Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point #4) - Mary Catherine Gebhard Page 0,120
a king. You used them on a whore and a bastard.”
I rolled back to bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for him to just fucking go.
I had a plan for my grandfather. It wasn’t as elegant as his had been. My plan was simply to cross the line. End his life, end it when guards weren’t waiting at the foot of the stairs to rip me off him.
I was just waiting for my moment to end him, so wherever Story and our little lemon were, they could live forever.
Free.
Even if that meant I would be locked away.
“There is nothing you can do to stop me, Grayson,” my grandfather continued. “And honestly, even if you could, I don’t think you’d want to.”
He placed something down beside me on my nightstand. I glanced to the side. They were square and slick.
Photos.
I picked them up. “What are these?”
“Proof that it’s over. Give in.”
I couldn’t process what I was looking at. Blood on the sand. More blood than I’d ever seen in my life. In the middle of it all, the green pocket square.
My green pocket square…abandoned.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Your little whore never made it out alive.”
Sixty-Three
GRAY
I lunged at my grandfather, in an instant pulled back by his guards.
“You’re fucking lying!”
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
Gone.
She couldn’t be gone—they couldn’t be gone. That wasn’t—it wasn’t—what the fuck was happening?
Gone.
I wouldn’t survive this pain. I couldn’t breathe through it. It was suffocating me. I didn’t want to survive it. The only reason I was even trying to breathe was to end him.
It had to be a lie. A trick.
My grandfather reached into his breast pocket, pulling out another photo. An aerial view of the beach, what looked like a satellite photo of two women.
Snitch lying pale on the ground.
Surrounded by blood.
The only thing keeping me standing was the guards holding me hostage.
“In your version, I got some shares of a company. In mine, I take everything the du Lacs own down to their very bloodline, and then I erase it off the planet. All Lynette asked was her daughter stay in the family.”
Who had the most to gain from all of this? For months I’d thought it was Lottie.
If not you, then who? Who has the most to gain?
“Lottie wouldn’t agree to that,” I rasped.
“When given the option between saving her own child and yours, who do you think she chose? There was only one spot in the ambulance.”
Hate.
Visceral hate.
Why did I trust Lottie with her? What the fuck is wrong with me?
“No one will know the child isn’t yours, Grayson. I’ve spent too many years on this. A small price to pay.”
“That is what you gave Lynette?” I screamed.
Your father tried that.
Josephine’s words echoed in my head, over and over and over again.
There is no getting out of this world, not alive.
She tried to warn me.
Now Snitch was dead, and I was supposed to make my peace as puppet. My child and wife were fucking gone. My little lemon. Would she have had her mother’s talent?
Gone.
Gone.
“Be on the right side of history, Grayson. A hundred-year rivalry is coming to an end,” he smiled cruelly. “And we win.”
The room blurred, watery.
The world is collapsing.
“Are you crying?” my grandfather asked, disgusted. I knew the hit that would follow that tone of voice, and welcomed it—welcomed anything other than this gnawing pain.
But steps sounded on the stairs, and the hit didn’t come.
My grandfather stepped back, annoyance tinging his face, as Charles and Keller St. Germaine came onto the floor.
“What the fuck are they doing here?” I rasped.
“They’re here to keep you company, until you decide to get back on our team. Of course, your guards are stationed at the end of your wing for company, as well. You’ll have until the Swan Swell.”
I looked between them. “The fuck is going on?”
“Did you really think while I was away, I didn’t have eyes on you?”
They weren’t there for their mother? They were his fucking eyes?
Of course, Jo wasn’t here. Just the two males, because of course my grandfather would never acknowledge Jo as anything other than a girl.
“He killed your fucking mother,” I spat.
“Oh, he speaks,” Charles said, glancing to his brother.
I lunged for my grandfather, breaking free enough to slam my fist into his jaw. In a second, I was pulled back, a vice grip around my arms.
My grandfather wiped his bloody mouth. “Don’t be a fucking pussy.” He reached down, thumbing the tears on my face, before slapping me. “You should be thanking me.”