Page 140 of Fallen Empire
And they would. I had left the phone laying on the bed with the directions still pulled up in the browser. Once he realized I wasn’t there, he would find it, and they would come.I just needed to buy enough time for them to get here. Enough time to keep myself and Millie alive.
I shifted slightly, feeling the press of cold metal against my lower back. The gun. Still tucked into the waistband of my jeans, right where I had placed it. He hadn’t even searched me for weapons. Either underestimating me or too distracted to think I might still be a threat.
“Let her go,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “It’s me you want, so let her go.”
A slight laugh escaped him. “Sweet Savannah. Since you won’t live to tell anyone either, I’ll fill you in like I did your little friend.”
I swallowed hard, trying to keep the nerves at bay. Trying not to let him see my fear.
His eyes narrowed, fixing on me with a predator’s focus. “Did your little boyfriend ever tell you he was once one of us?”
I couldn’t tell if he was baiting me or building toward something meant to shatter me completely.
My face dropped. I didn’t have to answer, and I didn’t have to say the words.
“I thought so,” he said, a small, smug curl to his mouth. “He thought he had some righteous duty to steal what belonged to me. What I’d worked years on. Strategically planning out the perfect time to conquer and rule, and he just came in and took it like he had some claim to it.”
It sounded more like he was painting Jaxson as a mercenary than an ally. “Sounds like he stopped you, not helped you,” I said, still not understanding where he was going with this.
“See, that’s where you’re wrong.” His voice sharpened. He bent over, resting his hands on his knees until we were eye to eye. “It wasn’t until I realized he once went by the name ofKnox… once stood in the same room with me as I took a child that was barely a teen—”
My stomach turned. The image alone made bile rise in my throat. I turned my head to the side, not wanting to look at him anymore. Because he’d enjoyed doing it. I could see it in the way his eyes lit up when he said the words. And that was sickening.
“Yeah,” Alex said, watching my reaction. “He sat right there and watched it. Liked it, too.”
I knew he was lying. Every word dripped with that same smug satisfaction he always had when he thought he’d cornered someone, but there was something in his eyes… a flicker that didn’t match the story he was spinning.
“Then he disappeared,” Alex went on. “None of us could find him. Like he was a ghost. Until I saw his pretty little face a few years later on the cover of a magazine, and everything began to click into place.”
I stayed silent, holding his gaze, even as my stomach churned.
“Every time he’d go missing from Manhattan,” Alex continued, “so would someone we’d captured. Someone valuable. Someone we could use for ransom.” His mouth twisted into something between a smirk and a snarl. “There were only three people who knew where those holding places were. Only three people who knew where those bodies were kept. The kind we either got paid for, or they were sent back in a bag. And since it sure as fuck wasn’t the person paying me… it was Bruce.”
His hand shot out, fingers clamping around my jaw so tight I knew there would be bruises.
“He never should have had a foot in the game,” he snarled, breath hot against my face. “But no, your fucking father denied me what was rightfully mine.”
Then he shoved my face to the side and straightened, towering over me. The sudden motion sent a sharp ache through my neck, and the humiliation burned almost as hot as the pain.
“Sounds like you weren’t as in control as you thought you were,” I said, my voice steady despite the pounding in my chest, “if someone was able to take something from you. Right under your own nose.”
I couldn’t react if I wanted to. In one swift motion, the bottom of his boot slammed into my chest, knocking the air from my lungs and sending me crashing backward in the chair.
My head hit the concrete with a sickening thud, and the edges of my vision began to blur again. A sharp piercing sound filled my ears, drowning out everything else.
Fight it, Savannah. Fight it.
I knew better than to try and sit up. But I didn’t have to. His hand fisted in my hair, yanking hard enough to tear at my scalp as he forced the chair back upright onto all fours.
I couldn’t tell where the pain began and ended anymore. Every part of me throbbed, burned, or ached, and I was fighting to keep from slipping under, to keep from losing consciousness.
Something warm ran down from my chest, no doubt it was the wound from where I’d been shot opening back up.
Alex leaned in close, his voice low, almost conversational. “Took me a long time to figure it out. Every time Westbrook went running off to play hero, there was a reason. Someone pulling his strings. Someone keeping her hands clean while he did all the dirty work.”
He tilted his head, eyes gleaming with recognition. “Your mother.She was the one sending him on those little rescues. Letting him look like the savior while she stayed spotless.”
And with that truth, I was suddenly questioning everything he said. Because she had been doing just that. For years.
