That bitch needed killing more and more every day.
“You only have one vote,” Beck reminded him. “Unless of course you have something to tell us about the rest of Delta board.”
Graeme shook his head. “You let me worry about that. You just need to enjoy the fabulous meal.”
He clapped his hands and three waitstaff entered the room, clearly having waited for his signal. “Drinks for everyone,” Graeme said, sounding jovial. Bastard thought he’d gotten exactly what he wanted.
Beck ordered a scotch, and I shook my head, wanting nothing. “What if it’s drugged,” I said to Beck from the corner of my mouth.
He shook his head. “He won’t risk upsetting us. It will be fine.”
With a sigh, I asked for some water, trusting that Beck—the most suspicious person I knew—would tell me if I needed to worry.
Once we had our drinks, we made idle small talk until dinner was announced. I wondered if Graeme’s wife was going to join us, but she never appeared. When Beck commented on this, Graeme’s eyes lowered.
“She hasn’t taken Katelyn’s death well.”
I wondered if that was actually true. These wives of billionaires all seemed the same: beautiful, deadly, and fucking broken beyond repair. No doubt Mrs. Huntley had an addiction to pain pills, plastic surgery, and alcohol. At minimum. She probably didn’t even notice her daughter was dead.
Cynic of the year goes to…
Beck steered the conversation back to more pleasant topics, mostly about business and shares and stocks and bullshit I did not care about. I picked at my tiny little bird that was supposed to be food, but mostly freaked me out, all the while wishing we could escape.
Just when I was pretty sure I was about to lose my mind, a suited man entered the room and leaned down to hand Graeme a folder. There was an exchange of words I couldn’t hear, and then the man left.
Graeme rose to his feet. “Here’s your folder,” he said simply. “My manager felt it was safer than courier, so he had it delivered here.”
Beck and I were on our feet, too, moving around the long table toward him. I held my hand out, but Graeme didn’t give me the folder. “First thing,” he said, lifting his other hand. There was a single piece of paper on it—Beck took it from him.
He read through quickly before taking the proffered pen and signed his name at the bottom. Simple transaction that could net Graeme billions in money and incalculable power.
Only he’d be in jail and unable to reap any benefits, of course.
This had to fucking work.It had to, because otherwise, we were in big trouble.
Graeme handed the folder to Beck, and I tried very hard not to sucker punch him. Of course the misogynistic asshole would think that Beck needed to handle the “black files” because a silly little woman would not be capable. Beck must have seen the look on my face because he flashed me a slow smile and handed the folder over. I opened it to confirm we had the right information, flicking through until I found the flower images. She had been sent three bouquets, as far as I could tell, starting from innocent to one dripping in blood. I flicked over one more page and gasped. It was an image of Katelyn’s body, with a single black, bloodied rose on top of it.
“You have a photo of your dead daughter?” I asked horrified as I stared at the man across from us. “Why? How? There was no rose on her body; I would have remembered that.”
Graeme nodded. “It arrived the night she died. I wasn’t … here at the time, and the letter sat unopened on my desk for a few days. It came in an official looking envelope, with a return address that was traced to some abandoned lot in New York City. I did my due diligence in following it up, but there were no leads, so it simply went into the folder.”
I bared my teeth, hissing out words through them. “This should have gone to the fucking police!”
Graeme shook his head at me like I was an annoying brat. “The police have a tenth of the resources that I do. Besides, my daughter is already dead and nothing can bring her back. Taking this to the police would have only stirred up more trouble that we didn’t need on the eve of the vote.”
So callous. No thoughts about others being killed by this same person. Or about bringing his daughter’s killer to justice. He’d rather protect the Huntley name and not drag it through the mud any more than it already was.
With a huff, I swung around and marched toward the front door. Beck stayed behind for a few minutes, and I wondered what he was saying to Graeme. It really didn’t matter. We got what we were waiting for.
By the time Beck got out of the house, I was standing at the driver’s side of the car. “I need to drive,” I told him. It had been too long since I’d raced, and right now, my body was literally shaking at all the pent-up anger and fear inside.
He eyed me for a moment before nodding and unlocking the car. I slid into the Bugatti and Beck took the folder from me while I adjusted my seat. My eyes closed for a moment as I caressed the soft leather, breathing in the car scent. When I started her up, the throaty hum of the engine settled me even more, and a somewhat genuine smile crossed my face.
“We did it,” I said to Beck, turning so I could see him.
He nodded. “We got the folder, and set the vote in motion, but something about Graeme is bothering me.”
I snorted, shifting into gear. “Is it the fact he fucks his sister? Because that shit bothers me.”
