Page 70 of Assassin's Mark
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Where did these brains come from? If I’d known you could actually think for yourself, I might’ve found you useful for more than just your cunt.”
The words registered but without effect. I was too busy trying to breathe, too busy clawing at the tight grip on my throat, on the fabric-covered arm that held me too far out of reach to get at his face. Twisting. Choking.Kicking. Derrick watched it all with a smile on his face.
“No smart-aleck remark?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Of course not.” Using his hold on my neck, he dragged me toward the chair he’d been sitting in when I turned on the light. Nothing I did stopped him. It was the story of my life in one short journey across the room—no matter how much, how hard I fought, Derrick always won.
Not thistime. God, please not this time.
“You are definitely not smart enough to have figured out about Caroline. It was my ‘hired help’ who solved that puzzle, I presume. I’ll have to take care of him soon.”
Pain slammed through my butt and hips and spine as Derrick forced me into the chair. With a knee jammed hard between my legs and his hand forcing my head back, away from him, he pinned me down.I made a grab for the gun.
“No,” he snapped, shoving the gun into his belt at his back. My hands wouldn’t reach there, couldn’t seem to do anything that hurt him. The chair rocked as I tried to kick, to bring my knees up and force him off, but Derrick ignored it all as he strapped something around my middle.
My ribs throbbed at the pressure. When he stepped back, I looked down to see a thickleather strap around my body. For a moment, hope flared—I could defeat one belt, surely, if only by sliding down the chair—until Derrick circled behind me to add several more.
Shit.
Derrick observed his handiwork with satisfaction when he moved in front of me again. God, what I wouldn’t give to wipe that smug look off his face—preferably with a baseball bat.
“I really did love her, you know.”
I scoffed. He could slap me if he wanted to, but no way would I let that statement pass without a fight. “That’s the biggest lie I think I’ve ever heard you tell.” And he’d spent a lifetime lying to me.
Derrick stepped back, watching me struggle against my bonds with something disgustingly close to pleasure in his eyes. “Love is fickle, as they say.” He shook his head. “Not that you’ll ever knowthat.”
“You can’t love a woman and kill her.”
“I didn’t kill her. It was an accident.” Derrick paced in front of me, looking thoughtful. “I regretted it, of course, but in the end I got most of what I wanted.”
Most of what he wanted? How could I have come from this man’s gene pool? “And what was that?”
“An heir.” He eyed me with disgust. “Not the one I wanted, and at far too high a price,but I made it work.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I waited for him to brush me off, to stick his nose in the air and assure us both that he didn’t have to explain to anyone. Instead his eyes went distant, his attention on something beyond me. When he crossed the room, I tensed, but Derrick only grasped a dusty chair and pulled it over to join me.
Then he took the handkerchief fromhis breast pocket and proceeded to wipe away the dust.
I rolled my eyes. Where were we, in a tea parlor, for Christ’s sake?
“Caro and Camilla were pregnant at the same time—haven’t you figured that out yet?” He tossed the hanky away and sat, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, leaned back as if he hadn’t a care in the world. As if he wasn’t discussing murder. “Unfortunately my wife wasn’tmade of the same stern stuff as my mistress. Her daughter was stillborn.” He spread his hands as if he was some helpless victim, not the mastermind of my mother’s—and almost my—death. “I had the perfect solution.”
“You mean perfect for a heartless, self-serving bastard.”
Derrick ground his teeth together. “Caro didn’t see things the same way. Her devotion should have been to me—me!—not a child,but she refused to let you go. We were supposed to be a family, she said. She was almost as naive as you.” Narrowed eyes seemed to blame me, as if I’d somehow convinced Caroline to choose me over him.
“You wanted to take away her child and give it to another woman, and you expected her to be okay with that?” I shook my head. “You must be insane.”
The slap came without warning, doubling the painin my already bruised cheek. “I’m your father! You will speak to me with respect or live to regret it.”
“I don’t think so, Councilman.”
My heart leaped at the sound of Levi’s voice, washing the pain in my body away beneath a tide of relief and, yes, love. How I’d missed it before, I didn’t know, but I recognized it now, in this musty basement, my body covered in dirt and bruises and sweat. Isearched eagerly but couldn’t pinpoint him in the gloom until he stepped closer, his gaze and gun both aimed straight at Derrick.
“Let her go.”
