Preston roars. “I did no such thing. Where the hell do you get off making such horrendous accusations?”
“You know what?” I say, stepping even closer, a grin pulling at my lips. “I think I remember that party now. It was crazy. I was fucking around with Carver, you know, getting under his skin and all, and then I was literally fucking around with King and Cruz out in the bushes behind the property. But the strangest thing happened.”
I pause, watching as confusion and dread instantly take over his features.
“You know, I think I did see Jacob last night after all. I was trying to get my rocks off, but we were interrupted by someone. I was pissed because who doesn’t want to be fucked by two dudes up against a tree in the bushes, you know what I mean? Though, something tells me you’re not the kind of guy to have ever been so lucky, which honestly is a real shame.”
“Get. On. With. It,” he demands. “Where is my son?”
I suck in a breath between my teeth. “You know, that’s just the thing. I really don’t know. He could be to the left of the big tree that I wanted to fuck against, or maybe under some shrubby bushes.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Preston roars, flinching toward me only to have King and Grayson fly out at him and push him back a few steps.
The boys move in closer to me, standing as one. “Take a guess who interrupted us in the bushes,” I tell him, lowering my tone to let him know just how fucked he really is. “I wonder what phone call we overheard.”
“I knew it. You fucking touched my son. Where is Jacob? What did you do?”
Carver scoffs, a soft, cynical laugh rumbling through his chest. “We did to your son what you had planned to do to Elodie. Call it self-defense.”
Preston’s face glows the brightest shade of red and he launches himself toward Carver, but King and Grayson catch him before he can even take a step. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”
Carver pushes past me, shoving right into Preston, and in an incredible show of strength, pushes him back five steps until he’s slammed up against the wall of Carver’s foyer. “Consider him lucky that all I did was snap his neck,” Carver hisses, leaning into Preston and reminding me once again just how much he holds back with me. “Jacob deserved so much worse. I should have cut his tongue right out of his mouth for the calls he made against Winter.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Preston snaps as I try not to remember the way Carver twisted his son’s neck on my order. “I swear on my son’s grave, I will make you pay.”
“You see, that’s just it, Preston,” I say, stepping in beside Carver and watching as both of their eyes slice toward me, the guilt Cruz was talking about creeping up on me. “We’ve already gotten away with it. How the hell do you intend on making us pay? Who are you going to tell? Who will you run to? Dynasty? I’m their fucking leader. How will you make us pay without telling them exactly what you and your son have done? No matter what you do from here on out—you’re screwed.”
Preston clenches his jaw, knowing damn well that I’m right. “You won’t get away with this. I’ll fucking end you myself if I have to.”
Carver grabs him and slams his back against the wall, letting his head rebound until he’s seeing stars. “Do you remember what I said that first time in the council chambers? I told every one of you old fuckers that I was going to find the people responsible for the attacks on me, I was going to find the man responsible for my parents’ deaths, and I was going to make every single one of them regret it. You watched me come through on my promise to Royston Carver, and now your son. You’re next, Preston, but it won’t be so easy for you. There are still so many unanswered questions. Once I get exactly what I need, you’ll finally be reunited with your son in hell. But not before you get what’s coming to you.”
And just like that, I nod at Carver and he instantly walks deeper into his home, dragging Preston Scardoni behind him.
The second they’re out of sight, my knees go weak and I collapse to the ground. Cruz catches me just in time, proving once and for all, that while I put on a hard exterior, deep down inside, I’m just as broken and tormented as the rest of them.
CHAPTER 28
“Alright, I’m out of here,” Grayson says, looking back at me and Cruz as the soft, muffled sounds of King and Carver ‘questioning’ Preston in the hidden room beneath the study flow through the house, the same room where Sam Delacourt finally realized just how badly he’d fucked up by setting his sights on me.