I pull up a chair and sit across from him. I study the man who is my blood-brother, but who has been my adversary since I can remember, wondering why he became my enemy.
Before I get to those questions, I ask about Anais to decide on her fate.
“Why Anais?” I ask.
At first, I don’t think he’ll answer me, or maybe he’s unable to, but then he lifts his head. His face is anguished, covered in blood and snot, but he smirks through his pain.
“When I approached her, I didn’t know you actually owned Hedon; I just wanted to fuck with you because you always went to that sex club. After Razor discovered the truth, though, she helped us hatch the plan.”
“So, she’s been part of this even before Leeva returned.”
He grunts. “The kinky red-headed bitch didn’t know who owned Hedon; I just promised her she’d get you, and she was in like a bitch in heat.”
I thumb a quick text to Bane to deliver the order to take the bitch out, then slip my phone back inside my cut and focus back on my brother.
“Why, Harrison? Why did you hate me so goddamn much?”
His hair is sweaty and sticks to his forehead. He’s in pain, and he glances at the bucket beside him with the chunks of his body dissolving inside. He visibly shakes before looking back at me. “You have to ask?”
“Clearly, I do.”
He hated me since we were little kids, way before Leeva came into the picture, so I know she isn’t the cause of it.
“Everything came so easy to you,” he spits.
I worked hard for everything I achieved, but I remain silent, letting him spill his vitriol.
“Everyone fawned over Hayes fucking Cartwright. Our mother before she left, our father before he died. And don’t fucking start me on Zeus.”
There’s so much hate emanating from him when he glares at me.
“So this really does just come down to an inferiority complex,” I muse, regarding Zeus’ assessment back when Harrison and I were kids. I shake my head. “What a fucking waste.”
“Nothing I did worked, though.” He grins through his hellish pain, and drool runs down his chin. “Until my little lamb. Goddamn,that was poetic to steal her from you. So easy.”
I stiffen in my chair but try to keep my expression schooled and unreadable.
“You were such a fucking idiot.” He laughs. “I knew you loved her; she was your world, yet you refused to tell her how you felt. And it was clear she thought you hung the moon. Taking her from you was the best thing I ever did.”
I’m viciously reminded that he almost took her from me again after fucking stabbing her in the chest. I haven’t told him how close he came to succeeding; I refuse to give him any sort of satisfaction.
“She never loved you, Harrison. You were a substitute when she thought she’d never have me.” It feels like swallowing glass saying those words.
“Yet she bounced all over my dick, little brother.”
My fists clench in my lap. I'm very much over sharing the same air as this bastard. But I know what he’s doing.
He’s trying to take one last shot at me, just like he always has. And he’s trying to rile me up, so I’ll lose control and kill him quickly.
Inwardly, I smile like a sadistic motherfucker, thinking of what his end is going to entail in just a few short minutes.
Taking one last shot at him of my own, I toss back to him something that Leeva shared with me. “And whisperedmyname while she slept.”
She had told me everything he had confessed to her; knowing about Luthor Wentzell whisking her out of the country after New Orleans, how he tried to get to her, worked withla morte,the death ring, to try to get his hands on her and the Wentzell fortune.
That ring is still out there, but with Len’s USB, we have some knowledge of its structure and operations. We’re still trying to figure out if we should act—it’s a global operation, outside our territory, but more than that, it’s well beyond our ability to take down alone. Adamus Jones has checked in with me as he promised, keeping it vague and like we’re partners for some criminal enterprise, and I know Len is still alive at least.
“Leeva would still be with me if she had only listened and not come to the compound that day.” Harrison pulls my attention back to him, waiting to die in this hellhole.
