Billy & The Beast (Ever After, New York #3) - Eli Easton Page 0,69
right at this moment. I’d hoped for a chance to do some digging first. But perhaps it was just as well to get it over with.
I found him in the library. He must have heard the truck. He was sitting in one of the chairs by the cold fireplace, waiting for me.
“Hello, Emmanuel. I see you let yourself in.”
“The front door wasn’t locked.”
“Hardly any need with the wall and gate.”
“True.”
I sat down wearily in the other chair at the fireplace. “Where’s Jack?”
“Shut up in the kitchen. I didn’t want to get hair on my suit.”
“Hmmm.”
From the distance, I heard a muffled bark. It was presumptuous of Emmanuel to put Jack up, but probably for the best. I needed my full focus for this conversation.
“Have you spoken to Billy Martin?” Emmanuel asked.
I blinked in surprise. “No.”
Emmanuel nodded, his face blank. “When did you speak to him last? Today?” There was a new edge to his voice. Hadn’t I just said no?
I gritted my teeth. “I haven’t spoken to him since you insisted I fire him. In fact, you had your tech guys block him on my phone, so I couldn’t have spoken to him if I’d wanted to, could I?”
“Don’t lie to me!” Emmanuel shouted, slamming his hand on the arm of his chair. It was so unexpected I jerked. “You were just at his house! You went inside and had a conversation with his mother. You’re cooking something up with him, and I want to know what it is!”
I’d heard Emmanuel yell like that at subordinates at the office, but he’d never used that tone with me. What the hell was his problem? I was the one who should be angry. I was angry. Icy rage slicked through my veins.
“Lying? I’m the one who’s lying? First of all, why the fuck are you spying on me? Yes, I was just at Billy’s house and I spoke to his mother. I went there to talk to him, to hear from his own lips that he planned to sell me out. Because it’s bullshit, isn’t it? You made the whole thing up. What I don’t understand is why. Why was it so important to get Billy out of my life?”
Emmanuel stood up abruptly and walked over to the window. He stood there, gazing out, a disappointed smile on his face. He shook his head, like I’d let him down. “You really should have believed me, Seb. I really wish you hadn’t gone there.”
I stood up and folded my arms over my chest. “I asked you a question, Emmanuel. I want to know—”
He turned from the window and leveled a gun at me.
I was angry, yes, and I knew he’d been lying. But it was still a shock. My mouth went dry. It’s unnerving to see a gun pointed at you, especially when the look in the person’s eyes tells you they’ll use it. Especially when that person is—was—a trusted friend.
Especially when the weapon is yours.
“What are you doing with my gun?” I asked stupidly.
“I took it when I closed up your condo after the accident. In case this ever became necessary.”
In case what ever became necessary? To hold a gun on me? I was utterly confused.
I’d bought that gun on a whim, because a friend of mine said every man should have a little something in case he ever needed it. The Smith & Wesson pistol had been easy to buy at a gun shop in Los Angeles. And then it, and a box of bullets, had gone under my bed. I’d never even fired the thing. It was just another possession.
I hadn’t remembered it until now, seeing it in Emmanuel’s hand. But I remembered the dream I’d had the night before. Emmanuel behind the wheel of the car. And suddenly I knew.
“If you shoot me with my own gun, it’ll look like a suicide,” I said with dawning horror.
He sighed. “It didn’t have to go like this. Goddamn it, Seb, you played with my son. I attended your graduation. When you woke up in the hospital, so weak and frail, when it became clear you’d lost all memories of that night, of your father’s death, I thought this wouldn’t be necessary. I wanted to let you live. I tried to keep you safe. Surely you can see that.”
There was a little whine in his voice, a tone I’d never heard before. As if he were asking me to acknowledge how upstanding he’d been. Even now, when he was about to kill