Page 33 of Brix

“Where’s Deirdre?” demanded Tiger.

“I-I don’t know,” he stammered. Tiger took a step toward him, and he squealed again.

“Little man, you need to learn to lie better, or at least man up and take the hit,” smirked Tiger. “I’ll ask again. Where is she?”

“I don’t know! She called and asked for money, but all her accounts are frozen, so I couldn’t transfer anything to her.”

“Thanks, AJ,” smirked Brix.

“You’re welcome.”

“Who are you speaking to?” asked Marshall, looking confused.

“Just a friend,” smiled Brix. “Did she say where she was or where she was going?”

“No. She only said she needed money to get out of the country.”

“Speak up, little man. What is her plan?” said Brix.

“Stop calling me little man! I have a name. I don’t appreciate this bullying and abuse,” he frowned.

“Well, abuse is something you should know a lot about, isn’t it? You abused your own wife, a young woman who did nothing wrong on your wedding night. Of course, I should probably thank you because that left her available for me.”

“It was Deirdre’s idea,” he said, frowning at them. “She needed her under control and doing whatever we asked of her. If she were dead, she could collect her life insurance. If her biological parents died, she would be able to prove she was their daughter, and whatever inheritance was destined for her from her biological parents would be snagged by Dierdre as well.”

“She wouldn’t get that if she were married to you.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “We had an agreement. I would give her whatever was left to me. I only wanted enough to live on. But Daphne wasn’t a simpleton. She left everything in her possession to a local charity she was fond of. Her mother nor I would get anything. Her father was the one who rewrote the will for her. It’s part of why she wanted her back here in England. She was hoping to force her to change her will.”

“Looks like he knew a lot more than he believed,” smirked Brix.

“Listen, I don’t know where she is, and even if I did, I couldn’t tell you. She’s vicious. Don’t you understand that? She will do anything to get what she wants.”

“When did you two meet?” asked Sebastian. He was silent for a moment and then Major stepped up, gripping his knees, squeezing the bones with his massive hands.

“AHHHH!” he yelled.

“When?”

“We met the week she met Bishop,” he cried. “I’d known her for a few days. She was escaping a horrible situation in Ghana but didn’t want to be some poor refugee. I was in my first year at Oxford and knew Bishop casually. I told her that he would be the best man suited for her, and he was a bit naïve when it came to women.

“I arranged for her to be at the gate when he left his last class. I told her what his interests were and how to win him over. She nearly blew it. She was so focused on just becoming Lady Bishop. She almost didn’t seal the deal with sex.”

“What do you mean?” asked Brix.

“She convinced Bishop to have sex with her and then told him she was pregnant. Of course, she was unable to get pregnant, thanks to her father. She’d been sterilized.”

“Fuck,” muttered Walker.

“Bishop was too young and stupid to ask for the proof and married her anyway. She waited until he was out of town to fake the loss of the baby, then told him she couldn’t have children of her own. That’s when she got the idea of adopting rich kids.”

“How did she sink the Costina?” asked Sebastian.

“She hired some guy to do it for her. Paid him ten thousand pounds to set the bombs and get the kids off.”

“How? They were locked in that room,” said Tiger.

“No. No, they weren’t. The door was locked, but the kids had already been removed. They were taken in an enclosed lifeboat, and the ship was sunk.”

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