Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“What are you talking about?” Cole asked.
“You.”
“Explain.” Cole’s tone was soft, but it was a command.
Gene laughed again, shaking his head. “Figure it out. You were supposed to be dead. I told them where you were. It took me three years to find you, but I did. You weren’t supposed to live.”
“They killed my friends.” Cole’s mouth flattened. “You killed my friends.”
“Yeah. And I’m going to kill you, too.”
“You set everything up. Finding me. Why?”
“I just told you!” Gene flung his hands in the air. “My god, are you that dumb? You were supposed to die, but you didn’t. And after dealing with Franco Dunvan, the elders realized we needed to follow one man again. Democracy doesn’t work for us.” He stared at me. “Take a guess who was chosen.”
“Carter.” Cole cursed under his breath. “This was all about him. He’s been out because of her—”
“—and she’ll be the reason he’ll come back in,” Gene finished.
“You wanted him to be the leader, your man in charge, but you told him to stay out at first.” Cole shook his head. “Carter told me you urged him to stay out.”
“Why do you think? You had come back. You weren’t supposed to. You were supposed to be dead. I needed time to clean up my mess, but then I realized Carter was like a dog after a bone. He wouldn’t rest until you were voted back into leadership. I hated that. You have no idea. We were being force-fed your bloodline again after we’d done so much to get rid of your family.”
“We?” Cole spat. His eyes were wild, and his chest heaved up and down. “We?!”
Gene grew quiet, pausing as his eyes lingered on Cole for a moment. “Well, me and a few others. We lost Stephen and Jimmy last year. They didn’t know when to keep their mouths shut about something.”
“So not all of the elders are involved?”
There was a beat of silence.
It extended to another minute.
Then I got it. Gene wasn’t as connected as he’d made it sound. As soon as I figured it out, Cole must have too, because he started laughing.
“You’re an idiot, Gene,” he said. “A complete idiot. Have you thought this through?”
“You think you’re so smart, Cole? You never would’ve figured this out. Ever.” He waved a finger at him, a gleam of pride coming to his eyes. “If it had been Carter on that stairwell just now, he would’ve gotten it the second he saw Emma being held against her will. He would’ve launched an attack then and there. Hell, we’d probably all be dead if it’d been him and not you.”
He puffed up his chest, as if he were boasting. “But no, lucky for us, Carter’s still being questioned. The police want to pin everything on him. Who do you think he’ll come to for help? To make sure nothing comes back to him? Me. The only thing that’ll keep him out is…”
His beady eyes swiveled back to me. “…his woman. Thanks to the Bartels wiping out most of his security guards, we were able to scoop you up. We knew right where you were, and for once, you weren’t protected. I can’t let this opportunity go to waste.”
“You’re sick, Gene.”
He shrugged. “No matter how much Carter tried to push you onto us, your place was deemed irrelevant the day your father died.”
“So you’re with the Bartels? You’re working with them?”
“What?” His eyebrows lifted, but he was grinning. He enjoyed this. I saw it now—it was almost time. He bent down and opened a drawer.
I sucked in my breath.
He reached inside.
No…
He pulled out a gun.
“Are you? Are you working with them, Gene?” Cole’s voice rose.
He was stalling. I got it then. My whole body felt drenched with ice. He couldn’t fight them? Is that why he was stalling for time? If he couldn’t—I couldn’t. I wanted to see out that window again. I wanted to pretend I could find an escape route. Fighting was pointless. They had guns. One shot and everything was done. My pulse picked up. My vision began to swim around.
Gene had started to come around the desk, with that gun in hand. He was checking the clip.
“Are you?” Cole demanded.
He slammed the clip back into place and stopped, only a few feet from me. He held the gun like it was a phone. Like it was nothing to him. It was everything to me.
He smiled at me, but murmured to Cole, “You don’t think I know what you’re doing? You think I’m that dumb? Waste his time. Ask him his agenda. Ask him anything. Demand it. Make him mad. Make him upset. He won’t think right. He’ll start talking. He won’t know what he’s doing. That’s your plan, right? Wasting my time, trying to stall. For what?” He waved the gun between us. “You’re both going to die. You have to.”