Page 5 of Twisted Kings

“Why do you hate Thea so much?” I’d asked him before, but he refused to say.

“She’s a whore.” It was the same old shit he came out with every time.

“A whore fucks anyone and everyone,” I pointed out. “She was a virgin less than a month ago.”Had she showered before Torrance took her, or did she still smell of me?

If anyone touched mykotenok, they would die. I’d marked her. Filled her with my cum. That made her mine.

“Liar,” Dario scoffed. “She was supposed to be mine, but she lied to me.”

“So you keep saying, but trust me, she was a virgin when I took her for the first time.” His head snapped up, eyes mere slits at my confident statement.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then you’re an idiot. I have no reason to lie to you about it.”

He stared at me for a moment and then sat down hard on the edge of the bed, like a deflated balloon. “I saw a video clip,” he admitted, looking sick. “He showed me a video of Thea fucking a bunch of guys. We were supposed to meet. We’d planned it for months. In the chapel, with candles and shit. Fuck, I even stole a bottle of my dad’s best wine to help relax us both.” A burst of hollow laughter fell from his lips.

“Do you still have the video?” Milo asked from the doorway.

He nodded.

“Send it to me so I can prove to you it’s fake.”

From the devastated expression on Dario’s face, the knowledge he’d made a terrible mistake had begun to sink in. If I was a better man, I’d feel bad for him. But I didn’t give a fuck about his hurt feelings.

He’d had his chance with her and blown it. A bit like Cassian. And also Lan. None of those assholes deserved a woman like Thea.

Dario pulled his phone out and a few seconds later, Milo nodded. Then he scurried back into his bat cave to do the technical shit that got him hard. At least, I assumed it did.

“So tell me,” I asked Dario. He stared into space like a zombie. “How come you had an audio clip of Thea agreeing to plant drugs in Cassian’s hotel room? Do you know who released the sex tape of her and the guys?”

I waited patiently while he considered my questions. It would be better for him if he came clean, but I wasn’t averse totorturing him to get the information I needed. Sure, it would be messy, and I’d probably lose my room deposit, but time was ticking on and the longer it took to get the information, the harder it would be to find Thea.

The thought of her trapped in a car trunk, scared, believing we all hated her, made me want to kill people. A lot of people.

“Francesco sent me here to watch Thea. He thought she’d lost her way and wasn’t doing her job.”

“Her job?”

“Yeah. He wanted her to befriend Cassian and find weaknesses he could exploit. Use him to get past Lucian’s security. Francesco wants Lucian dead.”

She’d definitely managed theget close to Cassbit, although Lucian was still breathing. Sadly.

“Why does he want Lucian off the board?”

“I don’t know. All Francesco said to me was to watch Thea - nothing else. Then last week, I got a call from Torrance telling me to go to London and plant some cameras in a hotel room. I now know it was the room Cassian booked.”

My fists clenched, but I kept my face neutral. “So you uploaded the sex tape online?”

“No, that was most likely Torrance. He knew she hadn’t planted the drugs like he told her to do. I guess he realized she was no longer under his thumb and wanted to ruin any chance she had of finding allies.”

His plan had worked. Lan no longer trusted her, and from the way Cassian had reacted when the sex tape dropped, he fucking hated her.

“The fire was me, though.”

The shock of his confession hit me hard. I hadn’t considered the fire. Like everyone else, I assumed it was a freak accident. Dodgy wiring or something.

“Torrance told me to create a distraction so he could pull Thea off campus. He was concerned she’d go on the run, even though I told him she was too worried about Verity to do that.”

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