Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
Brooks
One minute, I was beating the shit out of Bellamonte, and the next, a swarm of Secret Service agents was shoving me through the heavy double doors of the Red Room.
I stumbled, caught myself against a red upholstered armchair, and immediately spotted Daphne across the room.
Adelina had positioned herself between Daphne and everyone else, one hand wrapped around Daphne’s bare arm.
I started to move toward her, but before I could cross the room, the doors flew back open. My father stormed into the room. Bellamonte and Cory trailed him.
Who the fuck invited Beavis and Butt-Head of Calira?
The doors slammed shut behind them.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” my father sneered, shooting a glance at the closed double doors before lowering his voice.
The room was fairly soundproof, but we were still dangerously close to the guests.
Bellamonte took the linen cloth Cory offered and dabbed at his mouth. Blood already stained the collar of his white dress shirt.
I winked at him, wishing I could’ve done more damage to his face.
I expected my father’s fury to land on me first. Instead, it went to Bellamonte.
“I’m going to have to make a call to the king over this,” he told him.
Bellamonte stepped toward him. “Mr. President—”
“No!” my father snapped, pointing toward the Secret Service agents lining the room. “You’re lucky I’m not having my Secret Service throw you out of the White House to become a public spectacle.”
“Your son is the one who punched me.” Bellamonte dabbed his split lip. “I didn’t lay a hand on him.”
“No, but you put your fucking hands on her!” I shoved away from the chair and headed straight for him.
Philip’s forearm hit my chest before I made it two steps.
My father pinched the bridge of his nose, careful not to knock his glasses crooked. “Of course,” he muttered.
“It’s sickening, the way you stick up for her,” Bellamonte sneered, no longer in my line of sight. “If someone had helped my father get shot, I wouldn’t be defending them.”
The room went so quiet I could hear the muffled music from the dinner through the double doors.
“Dad? What the hell are you talking about?” Cory asked. I heard the disbelief in his voice.
Philip stepped aside just enough to give me a view of Bellamonte. I nodded my thanks. His brows lifted in a warning look: look, don’t touch.
Bellamonte spat a bloody glob into the cloth and pointed straight at Daphne. “She planted a recording device in your office the night your son fucked her in the Oval Office … only days before you were shot. She helped those men put a bullet in your chest.”
“You lying piece of shit!” I roared before lunging toward him with everything I had.
A wall of Secret Service agents threw themselves into my path, slamming me backward into a table. A porcelain vase rattled so hard that one of the agents reached back to steady it while still holding me.
“I’ll tear your fucking throat out!” I screamed over the men.
I drove one shoulder into one agent, twisted free of another’s grip, and nearly made it around the table before a hand caught the back of my suit jacket. Then I saw my father.
He stood entirely still, staring Daphne down with pure venom. He believed Bellamonte.
I waited for Daphne to call Bellamonte a liar. To scream out her fucking innocence.
Instead, she broke down.
Her chest hitched on a startled breath as she choked back a sob.
She wouldn’t look at him.
Wouldn’t look at me.
All the air left my lungs, as if I’d been hit by a train.
“Is it true?” my father asked her.
“He’s lying!” Adelina stepped in front of Daphne like a shield.
“Shut up, Adelina!” he barked, looking straight past her at Daphne.
Adelina spun toward Daphne and caught both her hands. “Tell them, Daph! Tell them he’s lying!”
The girl who always had a comeback completely disintegrated in front of me.
Daphne stared down at the floor. A tear rolled off her jaw and disappeared into the pink sequins of her gown. Her tiara was now crooked.
Her silence answered the question better than any confession ever could.
She wasn’t crying because Bellamonte was lying.
She was crying because he wasn’t.
Secret Service agents were still holding me, but I no longer felt them. I just felt fucking numb.
No one said a fucking word.
Every smile. Every kiss. The night in the Oval Office.
All of them had been built on lies.
My world tilted on its axis as I realized that the Fawn I loved was the one who had helped put a bullet in my father’s chest.