Page 92 of Prodigal

“You can’t kill me. The Council?—”

Vale got out of his vehicle then and walked over. With each step, Morrow turned paler and paler until he was damn near see-through.

“Hello, Joseph.”

On his knees on the ground, Morrow gaped up at the man who’d been a friend and business partner. “Rob-Robert.” Realization sank in then, the reason why Robert Vale would be there, standing alongside Gideon. “Robert, please.”

“You took my granddaughter.” Vale’s voice shook. “You stole her freedom, her innocence, and her peace of mind. And while you kept her from us, you consoled me. You prayed for me and my family. You stood next to me, giving me support when you were the cause of my pain.”

“R-Robert, I’m sorry.” Sweat dripped down Morrow’s face. “I was wrong, I see that now. I-I’ll get help. My doctors will?—”

“Did you think I would let you live?” Vale asked. “Did you think I would just forgive and allow you to continue breathing?”

“You-you can’t. The Council?—”

“The Council will never know,” Vale assured him.

“No, they won’t,” Gideon cut in. “But the method of your death is contingent on how you answer my next question,” he told Morrow. “What do you know about my mother’s death?”

Morrow blinked wet eyes. “What? I—” One of the armed guards prodded him in the back of the head with his gun and Morrow swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“Now is not the time to hold on to your secrets,” Gideon told him. “You’re dying here, that’s a given. You decide if it will be as simple as a bullet to the head or torture where you’re ripped apart, limb by limb.”

“No.” Morrow reached out to Gideon, who stepped out of his reach. “No, please. I can…” His body shook and he started sobbing, face red and wet. “They wanted to get rid of the Winters’s proxy.”

“Me.”

“Yes.” Morrow nodded at Gideon. “Once the proxy was out of the way, then they’d handle the main seat. They expected your father, Aldo, to be too consumed with grief to put up a fight. Everybody knew how much he loved his son.”

Gideon took a deep breath to try and calm the hot rage that enveloped his body.

“Who arethey?”

“Prislaya Chopra brought the idea to me. She said there were others on The Council who wanted to change things up, but she never explained the reasoning behind it. I agreed to the plan because I disliked how Aldo acted as if he was better than me.”

“He was,” Gideon spat.

“I-I know Prislaya reached out to Ennis Canto anonymously, blackmailing him into doing the dirty work by using his secret son. But he botched the first attempt and got cold feet, so they used someone else. I think someone outside of The Council. I was never privy to that information.” Morrow sniffed. “I never knew who the other members were. Prislaya never said. Once you and your mother died, I kept waiting for them to move on Aldo but it never happened. I don’t know why, and I didn’t want to put myself in the crosshairs by asking.”

Gideon stared down at him. More answers produced more questions. There was a lot there to digest, but he wasn’t in the proper headspace to do so. He exhaled and stepped back, nodding to Vale. “He’s all yours.” He walked off.

“No, wait. No!” Morrow screamed at his back, but Gideon never turned around. He made his way to the vehicle and got inside, the blast of a gunshot barely registering as he sat in silence.

Prislaya was dead now, and he wished he’d made her suffer when he’d killed her. But shewasdead. He would turn her life inside out and learn her secrets. All of them.

A knock came on the window next to him and he rolled it down, nodding at Robert Vale. “Done?”

“I am.” Vale sized him up. “I didn’t know about their plan for your family. I’m sorry.”

“I know, and thank you.” Aldo hadn’t cared much for Robert Vale, but he’d told Gideon that Vale was ultimately someone they could trust.

Vale studied him for a few more seconds. “You want something from me, don’t you? That’s why you did all this.”

Smart man. “They were right. Changes will be coming to The Council,” Gideon told him. “I want your vote, your support, and your resources.”

“You have it.” Something in his gaze softened. “Your father loved you. Anyone who knew Aldo knew just how much he loved you, and I think he would be proud of you.”

Gideon swallowed.

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