The Revenge by Tijan

At that comment, two more guns were raised and cocked.

His hands dropped down to his sides. “Okay. Okay! Just … Jesus.”

“You think you know me,” I started up again, giving him my last piece, and I was speaking it low and quiet, but I knew he was hearing the dark promise in my words. “You don’t. Start talking.”

He straightened up, and all pretense was gone.

Sitting on the edge of the couch, he leaned forward. His elbows rested on his knees, and his head was turned toward the floor.

“All of this, everything that our grandfather has done, has been for one thing and one thing only. Money.” He lifted his head, his gaze finding mine. I saw the loathing in him. “Our mother gave you that inheritance and that’s what Calhoun has wanted this entire time. He gets his way by two methods: control and destroy. Our mother was first in power of the inheritance. He couldn’t control her, so he destroyed her. You were next, but you were a child. He wanted to first control you through women.” A mocking, bitter laugh slipped from him. “He believes they’re only good for sex or as a tool to use sex to control their target.”

I knew all this. None of this was new.

“You went after his assets, but you didn’t see the two assets he had in your camp, under your nose. Quinn and Victoria.”

I knew about Victoria. Quinn? I knew she knew Calhoun, but working for him?

“Victoria was supposed to seduce and control you. Quinn was sent in to control your environment. She targeted Peter, seduced him. She cemented her hold on Peter by having Cyclone.”

Wait.

I frowned. “But not Seraphina?”

He shook his head, his features tightened, as a haunted look flared in his eyes. “Calhoun is old. He doesn’t respect women. He looks at people how he can use them, and the only use he could see for a daughter is as someone to sell for further gain later. He only believes in sons. Calhoun didn’t trust Quinn, thought that she didn’t have as much control over Peter as she claimed she did. All that changed when she had Cyclone. Only then is when Calhoun eased back and gave Quinn some freedom to just live. She brought in Victoria to seduce you.”

My irritation was flaring. “Keep talking. As of now, none of this is surprising me.”

Surprise flashed over his face before he covered it up. “He let me loose because he wanted me to observe you. I was to transition and take over your life. That was his plan for me. But when I got on that airplane from Thailand, I never had any intention of doing anything to harm you. I know you don’t have to believe me, but it’s the truth. I’ve been living under his control until you, until you started fighting back. Then I saw my chance.”

“Your chance?”

Now his nostrils flared. “For freedom.” The haunted expression came back, coupled with an almost dead look at the same time. “I’m tired of hurting people. You want to keep your loved ones alive; I just want to have a loved one. I want the chance to live a normal life, as long as I can.”

“You were going to defy Calhoun?”

“I didn’t think it would happen, but you kept fighting him and you kept winning. He’s so far hidden and isolated right now. I’ve never seen him this vulnerable. You did that to him. He’s a cornered animal now. I made my move when I went in and took your woman’s mom from her guards.”

Now this was new.

“Explain why Bailey still has nightmares seeing her mother’s head getting blown off.”

He winced. “Theatrics.”

My nostrils flared. “Explain better.”

“Bailey did see Chrissy, but it was a blank in the gun, and they rigged this pouch on the back of her head. When enough air punctures it, the contents inside explode. They use it in movies. Chrissy would’ve fallen forward from the impact of it, and they would’ve dragged her body out before Bailey could’ve registered what she was actually seeing. I’ve seen it. It’s … traumatizing.”

Jesus. All that for what? Why? “Tell me more.”

“I didn’t get to her in time. They were starting to brainwash her. They were going to use her to do something for them, and I know it’s altered her. She’ll never be the same woman, but she’s fierce. She’s strong.” Pride and respect rang from him. “I’d be damned proud to have her on my side, and she knows what side I’m on.”

I stilled at that.

Chrissy never said a word …

As if reading my mind, he kept going. “We had to keep it quiet. When the feds took us in, I knew they’d release her back to the Chesapeake. And I knew they’d keep me. I tried to prolong it, give her as much time as possible.”

“Time?” I was standing, slowly, every nerve in me stretched thin. What had Chrissy done? What was really going on? “For what?”

“Time to turn.”

“Turn who?”

Chase didn’t answer right away. He waited a beat, then said the last piece, the part that I knew I’d been blind to. “The new asset.”

“Who?”

He didn’t answer that, but still continued. “Calhoun messed up, easing from Quinn. She started to actually love Peter, got obsessed with him. Got obsessed with never losing him. When she sent Arcane in after Bailey, she did that on her own accord, but she never got Calhoun’s permission. She was supposed to get permission to do anything. That’s how he thinks. She’s only been given the go-ahead to fuck her man and be a mom to the kids. Our grandfather got wind something was going down, ordered by Quinn, and that’s why he sent me in.”