Page 112 of Vicious Deception

I shake my head. “No. Let’s go.”

The wall isn’t too high, so we don’t have much trouble getting over it. The backyard is large and looks like it’s kept perfectly manicured during the summer months.

A few lights are still on in the house. Most likely, Richard is waiting up for Corinne. We don’t have much time before she leaves to come home, but Finn is tailing her, and as of a couple minutes ago, she’s still at her party. We watch the house for a few minutes before spotting movement in one of the upstairs windows.

Picking one of the back locks doesn’t take long. We enter quietly, and I shut the door slowly so it doesn’t make a single sound. Music drifts through the air, coming from upstairs, and I stop in my tracks.

“What?” Oliver whispers.

“The song.”

My fingers curl into tight fists. On my parents’ anniversary, my mom would put this song on and beg Richard to dance with her to it. It was the song that played during their first dance at their wedding. She called ittheirsong.

So why the hell is Richard listening to it now, all these years later? Does a part of him miss her? How could he after he all but abandoned her?

Without another second of hesitation, I march upstairs and barge into his study. He’s sitting in an armchair, happily humming while he flips through a magazine. When he sees me, he jumps to his feet.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“You know exactly who I am.”

At my voice, Richard’s face falls. He stumbles backward, knocking into his chair and falling on his ass. “What—what are you doing here?”

“Making sure you never hurt anyone ever again.”

Realization fills his eyes. “You! Did you steal my boys?”

“No, but I made sure they’re safe.”

Elliot and Oliver move forward swiftly and haul him to his feet.

“Let go of me!” Richard tries to yank his arms free. “How are you both still with him? Haven’t you realized—”

“Watch your mouth,” Oliver snaps. “Unless you want this to be more painful than it needs to be.”

Wren hovers close to me, and as the guys drag Richard out of his office and toward the bathroom, I realize she’s placing herself in between him and me. My heart squeezes. Even as my mind fills in Richard’s cut-off sentence with all the things I know he wants to say, the pain eases.

She’ll protect me until the bitter end—they all will.

Richard is shouting as Elliot and Oliver shove him into the bathroom. They can’t be too forceful—we don’t want any signs of struggle. But they’re strong enough that they can contain him easily.

Before I follow, my eyes land on his phone, the screen still lit up. He has a messaging app pulled up, and in it is a text, drafted but not sent, meant for Corinne.

Richard:Listening to our song and thinking of you.

I delete the message, anger washing over me and renewing all the hurt I did my best to keep in a box. With a forceful breath, I type out a new message—a simple apology—and set his phone on his desk.

“Rhett,” Ell calls.

“Coming,” I yell back, rounding the desk and opening the top drawer. As I suspected, the knife he’s had since I was a kid is nestled in between pens and sticky notes. I grab it, the weight familiar in my palm, before sliding the drawer closed.

Wren and I move toward the bathroom, and I almost warn her about how much blood there will be, but then I stop myself. She knows. By this point, she’s watched a handful of men die—two of them at her own hand. This isn’t something that’ll catch her off guard anymore.

We pass through Richard and Corinne’s bedroom and into their bathroom. The clawfoot tub stands away from the wall, which gives us easy access from all sides. Oliver and Elliot are holding Richard down while he does his best to get free.

“Your song?” I growl, stalking up to the edge of the tub.“Your song?”

At the fury in my voice, Richard freezes. “I—”

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