“Dad? Why?—”
He opens the door a crack, then looks at me over his shoulder. This is the Donovan Blackwell Liam tried to kill. Sneering, full of himself, only interested in what’s best for him. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to stay here for long. We’ll get back on track with our plans as soon as Liam Knight is dead. You can count on it.”
Our plans. Gabriel.
After all this, I’m only going to have to marry him like Dad originally planned. Nothing has changed. “Why can’t I leave the room?” I ask while panic rises in my chest. Nothing has changed. I’m still trapped.
“Since when did you become so inquisitive?” When he turns around, the mask drops. This is the man I know. Cold, dismissive. “I need to keep you where I know you’re safe, because I need bait to lure the bastard in. And I have it on good authority he has a weakness for you. So be a good girl, shut the fuck up, and do as you’re told without pissing me off.”
“But what about Mom?” I hear myself. I know how pathetic I sound. “You told me you’d?—”
“Is my work through?” he demands. “No. Those were the terms. I get what I want, you get what you want.”
Snickering, he adds, “If I decide you deserve it.”
And those are the last words my loving father says to me before closing the door. The lock clicks into place before I can get to my feet, confirming what I already knew.
I walked straight into his trap.
And I might’ve gotten Liam killed for it in the end.
28
LIAM
There’s a reason I keep certain things to myself. Why I’ve never shared all pertinent information even with my team members, the closest thing to a family I’ve had for much too long.
I knew there might come a day when one of them betrayed me.
That day has come.
Maggie is shaking well after the gunfire ended when I go back to retrieve her. “It’s over now,” I explain as gently as possible to the obviously traumatized woman. I managed to take out two of the armed intruders who poured in not even a minute after the power was cut before I grabbed her and pulled her along with me into the safe room hidden behind one of the bookcases in my office. I couldn’t let her get caught in the crossfire.
Then I stupidly went back out there, because there was someone else I thought I needed to save. Someone else who was already gone without a trace.
Now, the apartment reeks of gunpowder and the tangy, coppery smell of blood. For the second time in a week, there’sblood to be cleaned up, only much more this time. Four of my guards are dead. Six of Donovan’s.
And the panel leading to the secret staircase is still standing wide open. It can only be opened from inside the closet, telling me Aurora must have been the one to let them in. Somehow, Donovan found a way to get to her.
He also found a way to get to Selina. Only she could have cut the power to the penthouse while leaving the rest of the building untouched.
It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.
Even if it makes no sense at all.
Now that the power has been restored, Ethan escorts Maggie down to the garage in the elevator. I arranged for a car to take her home and plan on giving her a week off, at least. Hell, it will take that long to clean the place up, to get rid of the blood and patch the bullet holes in the walls.
That leaves me with Nick, who put the situation together as quickly as I did once I described what happened. “It could only be Selina,” I insist. “Who else could’ve cut the power?”
“Why?” Standing in the center of the living room, where members of my team move bodies in preparation for getting them out of here, he throws his hands into the air. “Why would she do it? After all this time?”
I know why. “I should’ve seen it coming,” I admit. “I didn’t want to believe she was capable of it, but this is on me.”
“How can you say that? You didn’t?—”
“She attacked Aurora. Not the other way around. I suspected,” I mutter, disgusted with myself. “I should’ve done something then and there, but I didn’t want to believe it, either. Somehow, he got in her head.”
Ethan rejoins us, looking concerned. “She’s going to be shaky for a while.”
