Stan’s eyes narrowed, the piercing blue orbs hardening to sapphire shards. “Alexis Vega is already clouding your judgment. She was a bad influence then, and apparently even worse now.” He glided across the room toward the bar on the right, his movements fluid and lazy. “I told you not to look inside the envelope, Killian. How could you break my trust like this?”
I slammed my fist into his desk, rattling everything on it. “You want to talk about trust when I’m accusing you of murder?”
“I did no such thing.” My stepfather sighed as he poured scotch into a crystal glass. Then another. “I may have been too friendly with Jocelyn, but she developed an obsession with me. When I tried to let her down, she took her own life.”
The lies poured out of his mouth with frightening ease. Had he repeated the story so much that he believed it?
“I felt just awful about the whole situation, so I’ve been paying her mother to make amends.” He gave a dramatic frown I didn’t buy. “It was the least I could do.”
“How generous of you.” I rolled my shoulders, trying to hold on to the last bit of my control. “What about Lexi? What’s your excuse for assaulting her?”
Stan grabbed the two glasses of scotch, sauntered in my direction, and handed me one. “We’ve already gone over this. Nothing happened. She made up that ridiculous story because she was jealous and didn’t want you to leave. Alexis clearly hassome mental issues. I’m truly worried for you if you believe the lies coming out of that whore’s mouth.”
A burst of rage hit my bloodstream like a shot of epinephrine, and I threw the crystal tumbler across the room. The glass shattered against the vintage record player, cutting off Beethoven.
“Call her that again, and I’ll make Bass’s injuries pale in comparison to what I do to you.”
For the first time, an emotion broke through Stan’s calm façade, but that flash of anger was gone too quickly. He slowly placed his drink on the desk.
“I will tell you one last time, and I never want it brought up again.” He turned and rummaged through the cabinets behind his desk. “I did nothing to that girl.”
“If you didn’t want anyone to find out what really happened, you shouldn’t have recorded it.”
As soon as my words hit the air, Stan’s shoulders stiffened, straining against the charcoal-gray blazer. He slowly pivoted in my direction and placed the cigar he’d grabbed on his desk.
“Excuse me?”
“You shouldn’t have recorded the assault.” I pressed my palms against the desk, leaning toward him. “I saw the whole damn thing, Stanford. Did you plan on raping her and then watching it later while you jerked off?”
His nostrils flared as he loosened his tie and then shrugged out of his jacket. Shadows crept into his face as the charming ruse disintegrated to reveal the real man beneath the pretty lies.
“How did you get that video?”
“That’s not important.” Bass probably pissed himself when he realized I stole that file. His father would castrate him if he found out, and it was really more of a when situation, because where else would the video have come from, if not his son. “What is important is you getting what you deserve for hurting Lexi,and who knows how many other girls, and rotting in prison for the rest of your life.”
A sinister laugh erupted from his mouth, the sound ominous and grating like old, rusted metal creaking in the wind.
“Do you really think I’d go to prison for attacking some piece of trash? I’m a United States senator, for fuck’s sake, and the highest-ranking member of the Serpents & Daggers. I wouldn’t see the inside of a cell for a second, even if you had proof.” He slammed his fist against the desk, knocking over a picture frame of him and my mother. “I’m fucking untouchable.”
“Then maybe I’ll simply kill you.”
Stan cut the tip of his cigar and lit it, a crooked grin pulling his lips apart. “You don’t have the balls to kill me, boy.”
Those words, nearly identical to the ones my real father spoke before he beat the shit out of me all those years ago, had my chest threatening to cave in. The room bled around the edges, crimson streaks running down the dark walls.
Little did Stan know I had a gun tucked away in my pants, just hoping he gave me a reason to put a bullet in his head.
The sickly sweet cigar smoke curled from his mouth as he smirked.
“You won’t let the public see that video because you know it will hurt your mother and poor, abused Alexis. It’ll be your word against mine. And just like with her, no one will believe you.” He sipped his scotch and sat in the oversized leather chair behind his desk. “If you start talking, I’ll make sure you end up in a padded cell for the rest of your life.”
“You are the devil in disguise, Stan.”
He gave a lazy shrug. “You and I are the same, son.”
“I amnothinglike you,” I spat, the need to make him bleed, to feel his bones crunch, overwhelming.
“We both take what we want.” He rolled the tip of the cigar along the edge of his crystal ashtray. “I bet you fucked Alexiswhether she wanted it or not. You might not have been as forceful as me, but you didn’t give her much of a choice, did you?”
