Page 81 of Evil King

“Okay,” she said, pushing my face away playfully. “Let me eat since you made me stop eating you.”

“Hey,” I responded. “I amoneman.”

Cherri giggled and then dug into her food. Thanks to a morning of back to back going at it, I’d also learned that Cherri was legitimately difficult to satiate. She blamed it on the fact that she’d never had satisfying sex before, so now she wanted an endless supply of it. As much as I was more than happy to give it to her, after a while, a man needs to recharge.

Cue eggs and bacon.

“It’s fine,” she said. “We probably need to compare some notes about Nathan and Miss Abrams, anyway. I feel like there’s something we’re missing that links her with Alicia. Two women in the Loches’ lives dying within twenty-four hours of each other doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”

“No, it for sure isn’t,” I replied. I placed what was left of the eggs and bacon I’d made on a plate of my own and sat down at the table across from Cherri. “It’s Connor. He may not have killed Miss Abrams personally, but he’s the reason she jumped. By all accounts, he killed them both.”

“She brought up Nathan to you, right?” Cherri asked.

“Yeah. She started to flip out, and then she started saying, ‘Did Nathan tell you?’ and then she said stuff like, ‘You want me to get down on my knees? I’m just supposed to open my legs.’ I didn’t get it. Did she not want to be having sex with Nathan? Was he making her?”

Cherri shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like Nathan.” I tilted my head, and she held up her hand. “I know, okay? I know what he did to me, but thatwasn’tNathan. Trust me on this. He’s kind of an ass, but he was not himself when he did that. I mean, fuck, Nathan doesn’t even like getting his hands dirty. That’s why he keeps Nikita and Jaxon around. The fact that he had a gun was insane to me. He’s never had the stomach for shit like that.”

“When I first went to live with them, he called my basketball heavy,” I recounted. “He pointed that gun at me for nearly ten minutes and never pulled the trigger. It didn’t even scare me to see it in his hands because I knew he wasn’t going to do anything.”

“Brayden, the sort of smarmy mini-Nathan in our group, evenheasked Nathan what was wrong with him, and he never talks badly about Nathan.” She sighed. “I get it. I know I should just cut my losses and ditch him, but I just can’t. I feel compelled to help him. I don’t know why.”

“It’s because you’re a good person, and even if he’s kind of an ass, you’re insightful enough to know that who he’s been lately is not who he is,” I replied. “Which is good because I still kind of want to shove him into a fucking barrel and roll him into the ocean.”

Cherri laughed. “Oh, man, when Avery told me she sent him to see you, I wascertainI was gonna show up to find him dead.”

“Believe me, if he hadn’t pulled that gun, he would have been, or fucking close.” My mind drifted back to that weird interaction with Connor and Nathan. “You know, it’s weird, though. I was certain that Nathan had something to do with Miss Abrams flipping out, but I really don’t think he did. Connor had told me to keep my mouth shut, but I assumed Nathan was in on all of it. When I mentioned it to Nathan with Connor there, Connor looked like he wanted to rip my head off. He knows something that Nathan didn’t.”

“Nathan told me that he didn’t want to be sleeping with Miss Abrams anymore,” Cherri explained. “I thought he was just blowing smoke, but he got so distraught when we talked about it. He said she was blackmailing him.”

“Blackmailing? What would she have over him that she could use to blackmail him?” I asked. “Everyone knew about their affair.”

“I don’t know. I asked him, but he wouldn’t tell me. He said it was too bad to even talk about. I swear, Deon, I know you don’t like him, but Nathan’s notthatbad of a guy. He’s kind of a douche, but most of us in The Royal Court are kind of douchey. It’s our thing. Kyle, Nikita, even Brayden, they all really care about Nathan, and there have been times where he wasn’t totally miserable with me. Even toward the beginning of the year this year, there were a couple of times where I was like, ‘Where hasthisguy been?’ It’s in there, but I think Connor was just suffocating it.”

“He had to study, like, four languages and started studying business tactics at eight,” I said, and Cherri’s jaw dropped. “Seriously.”

“He’s always gotten straight A’s, but I assumed he was paying for them.”

“Oh. no, he’s like fucking smart. Like stupid fucking smart. Yesterday, when I was sitting in that cell, I actually caught myself wishing I could talk to Nathan because I know he could help me figure out what Connor’s up to.” I grumbled. “I may not be his number one fan, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little upset with myself when I realized how my leaving seemed to have affected him. Connor doubled down. I can’t imagine that shit was easy.”

Cherri held up her hands. “It feels weird to be sitting here, talking nicely about and sympathizing with a guy who raped me.”

“Yeah. Well, it’s like you said, the spider’s web.” I stabbed my fork out at her. “Speaking of which, do you think it’s at all odd that not one but two bodies have dropped to the ground with me there? Speaking of coincidences, I don’t think that’s one.”

Cherri shook her head. “Definitely not, but would that mean Connor had something to do with that too? Why?”

“I don’t know. Fuck. I feel like we’re so close, like we’re just missing one piece.”

“I mean, shit keeps happening to these women Connor has dealt with. Alicia, your mom, and her kid got caught up in not one buttwodeaths that he didn’t actually have anything to do with. Miss Abrams must be connected somehow if she killed herself because of him.”

“Holy shit,” I said. One of the pieces knocked into place. “Cherri, that’s it.”

“What is?”

I jumped up from the table and rushed back into my mom’s bedroom. I ripped open her closet door, reached up to the top shelf, and pulled down the box that I know she kept with the evidence she leveraged against Connor. In it was his naked trophy photos of all the women he slept with behind his wife’s back. I carried it back into the kitchen, sat back down, and then started sifting through the pictures.

“What is that?” Cherri asked.

“When Connor tried to take custody of me from my mom, she had an ace in the hole. I guess when she was cleaning his house, she found his box of naked pics of all the women he was fucking around with. It’s how she found out he was sleeping with other women and, eventually, how she learned that he was marriedandthathis wife was pregnant. She stole the box when he fired her after she confronted him and used it to get him to drop the custody dispute.”

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