Page 131 of Until the Day You're Mine

“You can’t prove anything,” Harris mumbles weakly, but it’s obvious he isn’t so confident about that.

“Ty will. Do you think he sat in GODSHANDS quietly all those years without having any backup? Do you think none of the people you wronged found a way to dig him out? The only man to survive you and live to tell the tale. You’re going down,darling.”

“He doesn’t know shit!”

“Are you willing to bet your freedom on that?” Rian croaks. Harris tightens his grip on his neck.

“He has no evidence…” There was plenty of hesitation in his voice and Rian decides to run with that. It fuels his resolve to get Harris talking.

“You mean about the murder of Sebastian? Or about the rape of Cynthia? Or about any of the other men you’ve eliminated?”

Harris grunts and slams him hard into the cupboards still gripping his throat tight.

“Shut up!” Harris roars, but Rian can clearly hear the panic that has crept up in his tone.

A sharp pain runs through Rian’s head, down his spine, all the way to his toes. He may have lost it had Bran not cried out in Margarita’s arms. The noise grounds him, and the urgency to get this shit over with so he can be reunited with his son spurs him on.

“What did Sebastian say to you that made you pull the trigger? That he wanted to be free of you? That he had had enough of you? That he was willing to expose you?” He swallows thickly, sensing Harris loosening his grip on him slightly, his eyes wild, eyeing him with dread. He takes a chance and prods some more. “After all, he knew so much. Everything about the orgies, the drugs…the dead lovers, buried in shallow graves.”

“Dead lovers can’t talk!” Harris hisses in his face.

“No. They can’t. But their bodies do. Toxicology reports do. Their families do. You can bury their deaths under piles of bureaucracy, but Cyril had found so many of them. Sebastian had given him enough information for him to finish what Sebastian had hoped to do. And now…Tayida is the one who holds the key to it all. Even to the locations of the bodies buried in the mines of the Kelly property. Where your very first victims are still waiting to tell the story of your deprived deeds.”

It's a wild fucking guess. Rian is completely making stuff up as he goes. But the way Harris looks at him, horror and rage taking over his body, tells him he must have hit the right spot with his speculations. Harris punches him in the gut to shut him up. Rian grunts but doesn’t fold over. He’s standing tall, feeling emboldened by the fear rolling off Harris.

“They…it’s all gone. They won’t find shit! I took care of it years ago. The last time…” Harris cuts himself off. He glances at Lincoln again.

He definitely knows all about that.

Rian takes a wild gamble, his mind racing with speculations that may provoke Harris enough for another outburst that can go on record. “I wonder what Sebastian would have done, had he known who his father really was?” His eyes dart to Lincoln.

The air in the room is instantly charged with a sickeningly high voltage of volatile energy.

“You can’t prove…”

Harris looks over his shoulder to the table, suddenly remembering himself – there are people in this room, who have now heard him make a half-assed admission of conspiracy to commit, as well as actually murdering his victims. Yet, this last revelation is the one to bring down his house of cards.

Harris’s eyes lock with his supposedly loyal bodyguard, and Rian can see in slow motion, as Lincoln’s pupils dilate in horror.

“You sick bastard! You fucking told me…You swore!” He looks like he is about to hurl.

Harris makes no attempt to deny Rian’s speculation.

Rian has never seen Lincoln look this sick and horrified. “Fuck this shit!” Lincoln blurts out. He abruptly gets up and backs away to the front door.

Harris snaps his attention to the man that only moments ago was supposedly ready to die for him.

“Get back here! I’m your ––”

“Nah, fuck you, Kelly! I’m not going down with you! Not after this. You knew he was…You were there and after everything, you let us…You’re fucking sick. I’m done. I’m fucking done.”

Lincoln strides fast, making his exit, but at the last moment pauses briefly by the door. His jaw is clenched, his fists tight, his eyes are pinned to the floor. He doesn’t have the guts to look Rian in the eyes. His bravado has evaporated completely. Lincoln manages to make one last promise to Rian. “Rian, you never have to fear me. And I swear to you, I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know.”

He walks out of the house, and moments later, they can hear his car tearing out of the gravel driveway. Rian feels no sympathy for Lincoln’s pathetic last-minute come-to-Jesus moment. Lincoln might swear he will disappear in the shadows and let him live his life, but Rian makes a different vow to himself. He will track him down and make him suffer. Lincoln will pay for all the grief he’s caused.

Rian makes eye contact with Harris who is stunned to find himself completely alone and on the brink of true disaster. His life will be ruined, and it is all a culmination of his own doing.

Harris lunges forward attacking Rian. Rian doesn’t fight him this time, and it takes Harris way too long to realize why. His attention snaps to Margarita who is exiting the house, screaming for help with little Bran in her arms.

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