EVIL VILLAIN (The Royal Court #3) - Rebel Hart Page 0,22
chuckle, but it was drenched in self-loathing. “You guys just started to like me. If I’d told you I was working with Connor, that would have ended in a snap. I didn’t…” He looked up at Kyle again. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
No one responded to that sentiment. It was likely because they all knew he was telling the truth. We could pretend that we’d be better people and forgive Brayden regardless, but the truth was, none of us were that great of people, at least not back then. If I’d caught wind of that, I probably would have beaten Brayden black and blue. Everyone else had similar looks on their faces.
“Well, that’s behind us now,” Kyle said. “All that’s left is to look forward.”
“Towards what?” Colette asked. “No offense Brayden, but this hasn’t been very helpful.”
“Maybe not yet,” Nikita said, “but there’s another strand we can maybe tie with this one. Jaxon and I found Brayden. Together, we just might be able to find where Connor was hiding.”
7
Deon
Felicity had been nervously shifting her gaze all over the room, but at me. She was flicking the frayed edges of one of her pillows and her breathing had hastened. I didn’t want to press her to start speaking until she was ready, but I was growing impatient with how much time she was just sitting there saying nothing.
“If we need to talk about this later, we can,” I said.
Felicity shook her head. “No, it’s just, you like me so much and you care about Venom so much. I don’t want to ruin it just yet.”
“You couldn’t,” I said. “Not after everything you’ve done for me.”
“Reserve judgement until the end of my story,” she responded. “It’s like I said, your path crossing with Garrett’s was not serendipitous. He used to work for your father. He was one of the men who Connor frequently charged with taking care of anyone who posed a threat to him or his family. Garrett actually liked Connor quite a bit. He knew he was cutthroat, he knew he was ruthless, but Venom’s got a mean streak as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
I had flashes of images of Venom beating the dog shit out of anyone who messed with me behind bars, threatening guards into doing what he wanted, causing even the warden to fear him. Venom was kind to me, but I knew what happened to people he didn’t like. He was probably pretty similar to Connor in that regard, but there was one difference.
He knew how to tell the difference between those he loved and those he didn’t.
“Yeah. When I first got to the adult prison, a few guys tried to punk me around. One of them never walked again,” I explained.
Felicity smiled. “Yeah. I remember Garrett telling me about that. He didn’t like that those guys hurt you like that. Not after everything you’d already been through.”
I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean? I never even spoke to Venom until after that. How did he know what I’d been through.”
“He didn’t just know,” she said. “He played an active role in what happened to you.”
My heart started to beat a little faster. “An active role? How?”
“Well, like I said, Garrett did a lot of Connor’s dirty work. A lot of it was questionable, but Garrett did a good job of separating himself from Connor’s shit. It was normally all just guys exactly like Connor, and Garrett didn’t mind thinning the 1%, but then one day about four years ago, Connor came to him and said he needed him to kill someone completely innocent with no criminal background at all, and then drop the body at a specific time and place, to be provided after the kill. Garrett didn’t want to do that, obviously. Why kill someone innocent? He refused, even after Connor offered him half a million dollars to get the job done.”
“He turned down half a mil?” I said, shocked. As good of a person as I may have considered myself to be, I didn’t know if I was that strong.
“Garrett’s hard, but he’s not evil. He wouldn’t do it for any amount of money. Unfortunately for us, Connor had an ace up his sleeve that neither of us was aware of until it was too late.” Felicity took a deep breath. “Me.”
Just like that, it hit me—rather, it smashed into me like a speeding semi-truck. I realized why Felicity looked so familiar to me when I first met her.