As soon as Bas locked the door behind us, I kick Julian’s legs out from under him while still holding tight to the back of his suit jacket. My grip goes straight through to the shirt underneath it so that when he falls, I force him to his knees.
Only then do I rip the tape from Julian’s mouth.
He gasps, hands fly up to check his lips. They’re puffy, the residue of the tape leaving welts all over the bottom half of his face. His expression is furious, though the stink of fear lingers.
The older Owed is scared shitless, but that doesn’t stop him for going with bravado.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” he spits.
Yeah?
I crouch in front of him. “Oh, I think I do.”
Though he already locked the door, Bas moves back to it, blocking any easy path Julian can take to escape.
He notices, panicked eyes darting between Bas and me.
“You can’t kill me,” he says, voice shaking despite the bravado. “I’m an Owed.”
“Was,” I correct. As far as I’m concerned, his membership was revoked the second I suspected he laid a finger against an Offering. So Lucy never had the chance to really be one. Her deadbeat father is regrettably a member of the Order, and I would’ve Claimed her if I could. That counts. “Not anymore, Fairchild.”
After that, I don’t waste any time.
The first punch cracks his lip open. The second knocks him sideways; if I hadn’t still been clutching his jacket, he might’ve fallen to the floor. For the third hit, Idorelease him so that he lands flat on his face before pushing himself back to his knees.
Something about being beaten flips a switch inside of the man. Instead of shaking and begging for mercy, he suddenlylaughs through blood, and I realized he played me. He fucking played me. Maybe he was scared when he got tossed in his own trunk, but he took each hit without even crying out, and now that I’ve paused, stunned by his reaction, his eyes glitter maliciously.
“My, my, your father was right to be concerned when it came to you. You always did have a temper, Dallas.”
He shouldn’t have mentioned my father.
Snapping, I lunge down, grabbing him by his collar and slamming him against the first hard surface I can find. It’s a wall, and the impact leaves blood spatters as the gore from his bleeding nose and smashed teeth goes flying.
“Fuck Jack,” I snarl, knowing that I need to be better at controlling myself while also admitting that I. Just. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck. “What did you do to her? What did you do to Lucy?”
The sick bastard smiles. I probably knocked a tooth or two loose, and hesmiles. “Lucy? Lucy who?”
I drop him to the floor, kicking him in the side with my heavy boot. “Don’t you fucking play with me. You know exactly who I mean. Your—” God, I don’t want to say, I really fuckingdon’t—“wife.”
Julian coughs as he gets on all fours. “Oh.ThatLucy.”
Bastard. I kick him again, sending him sprawling back to the floor on his gut. “You pushed her. Don’t fucking deny it. I’ve got you on tape at the Stanton. You were there, and you pushed her out of the fourth-floor window.”
“Shefell. Just like Reese did.”
Hearing him repeat the same fake story that Lucy fell is bad enough. Having him bring my mother into it? I black out, and when I can see anything other than red rage, I haul the asshole off the floor and break his motherfucking nose.
He squeals as he falls back to the floor, clutching his nose before spitting out all kind of obscenities at me.
Bas whistles low under his breath. “You talked about his maman. You don’t talk about another man’s maman like that, mon ami.”
Hearing Bas’s atrocious French accent calms me enough to remember what I’m doing here, just like I’m sure he planned. Yes, I want to torture this prick. Yes, I want to make him pay. But, before I do, I need answers, and a dead man can’t give me those.
I shudder out a breath. “You pushed her,” I repeat.
Julian coughs again, blood gushing from his nose, running down his lips, his chin. And, yet, there’s still ruthless defiance as he glares up at me. “So? She might’ve been my wife, but the dumb cunt shouldn’t have left me. She shouldn’t havethreatenedme. I saved her from the King. I saved her fromyou. And how does she repay me? By running back to you the first chance she got! Yeah. I brought her back to Harmony Heights. I told her I could explain—and then I booked a night at the Stanton and got rid of her.”
That’s what he thinks. Maybe he believes Lucy did die. Maybe rumors reached him and he knows that her memory is gone. It doesn’t matter. I got exactly what I wanted from him, and now I want more.
