Page 18 of Evil Villain (The Royal Court)

Brayden nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

Nathan let out a sigh. “I hate to start with such a broad question, but Brayden… what happened?”

Brayden fidgeted a little in place. “I guess it started right at the beginning of the semester. A couple of men approached me, those two guys who attacked you, and they told me that you were in trouble and your dad needed my help. He told me that Deon was dangerous and looking for you, and all I really had to base anything off of was how much you seemed to hate him. It seemed plausible to me.”

“That makes sense,” Nathan assured.

“When I got to him, the story changed a little. He said that he was trying to get you away from Deon and the entire Royal Court because they didn’t have your best interest at heart. He told me that if I helped him, he’d…” Brayden’s voice trailed off and he stopped talking. After a few seconds, he turned and looked at Kyle and Kyle nodded to reassure him, then he looked back at Nathan and continued. “He said I could stay near you. That he’d make sure we could spend lots of time together. As much as I wanted. He said he’d make sure to remove anyone from the picture that I wanted. Cherri, Nikita… anyone.”

Nathan’s jaw clenched as his anger grew. “He knew exactly how to manipulate you.”

“Connor’s not a stupid man,” Kyle growled with the same level of aggression.

“Then things changed even more and Connor started talking more about trying to hurt The Royal Court, but he told me if I didn’t continue to do what I was doing, he’d kill me. At first, I didn’t care. I knew you guys didn’t really like me all that much, but then you all started treating me so much better, and…” He looked over at Kyle again. “Things changed.” His head drooped and his eyes fell to the floor. “I didn’t want to do it. Any of it, but there was nothing I could do. I tried to get some information on where to find Connor, but that was when he snatched me. He kept me locked up for… I don’t even know how long.”

“Where?” I asked. “Where were you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Whenever I was brought to interact with Connor, I was blindfolded. The two guys that attacked you always covered my eyes and ears and then handed me over to someone else.”

“How long did the trips take?” Nathan asked. “Thirty minutes? An hour?”

“It varied. I don’t think they were bringing me to the same place every time,” Brayden said.

“Shit,” Nathan replied.

“Why didn’t you just say something?” Avery said. “We would have helped you.”

Brayden started to chuckle, but it was drenched in self-loathing. “You guysjuststarted to like me. If I’d told you I was working with Connor, that would have ended in a snap. I didn’t…” He looked up at Kyle again. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

No one responded to that sentiment. It was likely because they all knew he was telling the truth. We could pretend that we’d be better people and forgive Brayden regardless, but the truth was, none of us were that great of people, at least not back then. If I’d caught wind of that, I probably would have beaten Brayden black and blue. Everyone else had similar looks on their faces.

“Well, that’s behind us now,” Kyle said. “All that’s left is to look forward.”

“Towards what?” Colette asked. “No offense Brayden, but this hasn’t been very helpful.”

“Maybe not yet,” Nikita said, “but there’s another strand we can maybe tie with this one. Jaxon and I found Brayden. Together, we just might be able to find where Connor was hiding.”

7

Deon

Felicity had been nervously shifting her gaze all over the room, but at me. She was flicking the frayed edges of one of her pillows and her breathing had hastened. I didn’t want to press her to start speaking until she was ready, but I was growing impatient with how much time she was just sitting there saying nothing.

“If we need to talk about this later, we can,” I said.

Felicity shook her head. “No, it’s just, you like me so much and you care about Venom so much. I don’t want to ruin it just yet.”

“You couldn’t,” I said. “Not after everything you’ve done for me.”

“Reserve judgement until the end of my story,” she responded. “It’s like I said, your path crossing with Garrett’s was not serendipitous. He used to work for your father. He was one of the men who Connor frequently charged with taking care of anyone who posed a threat to him or his family. Garrett actually liked Connor quite a bit. He knew he was cutthroat, he knew he was ruthless, but Venom’s got a mean streak as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

I had flashes of images of Venom beating the dog shit out of anyone who messed with me behind bars, threatening guards into doing what he wanted, causing even the warden to fear him. Venom was kind to me, but I knew what happened to people hedidn’tlike. He was probably pretty similar to Connor in that regard, but there was one difference.

He knew how to tell the difference between those he loved and those he didn’t.

“Yeah. When I first got to the adult prison, a few guys tried to punk me around. One of them never walked again,” I explained.

Felicity smiled. “Yeah. I remember Garrett telling me about that. He didn’t like that those guys hurt you like that. Not after everything you’d already been through.”

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