tell me?
It’s okay. I’m going to take care of you. ”
“You’re going to take your fucking hands off her.” Lethal.