Page 113 of Her Beast

Thomas’s lips parted in surprise. “Wait—I never said Nadine was involved. The first she heard about it was the other day.” He scowled at Malcolm. “Thanks to your arrangement with her bitch of a mother and that trick with my sons, by the way.”

“So that is the first she knew about it all?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

Malcolm reached into his coat and Thomas flinched.

He laughed and raised his hand in a calming gesture. “Relax, Tommy! I’m just taking out a letter for you.” He lifted it up and waved it back and forth. “See, nothing harmful in my hand,” he lied.

“A letter? From whom?”

Malcolm tossed it onto the desk. “Go ahead and read it.”

Tommy snatched it up and unfolded it, his face going as pale as his wife’s had done when she read her copy.

When he looked up, Malcolm tossed a photograph onto the desk—the same one he’d shown Sheehan to make him so cooperative.

Tommy picked up and the photograph and Malcolm watched as shock and disbelief turned to white-hot rage.

“The resemblance is quite astounding when you look for it, isn’t it?”

Tommy crumpled the photograph in his fist and then looked up. “Where is he?”

“Don’t worry about Sheehan—you’ll see him soon enough. Worry about this, instead.” Malcolm pulled out a final piece of paper and threw that down.

“What’s that?”

“A list of instructions.”

“Instructions? What instructions?”

“The first item on the list I want delivered to my house tomorrow, the rest I’ll give you until the end of next month to take care of.” He smirked nastily. “After all, some of the items will take some… scheming—but you’re good at that, aren’t you?”

Tommy snatched up the paper, tearing it in his haste to claw it open.

His eyes threatened to bulge out of his head. “I can’t do all these things! You’re—you’re mad! And this last thing”—he shoved the paper at Malcolm, as if he’d not been the one who wrote it. “A life for a life? What does that even mean?”

“You’re a smart man, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Tommy shook his head, his eyes wide and frantic. “But you already have Carl andhe’sthe one who killed her! What more do you want?”

Malcolm dropped his hands onto the smooth, cool surface of the desk and leaned toward the other man, bleakly amused when he recoiled. “Two people died in that fire, Harlow. Perhaps you didn’t know that?”

“Two? But I thought it was just”—his jaw dropped and horror flooded his eyes. “Your wife,” he whispered, “she was—”

“Yes,” Malcolm said, not wanting him to finish the sentence. “She was.”

“But… I—I don’t understand what you want.”

“I want the truth.”

Tommy breathed rapidly through his mouth, looking like a landed carp. “I—I—” He gulped. “You were right, Malcolm. It wasn’t just Carl, it was Nadine, too. She was the one who came up with the idea. She’s always been that way—pushing for more and more.” His face twisted into a vicious snarl. “I gave hereverythingand the greedy whore was fucking her own brother!”

Malcolm laughed. “It sounds like you and Mrs. Harlow are going to have quite the conversation after I leave here tonight.”

Tommy stared at him with pure hatred. “You vile, disgusting—”

“Come now, Tommy. You should be thanking me instead of cursing me. After all, I’ve made it easier for you to give me what I want.” Malcolm stopped smiling. “What was it that I wanted, Tommy?”

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