"On a stupid impulse I went in and talked to the old guard watching the place. He told me his boss had a thing about keeping old recordings because he’d been robbed once and preferred to store everything. I slipped him some money and he let me dig through the old server footage."
Eugene rubs his knobby hands together with a dry crackle.
"By some miracle one of the cameras was pointed toward the road, the exact road that leads along the cliffs. I knew the moment my boys drove down that road, the exact minute their phones went dead, and… lo and behold, I saw him. A car with no bumper driving by. The same brand your boyfriend drove back then."
I force myself to stay calm, but my heart betrays me, beating faster. Eugene slowly stretches his mouth into an almost demonic smile.
"When they pulled my boys’ car out of the water, along with their rotting, fish-gnawed bodies, nobody cared about the dent in their rear bumper. They said it was too small to matter, nothing important… but not to me. I knew they were pushed off that cliff."
He sighs and tilts his head, his washed-out brown eyes studying me coldly.
"The police said that dent could’ve happened in any parking lot. But I didn’t buy it. I went over everything a thousand different ways. I know my boys set out to hurt him, and something went wrong along the way."
The fucker… I can’t take it anymore.
"Yeah. Your boys hurt him before; do you even care about that?" I burst out. "And what? After that they still wanted to kill their victim?" I spit the words because I can’t hold them back, I can’t believe this man is so warped he refuses to acknowledge even a shred of their guilt.
His jaw clenches hard.
"Do you know what happened to Kit and Matt after that stupid process? When they went to prison they were nineteen. They were young alphas." He leans toward me a little, eyebrows furrowed. "They were the ones who got hurt in there. Again and again."
A moment of silence settles.
Then I say slowly, choosing every word, "I hope you’re able to trace this whole mess back step by step to the very first thing that started it. When two of your grandsons tried to take my inhaler and my boyfriend simply said, ‘Don’t do that.’"
"That’s what he said? You forgot he also broke my grandson’s nose," he replies bitterly.
"So what? They paid him back. Kit and Matt beat him so badly he couldn’t go to school for three weeks. You remember that, right?" I growl even though I know it won’t help. "Or do you only remember your family’s suffering? What about Bay’s?"
"My grandsons paid for it, and paid hard. They went to prison for a year, and when they came back they were different. Young alphas become playthings for older inmates, it’s practically a prison tradition."
"Well, violence breeds violence. Everyone knows that. At some point they should stop, but… they didn’t. They tried to kill him, remember? It started with them and ended on them."
Eugene straightens his shoulders, his neck cracking unpleasantly as if bone spurs are shifting under the skin. The thick dark purple lines on his forearms don’t let me forget what kind of monstrous type of alpha he really is.
"For a moment I hoped you’d say you knew nothing about this, but looks like you know plenty, and that only makes my decision easier."
I mutter under my breath, because he baited me, twisting everything so I couldn’t help but push back.
"And what decision is that."
"You’ll find out everything soon enough. Be patient, Alex. It’s not like I’m holding anything against you. You weren’t the one who did all this. But you were the first domino, and you can still end up being a way to make him feel the pain he deserves."
"This is sick, and this is not going to end well," I mutter as I look around frantically, searching for something or someone or anything that could help me escape. But we’re alone, and the room is bare except for this horrible metal mortuary refrigerator.
"Do you know where Bay is now?" he asks slowly.
I take a deep breath because my heart is beating even faster, even wilder.
Eugene’s grayish face twists into a mocking smile.
"I honestly thought he’d be harder to catch, but no one is immune to sleeping gas, not even him. All it took was releasing a little of it inside his SUV and that was it."
"Where is he," I whisper, my teeth clattering so hard I barely understand my own words.
"In a temporary safe spot, before we start the show," he says with a dark smile.
A groan escapes me. "Let us go, please, I beg you, I swear we will not take revenge, just let us go."
