How the hell she’d managed to pull the wool over Richard’s eyes all those years ago, I had no idea. In my eyes, she was a snake just waiting to strike. But for what end game? For all accounts she seemed to despise her family more than anything. Was she trying to use Delta’s power to take Huntley down? If so, she should be more up front. We’d happily help, especially if it gave me a shot at punishing Katelyn for this revolting attack on Riley.
Almost as if my thoughts had summoned him, my phone buzzed with an incoming call.
Beckett Sr.flashed across my screen and my thumb hovered over the “decline” button for a moment before my better judgement—or years of brainwashing—set in and I answered the call.
“Sir?” I snapped, putting the phone to my ear as I crossed the road to where my Bugatti—Riley’s dream car—was parked. I’d always loved this car, but knowing it turned her on so hard gave it a whole new lease on life in my garage.
“Heard you have been making waves, Son,” my father stated, his voice cold and devoid of emotions. “I taught you better discretion than this.”
It wasn’t a question by any stretch, but I knew when to reply, and when to keep my mouth shut. This was the former.
“Yes, sir. You did.”
My father grunted an annoyed sound. “This girl, the Deboise throwaway. She’s causing too much trouble.”
Ice formed down my spine and bile churned at the deeper meaning of his casual statement. Rome Beckett didn’t tolerate trouble, and he was a hundred times more trigger happy than I was. Growing up, I’d seen more bloodshed than most retired war vets saw their entire careers. If Beckett Sr. perceived someone to be interfering with business, he would have them killed or do it himself.
“She had nothing to do with it,” I forced myself to say with careful neutrality.
My father barked a harsh laugh. “Oh no? You didn’t publicly put a slew of kids—from influential families, I might add—in the ICU to save her getting a solid fucking? What, you can’t share your toys any more, Sebby? I remember a time—”
“It was nothing to do with her,” I barked, cutting off his disgusting reminiscing. “She was just a pawn that Katelyn Huntley chose to get at me.”
There was a long pause, then my father made a thoughtful sound. “Huntley, eh? You’re sure this was one of their stunts?”
I hesitated in my answer just a second. Riley had been confident this was Katelyn’s doing, and I agreed. “Yes, without doubt.”
“That still begs the question how they knew you’d react so violently at this little attack on that Deboise slut.” His insult of Riley made me want to throttle him, but I settled for strangling my steering wheel instead. “You’ve clearly got something going on there, Son.”
Threats underscored his seemingly innocent words, and I knew Riley’s fate hung on how I reacted … but I couldn’t do it. Ignoring her at school the past week had damn near killed me and then to find those fuckers all over her, trying to defile her … nope. No more.
“You listen carefully, old man,” I told my father in a deathly quiet voice. “You lay one finger on Riley, you make one more thinly veiled threat against her, and I will personally see to you getting skinned alive. After all, you know I havethatskill, don’t you, Dad?”
Tension lay thick in the long silence after I delivered my threat, and I scarcely dared to breathe. I had never,neverthreatened my father.
Fuck. I’ve just signed Riley’s death certificate. I need to get her to run… hide…
The explosive laughter down the phone shocked me back to reality, and I pulled the phone away from my ear for a second, double checking it was still Rome Beckett on the other end.
Eventually, my father stopped laughing long enough to speak. “I see how it is, Son,” he chuckled, sounding like he hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. Hell,I’dnever heard him laugh like that. “Sounds like this little girl has more under the surface than we saw from the pathetic creature who cried while shooting that Huntley scum. I’ll be keeping an eye on this interesting development.”
The line clicked and went dead before I could respond, and I smashed my fist into the steering wheel.
“Fuck!” I yelled, thankful for the privacy of my heavily tinted windows so passersby couldn’t see my loss of control. “Fuck, fuck,fuck!”
I threw my phone onto the passenger’s seat—Riley’s seat—and it bounced onto the floor.
Shit.
My reckless threat had an even worse result than I’d first feared. My father no longer wanted to kill Riley … he wascuriousabout her. This was much worse.
I drummed my fingertips on the leather of my steering wheel, staring out the windscreen and debating my next moves. Take Riley and run? I knew Richard had fake IDs made up for her, I’d found them when snooping his office one night. Knowing Richard, they’d be immaculate forgeries … but he was still Delta. And Delta—right now—was firmly under Rome Beckett’s thumb.
Not for long, though.
My father was becoming less and less interested in Delta day to day, to the point where he was already handing over part of his responsibilities to me. I wasn’t dumb enough to think he was just prepping me to take my seat in a few months when I turned twenty-one. He was up to something.
A flash of blonde hair grabbed my attention, and anger boiled inside me.
