Page 102 of Reign By Wrath

“Last chance. Are you going to confess, or am I going to rip what’s left of your desiccated heart out of your chest?”

She laughed. “What are you going on about? You don’t scare me, Sinclair. You’re just a daddy-less, boyfriend-less, fiancé-less waste of space.”

“And you’re just a dumb bitch who went on a decade-long crusade to avenge a man who’s not dead.”

Her face twisted, gleeful mask cracking for a fraction of a second.

“That’s right, Everleigh. Your father didn’t die that day. All this time, you’ve had it so wrong.”

She glared at me, her bewilderment over what new game I was playing written all over her face. “My dad isn’t dead? That’s the best you can do? This is youbreaking me? Fucking hell, you’re pathetic.”

I blinked lazily. “On that day in June, Everton and my father met for their final showdown. It was an ugly, nasty fight that ended up with Everton in a pool of his own blood. Yes, my father thought he killed him. Two shots to the chest would put down anyone, but on that day, it didn’t. After Alistair left, Everton was found, saved, and given a chance to run without anyone looking for him—the feds, the Rogues, my dad. He took it.”

Everleigh sat up, dropping her hand. I hissed at the angry, weeping gash on her forehead. “Whatever you’re trying to do, stop. This delusion you’re spinning is embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?” I laughed. “That’s the right word. It is embarrassing that you spent all this time, money, and hatred on avenging a man but zero cents on a private investigator to turn up if he was really dead.”

“He is dead! After your piece-of-shit father shot him, he set fire to his body! We had to bury ashes.”

“Someone was burned and buried, but it wasn’t Everton,” I said clearly. “My grandmother told me everything. I admit, I didn’t give a shit. Who cares if you’re a clueless idiot and Everton is still alive? That knowledge came too late to save my father and sister.” My throat choked. “W-what did it matter?”

It took me a beat to collect myself. “But eventually, I accepted that I was wrong. It did matter because telling you would do the most important thing of all.Hurt you.”

Everleigh’s lips peeled back from her teeth. “Keep spinning your fairy tales, Sinclair. It’ll add more weight when I tell the captain that you lost your mind and attacked me. I had no choice but to kill the insane Dreg that came at me.”

I carried on like she hadn’t spoken. “There was another reason I didn’t want to share this story. Because as much as I wanted to hurt you, that’s how much I wanted to save my guys from pain.”

“Blah, blah, blah.” Everleigh picked up a shard of the lamp. She leveled the jagged edge between my eyes. “I’ve heard enough from you.”

“Everton is alive,” I snapped. “At first, he wanted to make my father pay by taking everything he loved from him. But after nine years on the run, he wanted someone else. Everton met someone, fell in love, and they decided to fake their deaths and start over.”

“No.”

“Everton goaded my father into that last meeting. He let slip where he was, and Dad turned up believing they were ending it once and for all. Everton planned that too. He showed up wearing a bulletproof vest. One missed and caught him, but all the blood just sold the lie.”

“Nope,” she sang. “You’re a liar, and I’m not falling for it.”

“After Everton successfully fooled everyone.” I cringed as it came out of my mouth. “It was Sasha Dumont’s turn.”

The shard lowered a centimeter. “What?”

“Cato and Rafael’s mother,” I rasped. “Everton and Sasha fell in love. I don’t know anything about her side of the story except this... she blew up her own children to get away.”

“You’re not even trying to be believable anymore. Sasha Dumont? My dad didn’t know her and he didn’t want to know her. They had nothing to do with each other, and they sure as fuck didn’t run away together.”

“They called Astoria five years after they took off. Turns out, you can’t get by on just love. When the trust funds run out and you can’t access your bank accounts because you’re dead, you resort to blackmailing an old woman and threatening to tear down her shining reputation by telling the world her son is the leader of a criminal organization.

“Naturally, she told him to go to hell.” Everleigh’s brow twitched. “But she did hire someone to track him down, so she’d know where he was if he ever made such a stupid mistake again and came after her.”

“Give it up! I don’t—”

“That’s how she was able to give me his number.” I held up my phone, numbers already typed in. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me, so I’ll let you talk to Everton himself. I’m sure you still remember his voice?”

Everleigh’s jaw worked. A thousand emotions flittered across her face until she settled on one—seething rage.

I tappedcalland put it on speaker before she let loose.

Ring.

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