Page 90 of Prodigal

“T-the videos.” Her voice cracked and she licked her lips. “All the videos he made…”

“Destroyed,” Kaleb assured her before Gideon could. “They’ve been destroyed.”

All except one single copy. Gideon had doctored that footage, obscuring Nivea’s face and her voice, and sent it out into the public. Not his finest moment, but it was damning evidence. And he needed surety on that final nail in Joseph Morrow’s coffin.

Nivea’s lips trembled as she fidgeted with the hem of a white dress that fell well past her knees. The dress was sleeveless and all the bruises on her arms were exposed. They were dark purple—new bruises formed on top of old bruises.

“They’re here,” Will said in Gideon’s earpiece. She was positioned downstairs near the front entrance of the million-dollar rehab facility.

“Heard,” he responded to her in a murmur, then told Nivea, “Your family has arrived.”

She paled instantly, fingers twisting around each other, eyes filling with tears. Fuck, just knowing what she’d been through made Gideon wanted to go find the sick bastard Morrow and gut him. He didn’t have a sister, but he had Jules, and he couldn’t imagine something like that happening to André’s sister. Gideonwould level a fucking city for Jules. But avenging Nivea wasn’t his place. Morrow wasn’t his kill.

“In the elevator,” Will shared in his ear.

“You’re strong,” Gideon told Nivea. “You survived him because you’re strong. He’s the weak one. And his days are numbered.” Being in the facility meant she had zero access to the outside world and no internet, so she didn’t know about the campaign Gideon had launched to destroy Morrow.

A knock came on the closed door at his back and he spun around, opening it to find Samir with a phone in his hand and a gleam in his eye. He stepped closer to Gideon and whispered, “Joseph Morrow wants a one-on-one. Says he won’t take no for an answer.”

Gideon chuckled darkly. Morrow must suspect Gideon as the one behind his abrupt downfall. “Then tell him I accept. He can pick the time and location, as long as it’s tonight.”

Samir nodded and turned away just as the nearby elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Will exited first, then Robert Vale, as well as his son and daughter-in-law. They were also accompanied by bodyguards who Gideon didn’t spare more than a glance. He stepped just outside the room where Nivea waited, greeting Vale with a nod when the man approached. He was shorter than Gideon, reaching to the middle of his chest, but broad, with a full head of shocked-white hair and piercing blue eyes. His fortune came from oil; some he’d inherited from his father, but most he’d amassed on his own. He was a shrewd businessman, calculated with the risks he took.

“We’re here.” Vale’s gaze bounced around, taking in his surroundings. “If you have a mind to eliminate me, Winters, I can assure you, I won’t be making it easy.”

Gideon grinned and stepped aside, gesturing to the open door. “See for yourself.”

Vale didn’t budge, but the three armed guards with him stepped forward. Gideon shook his head, stepping in front of them to prevent them from advancing farther. “No. Not any of you.” He met Will’s gaze, communicating in silence before he turned to Alicia Arceneaux, Nivea’s mother. She was a tiny slip of a woman with shoulder-length brown hair that nearly matched her eyes perfectly. She clung to her husband with sorrow deeply etched on her face and embedded in every line of her body. She missed her daughter. No one had to say it for him to recognize that ache. He’d seen it in his own father’s eyes whenever they’d been together and especially when they’d parted. “You have no reason to trust me,” he told Alicia. “But I would like you to poke your head into that room. There is someone in there who’s waiting for you.”

“What kind of trick?—”

“No trick,” he interrupted Benedict Vale while holding Alicia’s gaze. “No trick. Eliminating any of you serves no purpose for me. In fact, it’s the other way around. I need you alive. So again, this isn’t a trick. Look inside that room, Alicia.”

She glanced from him to her husband. She still didn’t believe him, none of them believed him. He felt the hostility pouring from the bodyguards who were hemmed up by Will and Samir. But then Alicia stepped forward, taking her husband, Benedict, with her as she eased toward the open doorway. Robert tensed, eyes narrowed to flints, distrust and a promise of retribution burning in his eyes when their gazes clashed.

Gideon was staring at Robert when he heard Alicia’s gasp, and he turned in time to watch the woman drop to her knees as she screamed.

“Nivea?” Benedict was the one who spoke first, holding on to his sobbing wife, voice shaking as he laid eyes on his daughter for the first time in three years. “Nivea?”

Robert Vale rushed forward, barging past his son and daughter-in-law and into the room. “Nivea!”

That was the second time Gideon heard a grown man’s wail. The family members entered the room and Kaleb exited, closing the door softly behind him, muting the loud crying as the broken family reunited.

Gideon turned away from the others, closing his eyes. He couldn’t help but feel resentment thathedidn’t get to have a reunion. That he would never again see his mother, or have his parents together. That had been stolen from him. He pulled his phone from his pockets, blinking the moisture from his eyes as he called André.

“You did it?” his love asked in greeting.

Before Gideon left the house, he’d shared with André what he’d been about to do. “I did it.”

“I’m so proud of you.”

Gideon smiled, the pain in his chest easing just a little. “You know why I’m doing it.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t matter.” He paused. “How are you feeling?”

“Angry. Sad. Resentful.” The list burst from him.

“I get that and I’m sorry.”

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