What is happening.
“I…” I swallow. “I don’t?—”
“Your little boyfriend and I have…an arrangement.” His eyes darken as he raises a hand and gingerly fingers his brow next to the bandage. “His recent uninvited visit notwithstanding,” he mutters.
“Arrangement,” I say flatly.
He smiles. “I think you’re familiar with the complicated relationship sons sometimes have with their fathers, yes?”
My mouth tightens.
“Our arrangement was mutually beneficial,” he shrugs. “Vaughn wanted control of the Knightsblood board. I wanted to assume a throne my father wasnevergoing to give me.”
“Why wouldn’t your father?—”
“Because he was trying to kill me.” Andrés says crisply. “Now, factor in that my father was responsible for the death of your boyfriend’s mentor, Stellan Lourde, and Vaughn and I came to an easy understanding. He’d help me fake my own death to slip out from under my father’s all-seeing gaze and be free to put my own plans into action. With me gone, he’d get his seat on the board. And when the time came, I’d even let him pull the trigger on my father, for vengeance’s sake.”
My mouth drops open. “But—I—he’s never told me any of?—”
“No, I imagine he wouldn’t have,” Andrés says in a bored tone. “That was part of our arrangement, too. You see, we’d planned for him to come ‘murder’ me while I was with…” he winks lecherously at me. “Company.”
Bile rises in my throat as I remember his hands trying to shove their way under my skirt.
“The point was to have a witness to be able to testify to a masked man slaughtering me, which would lend weight to the whole thing and convince my father that it was real. But what I didn’t plan on,” he growls, “wasyou.”
His eyes narrow. “You, it would seem, were the reason for Vaughn’s…above and beyondreaction that night. Cutting him with my knife wasn’t part of the plan, either. But the voracity in which he came at me took me by surprise.” He smirks at me. “But I now understand why seeing me in that position withyouturned him into a beast.”
My head spins as it all hits me like a slap.
Andrés steps a little closer to the front of the stage, his brow furrows. “But you’re wondering why I’mhere, talking to you now.”
I nod quietly, my heart thudding against my ribs.
“Well, Evelina, unfortunately, those original plans havechanged. You see, as you might have heard, my father had aterribleaccident.” He clucks his tongue and crosses himself. “Such a tragedy, to 'fall' off a yacht when 'intoxicated'.”
His cold smile tells me there as nothing accidental about what happened to Diego on that yacht.
“Which means it’s now time for me to return from the dead and claim what is mine.”
I swallow, gripping the pepper spray tighter. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I now find myself with a small problem.” His eyes narrow at me. “It’s come to my attention that my father had you running around looking for a bastard heir that I was never told about. And as I prepare to assume his throne, well…” He smiles viciously. “I wouldvery muchlike to meet this half-brother.”
A chill ripples down my spine.
He doesn’t want a family reunion. He wants to ensure his claim to the Torvallés throne is uncontested.
He sighs. “I know you’ve worked hard to find my father’s bastard. But all this time, the answer was right in front of you.” He smirks. “Or I would imagine, frequentlyon top of you,” hegrins viciously. “Vaughnknows who it is. He’s always known. And you’re going to ask him for me.”
I swallow thickly. “Why would I do that?” I breathe.
“Because I took his vengeance from him when I killed my father myself,” he growls. “Which I imagine will make him not so inclined to give me the name of this half-brother of mine. Soyouwill be asking him.
Andrés slides his phone from his pocket.
“Oh, and if you don’t… They die.”
He taps the screen, bringing up a video.
