Deadly Coincidence (Brantley Walker Off the Books #4) - Nicole Edwards Page 0,98
with a hissed, “Cut the shit, Dante. We know you were behind it all.”
His eyebrows slammed down. “What’re you talkin’ about? I was kidnapped.”
She took a deep breath but didn’t move closer, fearful she would strangle him if she did. “My house was monitored by cameras,” she informed him. “Those recordings are managed in the cloud, so the explosion didn’t destroy them.”
And that was only a partial lie. She did have cameras that recorded to the cloud, but she also had hidden cameras that only she knew about, ones that she recorded straight to a cloud server even the best of hackers couldn’t access.
At least Dante had the decency to keep his mouth shut.
“We saw you open the door and let Marcus in.” In fact, JJ had watched in horror as Dante had let that bastard in her house, had seen him stroll across the room and grab one of her metal statues off the shelf by the kitchen before disappearing. As for the camera that was set up in there, JJ didn’t know why it had failed, but she wasn’t sure she really wanted to see that man bash her over the head anyway.
“He made me.”
“He didn’t,” she countered. “This was your plan, Dante. I just need to know why? Why’d you feel the need to extort money from your parents?”
Dante took a few deep breaths, and she saw the moment he accepted he’d been caught. His face fell, his defensiveness shifting into a whine. “Because I owe too many people. I had no choice. They were gonna kill me if I didn’t pay them back.”
“So, what? You thought it’d be fun to include me? Was it your idea to have Marcus hit me on the head?” She fought the urge to reach up and touch the knot that was still there.
“Of course not,” he hissed. “He was supposed to drug you. That’s all.”
“Drug me?” Her voice was louder as she took a step forward. “You agreed to let him drug me, Dante?”
“It needed to look real, JJ. It was nothin’ personal. I just needed my father to believe it. I knew if you were involved, they’d do somethin’ about it.”
“I was out cold, Dante,” she said, remembering the other video she’d seen, the one from the camera in her bedroom. The one Luca had come across but had kept to himself when he realized what it showed. Rather than watch it, Luca had called her on the phone, told her she might want to see if it had any clues. “Unconscious, Dante. Do you understand what I’m sayin’? Out cold, in my bedroom. Defenseless.”
Just thinking about what she’d seen, the way Marcus had loomed over her, made her sick to her stomach.
“I didn’t let him touch you,” Dante choked out.
No, he hadn’t. She’d witnessed Dante attempting to hold open the door, and that was when she realized exactly what had happened. Dante had been keeping Marcus from closing himself in the room with her. In turn, Marcus had chopped off his finger. The guy was lucky it hadn’t been his whole hand.
“I protected you, JJ. You have to know that.”
“What I know is that you need help. Professional help.”
Dante was nodding his head furiously. “I know. I’ll get it, too. Once I get out of here, I’m gonna turn my life around. I’ll find a meeting or something to go to.”
JJ shook her head. “That’s not gonna happen.”
He was frowning again. “My mother—”
“Brantley and Reese are talkin’ to your parents right now. They’re tellin’ them everything that happened.”
Dante’s head tilted up in that way that said he was tired of the subject and too good to put up with her any longer.
“What you did was illegal,” she added. “You won’t be able to simply walk out of here without some sort of punishment.”
“My father’s the governor, JJ, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I noticed.” JJ exhaled, tucking her hands in her pocket. “I just have one last question for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Why’d you blow up my house?”
Dante held her gaze. “I didn’t. That was Marcus’s idea. I didn’t even know about it until we were back at the warehouse.”
“Why’d he do it? What did it accomplish?”
Dante shrugged. “He was talkin’ to some woman he met online. Well, actually, I met her online. Anyway, he said she wanted him to make a big statement.”
JJ’s eyes widened as his explanation sank in. “What’s this woman’s name?”
“Katherine,” he said easily. “Katherine King.”
Katherine King? Was it a coincidence that the name was the same