“Yes, that Dobson. He ain’t who you think he is. Never was. He rather believe lies.”
Janita felt as Donnally wasn’t telling the whole story, but when she looked at Hawk, she could see why it didn’t matter inthat moment. Hawk was a bronze-skinned man, but he looked ghostly. This news had spooked him.
“Where Shelly anyway?” Donnally had the nerve to ask. “Why he didn’t come with you since he’s supposedly your best friend and all? Where Shelly at?”
And that was when Hawk, Janita, and Lassiter suddenly realized just where Shelly was.
“He’s at my parents’ house,” said Hawk. Then a surge of panic. “With my parents!”
“And my baby brother!” Janita cried out, panicking too. And they all ran out of that house faster than they’d ever run in their lives.
The two cops remained with Chief Donnally, their boss, until Matty, whom they considered to be theirrealboss, told them what to do next. Get rid of him. Or arrest him. It didn’t matter to them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Hawk, Janita, and Lassiter was on their phones the entire ride over, trying desperate to reach somebody inside the Webster mansion. But nobody was answering. And when they pulled up to the guard booth outside of the gate, and saw that there was no one manning the booth, their panic went into overdrive. Their driver sped through that open gate, around the horseshoe driveway, and Hawk and Janita, and even Lassiter, were all jumping out before the car could come to a complete stop.
They raced inside of that house with their guns drawn.
But as soon as they turned the corner of the foyer and ran into the living room, they stopped all movement. Because Shelly was standing behind the sofa, with a gun pointed at the head of William Webster, and another gun pointed at the head of Resheda Webster. Hawk could see both of his parents were mortified.
Von and the guard, along with the driver that drove Shelly and Von from the airfield, were all laying on their stomachs on the floor, with their hands behind their backs. Janita was relieved that at least her brother was still alive. But Hawk and Lassiter couldn’t take their eyes off of Shelly. They still could not believe it.
But there was no doubt now. And Hawk was heartbroken. “Why, Shelly?Why?”
It seemed like Shelly had been waiting a lifetime to get it all out. “Ask your old man that question,” he said. “He knows why. Don’t you, Big Man? Don’t you, W?”
William could only shake his head. “It’s not true, Shelton. How many times can I tell you it’s not true and it’s never been true?”
“It is true!” Shelly was so unhinged that Hawk immediately tried to calm him back down.
“It’s okay, Shell, it’s okay.” Then he yelled at his father. He was terrified for his parents. “Don’t you realize you have a gun to your head?! Shut the fuck up!”
Janita could see William’s jaw tightened at the thought of his son speaking to him so disrespectfully. But oddly enough she could also see William realizing, not so much that he had a gun tohishead, but that his wife had a gun toherhead. Janita even saw him look at that gun to her head. And that reality, that his wife was also in jeopardy, seemed to terrify him more than his own flimsy fate. Which surprised her.
But Shelly, whom she only got to know while Hawk was in the hospital, surprised her more.
“You tell me why you’re doing this, Shelly,” Hawk said. “I wanna hear it from you. You tell me why.”
“All I had to do was find the people who hated your guts,” Shelly said. “Which was practically everybody,” he added. “You made me CEO of Eagle Records. You made me a fucking millionaire. I’m a rich bitch too, bitch.”
Then he settled back down, which Hawk appreciated. He didn’t know this man standing before him. That wasn’t the Shelly he knew and loved.
But he knew it was. He was in denial.
And Shelly kept telling it. “As for Kemberly,” he said, “I told her if she and her brothers took you down, then I would takeover Eagle and make her my supreme recording artist with the contract of her dreams. And her stupid ass fell for it.”
Kemberly, Hawk thought. He was behind that attack too? “Where is Kem now?”
“Dead. Where you think? Her and her brothers. They’re all at the bottom of the ocean. You think I was gonna trust that bitch not to blab her big mouth? After they took you down, I had to get rid of them.”
“What about Greta?”
“Same issue. She hated you too. She wanted to avenge her son’s death. But I couldn’t approach her. She would have blown my cover. That’s where Donnally came into the picture. I asked him to do me that one solid, and he did. But even before that, he was doing my dirty work for me.”
That didn’t sound right to Hawk at all. “Why would he do you a favor?” he asked him. “For money?”
“For blood. That fat ass thinks he’s my father. But I know that’s a lie. But I went along with it to get what I wanted.”
