her words.
“Why you—”
“There’s no use denying it. I have proof. Not on me, of course. London, Johanna’s son, has the proof. I just came here because I need to hear it from you. I need to know…why? Why not just divorce her?”
“You really don’t understand anything, do you, you simpleton?” He rubbed his puffy cheeks. “Money. I needed her money.”
Bethany couldn’t say anything. Her mother had died because of money?
“I made a bad deal. I lost everything—all of my fortune. When I asked your mother for money, she flat out refused me. My own wife. She said I had clearly lost the ability to be trusted with cash. I’m an investment banker. It’s what I do. That would have been like telling her she had grown too ugly and fat to model anymore.”
Bethany bristled at the notion that he was insulting her mother. She had always been beautiful. This jerk had killed Lilly, he didn’t have to insult her memory on top of it all.
“I was ruined. I owed money to everyone. I had to get rid of Lilly. I needed the insurance money. I hadn’t realized she had put it all in a trust that you and I were to share.”
“If you were so strapped for cash, how did you manage to pay Rochelle 1.5 million dollars?”
He laughed. “Oh, if you know the price, then you do have proof.” He shook his head. “That’s too bad. I guess I’ll just have to get rid of you, too.”
Bethany frowned. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m not the one who has the proof. It’s London Warwick who does.”
“Yeah, and where is he? He can have all the proof he wants, but with you dead, I’m not locked into the trust anymore. I’ll have all of the money I need to disappear.”
She blinked at him. He wouldn’t get the money, not if he was being accused of soliciting a hitman, of killing his wife and stepdaughter. How could he not see that?
“You’re unhinged,” she told him.
Her head exploded into pain, and everything went dark.
Chapter Twenty-Four
London
The elevator doors had barely closed on Beth when London began firing commands at James, the first of which was to learn what proof James had found that Leonard Humphreys had indeed been the one to pay Jean Rochelle to kill Lilly Russo.
Once he had learned everything James’s forensic accountant had discovered, London felt himself blanch. “You need to call Interpol, right away. Tell me what you’ve found.”
“I’m on it,” James said as he grabbed his phone.
“Once that’s done, I want you to go see my mother and explain everything to her. I need to go get Beth. I shouldn’t have let her leave.”
“I know that, you dumbass.” He waved him off before speaking into his phone.
Bethany had only about a ten-minute head start. She would no doubt be at her place, crying and all alone. He ran down the steps. He might have been at the very top, in the penthouse suite, but his shifter legs were much faster than the elevator. Once he was in his car, he hit the steering wheel. He really needed to do better when it came to understanding his mate. He never should have let her leave when she was so upset. She had been so adamant that she wanted to be left alone that he had felt like the world’s most controlling boyfriend by making her stay.
Her world had shattered in a pretty big way, and he should have been there to hold her through it.
London parked his car in front of Beth’s townhouse and ran up the steps where he rang the doorbell a bit too aggressively. He needed to remain calm and keep his own emotions in check. He was here to help his mate, to support her through this crisis. If that meant that she was going to rage at him, then so be it. Anything she needed, he would be there for her.
The door swung opened and Eugenie, the short brunette was standing there, huge eyes lined with tears.
“London. You’re here to save her, aren’t you?”
“Where is she?” was London’s answer as fear and anger steeped into his blood. There was only one place where Bethany would have gone in the state that she was in.
“I told her it was a bad idea. I’ve been pacing like a madwoman. I nearly called 999 a bunch of times.”
“She went to Humphreys’, didn’t she?”
Eugenie nodded. “She left about five minutes ago.”
“I’ve already called the proper authorities,” he called to