“I don't know what?—”
“Meekan buried it.” I don't look away from Kellar's face. “Kept it out of the news. Kept it clean. Because he’s connected to you and if that crash went public it would have dragged you into it.” I feel the tremor that runs through him and I relish it the way I relish most things, quietly, thoroughly. “Masen was driving. Your golden boy. Your legacy. And you let a girl take the fall to protect his career and your name.”
The garage is completely silent except for the distant noise of the crowd outside, muffled and irrelevant.
“I had nothing to?—”
“Don't,” I say again, softer this time, which is somehow worse. “I know everything. Every wire transfer. Every call. Every time you used Meekan to get at me and used my father's ambitions to serve your own. The Hollow Hills expansion wasn't Lorenzo's idea, was it? He was the weapon. You aimed him.”
Something breaks in Kellar's face then. Not guilt, men like him don't do guilt. It's something else. The particular horror of aman who has spent decades controlling narratives, then realizes that the narrative has slipped entirely out of his hands.
“You can't prove?—”
“I don't need to prove it in a courtroom.” I release him and take a step back. “I'm not the law. I don't play by those rules. Your pet Fed over there spent months trying to pin me inside his system.” I finally look at Meekan, and the look I give him is the kind that makes men who know what I'm capable of take a step backward. He doesn't cower, I'll give him credit for that, but his throat moves when he swallows. “You used Harper to get to me. Used her to get intel on my operation. And you buried what Masen did to that car to protect your business with this man.”
Meekan's voice is rough when he finally speaks. “Whatever you think you have?—”
“I have everything.” My voice is calm. Absolute. “I have records. I have paper trails you didn't know existed because my people are better than yours. I have the kind of leverage that ends careers and fills prison cells and, if I choose to use it differently—” I smile and it doesn't reach my eyes “—ends lives.”
Cas moves up to stand at my left shoulder. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to. His presence alone communicates everything that needs to be communicated about what happens to men who push back against me.
Steven Kellar looks at me and I watch him do the mental accounting, running through every person he's ever paid off, every favor owed, every arm he could twist, and coming up empty. It's a beautiful thing to witness. The moment a powerful man realizes he has run out of power.
“What do you want?” he asks. His voice is quieter now. The senator’s voice is gone.
“What I want,” I say slowly, “is for every single thing you've built on the backs of people you destroyed to be dismantled brick by fucking brick. I want the Kellar name to mean nothing. I wantthe people in Somerset and Stormsend to know exactly who you are.” I pause. “I want you to know that after tonight, the Kellar name will no longer exist.”
He says nothing.
I nod, unsurprised. “Time to go round up the other two.”
I look at Meekan one more time. He's watching me with the expression of a man who has made a career arresting criminals and is only now understanding what it feels like to be on the other side of that particular equation.
“You came after me,” I say to him. It isn't an accusation. It's a statement of fact, the way you'd describe weather. “You came to my house. You tore through my sister's fucking room. And you did it while you were dirty, while you were on his payroll, while you were blackmailing people, while you were covering up crimes that got people killed.”
He straightens his jaw. “I was doing my job.”
“No,” I say. “You were doing his job. There's a difference.”
I step back and look at Cas. “Get them comfortable.”
Cas dips his head and turns to the men. The garage fills with movement, purposeful and unhurried. These two aren't going anywhere.
I move toward the exit and pause at the edge of the light.
“Senator.” I don't turn around. “You told Toren you'd bury her alongside me. That you'd take my town and hand it to your boy.” I let the words sit in the dark for a moment. "I want you to think about that while I go get Frank, your golden boy, and that darling daughter of yours I’ve been fucking.” I finally glance back at him over my shoulder, just enough to let him see the hunger for his demise in my eyes. “I’m going to cut the lips from each of your faces and add them to my treasure jar. Your daughter’s will hang framed above my bed, hers will be my greatest trophy.”
“Fuck you, Devlin,” the senator grits out.
“Fucking one Kellar is enough,” I snarl. “Who would have thought, to take down my enemy all it took was the stroke of my cock inside the princess and it was game over.”
I walk out into the cold.
Behind me, the garage is silent.
It won't stay that way for long.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
