The Havoc We Wreak - Becca Steele Page 0,73

“No. Don’t you see? By the time I knew the depth of Christine’s nature, too much had happened. Your father was in love with her, your mother had passed away, and your family was hanging on by a thread. All I could do was to prepare myself as much as I could, putting my own contingency plan in place, meeting with the Ivanov—”

His sentence was abruptly terminated by the door to the side room flying open with a crash.

Weston appeared in the doorway. Brandishing a phone in the air, his panicked gaze met Caiden’s.

“Christine’s calling.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

I froze in shock. Christine? What the fuck? How?

“Allan’s phone.” His eyes, wide and guilty, met mine. “I’m sorry. In all the excitement, I forgot to turn it off.”

Fuck. This wasn’t good. Nothing we could do about it now, though. I stalked over to him, taking the phone from his outstretched hand. “It’s okay. What’s done is done. Wh—” The phone started ringing in my hand again, Christine’s name flashing up on the screen.

I had to make a snap decision. Heading back over to Allan, I held out the phone. “I’m putting Christine on speaker. Answer it. Don’t try anything stupid.”

He nodded once, his eyes full of fear. I hit the button to connect the call and turned on the speaker.

“Allan?”

At the sound of Christine’s voice, my jaw tightened, and I felt my girlfriend’s hand from behind me reaching out to mine, holding on with a death grip. I curled my fingers around hers, as I held Allan’s stare.

He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. “Christine.” His voice was steadier than I’d anticipated.

“Where are you?” Her words were harshly spoken.

I shook my head minutely at Allan.

“I’m—I’m okay.”

“I didn’t ask how you were, I asked where you were.” There was a slight undercurrent of concern to her words, which I knew my girl was picking up on. She acted like Christine meant nothing to her, but I could see how she wanted Christine to have something redeemable about her. That was the thing about Winter. Despite everything, she always wanted to see the best in people.

What she refused to see was that some people were beyond redemption.

Allan blew out a shaky breath. “I—”

Before he could even finish the fucking word, she was addressing me. Us.

“I know you’re listening in. I know it’s you.” She sucked in a breath, and spat out the next words as if they were acid. “Caiden Cavendish.”

I felt the eyes of everyone on me, and bile rose up in my throat. How? How the fuck did she know I was involved?

I didn’t have a chance to think about it, because she continued speaking. “Bring Allan, alone, to Alstone Docks within the next hour. No tricks. If you don’t do as I say, Miss De Witt will meet an unfortunate end.” She punctuated her words with the sound of a high-pitched scream, which I assumed was from Jessa.

I heard Winter gasp next to me, immediately clapping a hand over her mouth the second the sound escaped.

My head was fucking messed up. How the fuck did Jessa get involved in this shit? And why was Christine using her to threaten us?

She knew I was there, so there was no point hiding.

“Christine.” I drawled her name, my tone completely indifferent. Inside, though, I was fucking raging.

She laughed, if you could call it a laugh. Acerbic, setting my teeth on edge. “I knew you were involved. Not so clever now, are you?”

“What do you want?” I got straight to the point.

Her words seemed to echo around the warehouse. “Be at the docks with Allan.” There was a pause and the sound of a muffled voice, and then she added, “Bring the Hyde boy, too. No one else.”

The call abruptly ended.

Fuck.

This was it. Our time was officially up.

I sank into the chair behind me, running my hand through my hair. Shit, how could I do this? How the fuck could I keep anyone safe? How had I fucked up so badly that she knew who I was?

“I’ll go on my own,” I finally said.

“No.”

The voice came from behind Allan, and I jerked upright to see Cassius standing there, arms folded across his chest.

I shook my head. “You heard her. I have to go alone. Not only that, it’s too dangerous.”

He came around Allan to stand next to me. “Allan’s seen me now, anyway. I’m coming.”

“Me too.” Weston joined him. “Hi, Allan.” A brief expression of hurt flashed across his face, but he masked it. Allan winced at