I slowly trailed my gaze to his.
He held the coins out, glimmering gold in the light.
I was morbidly curious what my grandfather had planned with his coins. He was now the most powerful man on the planet.
I know it had something to do with the du Lacs, with a revenge plan he’d spent decades concocting.
But the longer I didn’t give him what he wanted, the longer he wouldn’t use them.
“I’m more curious how the fuck you knew I had them,” I said.
He laughed. “How long did you really think you could keep it a secret? I have eyes and ears everywhere. I’ve dedicated my entire life to finding them. But…It was a year ago, when I missed the Swan Swell to punish your sister Abigail, and I overheard Arthur du Lac yelling…as he always did…” My grandfather trailed off, annoyed. “His son had thrown away a coin. Given it to a Crowne.” He narrowed on me. “For years, I had no idea where any of them were, but now I knew for certain where one was.”
He made his way up the rest of the steps, talking as he did. “I always suspected Josephine had the other three, but she was watched for years and nothing showed up. Then Christmas provided some much needed clarity.”
“When you murdered Josephine,” I said.
“When she had a tragic accident,” he corrected, stopping beside my bed. He leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window, one leg crossed casually. “I knew Charles had stolen them, but what happened after was always fuzzy. Then I overheard Josephine talking…” His clay eyes found mine. “All these years I never would have thought to look at you.”
“You killed my father over fucking coins.”
He exhaled. “Another tragic accident.”
“You could have taken them at Christmas, then. Why did you leave?”
He adjusted the silver bar on his tie, like we were discussing the weather. “Everything in its due time. You know Arthur was following me everywhere I went. He thought he was so clever.” He shook his head. “Idiot.”
“If this is all for your revenge on the du Lacs, you could have just fucking taken the du Lac company when Lottie violated the prenup.”
He wrinkled his nose like he’d smelled something foul. “That is so…uninspired. I’m not using these coins to take a company—that company was given to me.”
That’s when I sat up, sitting off the bed to see him clearer. “Given to you?”
“Oh, did I finally get your attention? Yes, Grayson, given to me.”
“Arthur du Lac wouldn’t just give you his company—”
“Arthur du Lac didn’t make it back from Switzerland. His private plane went down somewhere in the Alps. Sad about West, too. No surviving heirs. In exchange for the du Lac empire, I simply had to promise Lynette a few things.”
I scoffed, bitter, finally starting to see all the puzzle pieces. “Like a dead husband, maybe?”
He grinned. “Do you have any idea the power these have?” He rolled the coins in his hands. “You could raze a country. Become a king. You used them on a whore and a bastard.”
I rolled back to bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for him to just fucking go.
I had a plan for my grandfather. It wasn’t as elegant as his had been. My plan was simply to cross the line. End his life, end it when guards weren’t waiting at the foot of the stairs to rip me off him.
I was just waiting for my moment to end him, so wherever Story and our little lemon were, they could live forever.
Free.
Even if that meant I would be locked away.
“There is nothing you can do to stop me, Grayson,” my grandfather continued. “And honestly, even if you could, I don’t think you’d want to.”
He placed something down beside me on my nightstand. I glanced to the side. They were square and slick.
Photos.
I picked them up. “What are these?”
“Proof that it’s over. Give in.”
I couldn’t process what I was looking at. Blood on the sand. More blood than I’d ever seen in my life. In the middle of it all, the green pocket square.
My green pocket square…abandoned.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Your little whore never made it out alive.”
Sixty-Three
GRAY
I lunged at my grandfather, in an instant pulled back by his guards.
“You’re fucking lying!”
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
Gone.
She couldn’t be gone—they couldn’t be gone. That wasn’t—it wasn’t—what the fuck was happening?
Gone.
I wouldn’t survive this pain. I couldn’t breathe through it. It was suffocating me. I didn’t want to survive it. The only reason I was even trying to breathe was to end him.
It had to be a lie. A trick.
My grandfather reached into his breast pocket, pulling out another photo. An aerial view of the beach, what looked like a satellite photo of two women.
Snitch lying pale on the ground.
Surrounded by blood.
The only thing keeping me standing was the guards holding me hostage.
“In your version, I got some shares of a company. In mine, I take everything the du Lacs own down to their very bloodline, and then I erase it off the planet. All Lynette asked was her daughter stay in the family.”
Who had the most to gain from all of this? For months I’d thought it was Lottie.
If not you, then who? Who has the most to gain?
“Lottie wouldn’t agree to that,” I rasped.
“When given the option between saving her own child and yours, who do you think she chose? There was only one spot in the ambulance.”
Hate.
Visceral hate.
Why did I trust Lottie with her? What the fuck is wrong with me?
“No one will know the child isn’t yours, Grayson. I’ve spent too many years on this. A small price to pay.”
“That is what you gave Lynette?” I screamed.
Your father tried that.
Josephine’s words echoed in my head, over and over and over again.
There is no getting out of this world, not alive.
She tried to warn me.
Now Snitch was dead, and I was supposed to make my peace as puppet. My child and wife were fucking gone. My little lemon. Would she have had her mother’s talent?
Gone.
Gone.
“Be on the right side of history, Grayson. A hundred-year rivalry is coming to an end,” he smiled cruelly. “And we win.”
The room blurred, watery.
The world is collapsing.
“Are you crying?” my grandfather asked, disgusted. I knew the hit that would follow that tone of voice, and welcomed it—welcomed anything other than this gnawing pain.
But steps sounded on the stairs, and the hit didn’t come.
My grandfather stepped back, annoyance tinging his face, as Charles and Keller St. Germaine came onto the floor.
“What the fuck are they doing here?” I rasped.
“They’re here to keep you company, until you decide to get back on our team. Of course, your guards are stationed at the end of your wing for company, as well. You’ll have until the Swan Swell.”
I looked between them. “The fuck is going on?”