"You think you're so innocent," he hisses directly into my ear, his breath hot against my cheek. "You think you're better than me. Playing the victim. Playing the saint. But you're still a whore. You just found a richer mark to marry."
Tears burn behind my eyes, threatening to spill over, but I don't let them fall. Crying will only make him angrier, only prove his point about my weakness. My mind races frantically, searching for options, for escape routes, for anything that might get us out of this alive.
Wallace meets my gaze in the rearview mirror again, and I see his expression shift subtly. The fear is still there, but it's been joined by something else: determination.
"Please," I whisper, barely audible over the hum of the engine. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for whatever happened to you. Just let us go. Let Wallace go. He has nothing to do with this."
Richard laughs, the sound bitter and completely unhinged, the laugh of a man who’s found freedom in having nothing left to lose. "Sorry? You're sorry? You destroyed me and you're sorry?"
"I— I don't know what you’re talking about. I didn't do anything!"
"But your husband did."
His words move through my brain like molasses. So much happened the night of the gala that I almost forgot what Asher had said after James Rock told us about the charges against Richard.
Perhaps someone simply helped facilitate the proper channels. Made sure the right lawyers knew about the right women. Ensured NDAs were deemed unenforceable.
In all the drama that unfolded afterwards, it slipped my mind that Asher did this forme.As payback for what Richard did to me and all the other women. An oddly sweet gesture when you think about it, but one that has now morphed into my worst nightmare.
“Richard, I swear I didn’t–”
He lets loose another maniacal laugh. “You didn’t know? Well, since you’re going to die anyway, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Your husband tried to ruin me. And his plan worked, until his father reached out to me.”
Dread fills me, sinking to the bottom of my stomach like a rock.Leonard is behind this.
“See, I guess he figured out what your husband was doing to my career and he dropped me a lifeline. He knows enough judges to get these cases dismissed. And he has enough money to bribe anyone he needs. And you know what he wants in return?”
I swallow, not wanting to know the answer I already do.
Richard smiles. “All he wants in return is a dead daughter-in-law. I guess it will make great press if you’re killed. Your husband will look more sympathetic as he takes over his family’s company, and as a bonus, you’ll be dead.” The words hang in the air. I knew the Caines didn’t love me, but having me killed feels extreme.
“Any last words?” Richard asks, a twinkle in his eyes.
Again, I meet Wallace’s eyes in the rearview mirror. There’s a look in them, one that screams at me to hold on, and then before I think or say anything, he jerks the wheel.
The car swerves suddenly and violently to the left. Richard stumbles sideways as Wallace yanks the steering wheel with desperate strength, using the momentum to break free from the rope around his throat. The gun goes off with a deafening crack that makes my ears ring.
I scream as the windshield explodes in a spiderweb of cracks, safety glass raining down like deadly snow. Wallace slumps forward over the steering wheel, and I see the dark stain spreading across his white shirt, the way his hands go slack on the wheel.
Blood. So much blood.
The car careens wildly across two lanes of traffic, horns blaring around us as other drivers swerve to avoid collision. We jump the curb with a bone-jarring impact that throws me against the door. I cry out, my life flashing before my eyes as we slam into something solid and the world becomes a symphony of crushing metal and exploding glass.
The last thing I see is Richard's face twisted with rage, and then everything goes dark.
47
ASHER
After the fourth call to Wallace that goes unanswered, I'm about to throw my phone to the ground and smash it into a million tiny pieces.
It’s taking a lot for me to hold in the anger that’s coursing through my bloodstream. It’s been a week since I’ve taken over this company, and regret is looming over me, not that I can let it show to anyone else.
I haven’t even had the desire to touch my wife, not with the knowledge of all my father’s misdeeds living in my head. I can’t shake that I also paid a woman to be with me. Even if I tally up all the ways it’s not the same, that I didn’t force or blackmail her, that she could walk away if she wanted to, I still can’t stop the swirling vortex of thoughts from dragging me under.
Am I just like my father?
Father’s scandal aside, being CEO isn’t what I dreamt it would be. Everyone at the company still looks to him for approval. We have a board meeting in three days, and it will be my first as interim CEO, but I suspect my father is up to something and it won’t last long.
