Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“You are a master at making the scenario work in your favor? News flash, you were home infrequently while I was a child, favoring the extra room that you had at the lab.” The scorching sting of shame clasps my throat tighter. I shove down the lump and charge through. “That additional money in your pocket—you spent on other women, right?”
“No, girl!”
“Yeah, you downgraded your lifestyle for your wife, but only a couple of days out of the week. I’m sure you made it clear to her to appreciate that fact. Then she’s so friggen unfortunate to be raped by a stranger one night, and after months of suffering, she falls into the arms of the man who was always there. Mom caught up to your schemes. Had a torrid affair for a while.”
Ashamed, his indignant gaze won’t find mine.
“They were together for years.” I grab at my coiled tresses. “Was it the whole time, Jonah? Until she . . . Did you . . .”
“Luxxie, look at me.” A gut-wrenching tone reaches for me, attempting to embrace me.
“I’m looking at you, Dad. Luxxie’s Uncle Red’s nick—”
“Stop calling him that. I swear on everything I loved, all my fucking accolades—you, Lux. I did not harm her.”
I believed Uncle Red the second the words passed his lips and floated between us. But my own father? Imaginary hands claw my throat; it’s a feat to breathe.
Think.
Talk.
“It’s time for you to go.” I turn toward my man. “Victor, you will have nothing to do with him. Jonah will find his way home on his own dime.”
“Lux . . .”
My following line feels like I’ve slid a dagger into my heart as I murmur, “I don’t know if I believe you.”
And there he is.
The father I loved.
The same dagger cuts straight through him too.
Every step my father takes toward the pillars lining the sitting room exit, my heart crumples in my chest.
“Wait, there’s one more thing.” My voice hardly rises above a whisper. “Dad.”
He turns around. One last seed of hope connects us.
“Dad, may I see your notebook, please.”
“Why?”
“You will,” Victor’s tone, sharper than an obsidian knife cuts that connection between us, “give her the book. Now.”
In disgust, Jonah shakes his head. “This was what I was afraid of. An older man taking advantage—”
“Not all older men do,” I gesture to Momma’s journal. “You did, Uncle Red restored her heart . . . for a time. The notebook.”
“I don’t have it.”
Victor sniffs, running a hand over his hair, as lengthy strides bring him towering over my father.
“One of his pockets.” I close my eyes, lifting my head to the ceiling while pinching the bridge of my nose. We look like we’re giving him a friggen shakedown.
“I’ve got it.” I open my eyes, and Victor’s stands before me, holding the tiny pocketbook in hand.
“Uncle Red was in a secret society,” I say as I open the small notebook.
“Quite ominous,” Jonah retorts.
I can feel Victor’s questioning gaze seer through me as I sift through pages above my comprehension. This was a vital bit of information that he’d sink his teeth into. “Not ominous. They help people. You vied for the same spot. He was inducted; you were not.”
“I—”
“Doesn’t matter.” I hold up the pocketbook and point to a waxed stamp on the last page. “The symbol of his secret society. His book. You stole it when you set fire to his place. Tell me, Jonah, did you ever figure out what any of this means, or is it just a trophy? You know, like a serial killer would have?”
40
Victor
I sit in my office deep in thought, rolling a rugby ball around with the palm of my hand. Whitson departed with not a second to waste. Luxury and my brother and his lady had a quick lunch, and then the women went to the gardens to discuss wedding festivities.
Burt sits across from me, calling the airport to confirm that Whitson is on the next flight—against Luxury’s wishes. Getting the chap out of Arlington ensures that he won’t create a disturbance.
Burt places his mobile back into his pocket. “It is finished. Dr. Whitson has boarded the plane. The Red bloke’s literally in a secret society?”
“I texted the details to Monica during our lunch—after squeezing them out of Luxury.”
Sniggering, he settles across from me.
“How dare you have a laugh?”
“I take many liberties as your butler.” Burt gestures at how he’s seated in my presence. “Why not?”
“In less than fifteen minutes, one of the chaps on my team confirmed that the secret society isn’t all that very secret. Although the lot of them aren’t shouting their good deeds on the roof of The Shard,” I mention the tallest building in London, “each associate is a prominent member in society—lawyers taking on pro bono cases, philanthropists. Absurdly rich fuckers who give their money away.”