Page 22 of Black Hearts
But, anyway, the police left, which gave the guys the go-ahead to come back in the room. Will and Jaxon crowded around the bed, eager for me to recount everything I’d told the police, while Bennet hugged the opposite wall, arms folded over his chest, as if he was trying to keep himself from showing any emotion.
Too late for that.
“I said everything you told me to,” I spoke, looking at Jaxon. “I also told them that my father liked to lock me in my bedroom.” I quieted. “I figured they would want to hear that this wasn’t some random stabbing, that he has a history of…”
“Being fucking nuts?” Bennet offered, and Will and Jaxon both shot a glare in his direction. He only shrugged as a result. “What? I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking. Your dad’s fucking insane. We all know it. No use tiptoeing around it.”
Jaxon opened his mouth, probably to tell him off, but I interjected, “No, he’s right. My father is insane. I… I know that, now.” It was not a statement I would’ve declared so loudly before, nor was it a statement I would’ve believed in the past, but now… now I was different. I knew things I didn’t know back then. The truth, being the big one, and knowing the truth changed everything.
My father was a serial killer, the worst of the worst. He’d tried to kill me. There were no words to describe how that made me feel. Abandoned, alone, depressed; none seemed to fit my life and the relationship I’d had with my father prior to this.
I knew one other thing.
These guys, my men… they weren’t going to stop until my father was chained in their basement, his hair dirty and his skin black and blue. They wouldn’t stop until his blood pooled on the tile floor, and I might just want a front row seat.
Chapter Four – Theo
To say the house felt different with Juliet and the others gone would be a huge understatement. It simply wasn’t the same. Even the air felt wrong, hollow almost. Like there was enough to sustain my body but not my soul.
I missed her. God, did I miss her. Not so much them, of course, but her? I wasn’t religious, but I might’ve done some praying, some bargaining. If Jaxon, Will, and Bennet brought Juliet home safe, I’d forget about my pride. I’d gladly step aside and be in a sort of reverse harem situation with Juliet and the others. As long as she was alive and safe, I’d do anything. I’d give anything.
What I wouldn’t have given to go with them, but with Markus off the deep end and the elder Scott here, there was no way Stella could keep everyone in line by herself. With Johnathan Scott here, fixing the place up, taking over Markus’s position and his job like he’d never left, it would be moronic of me to say there wasn’t murmuring in the house.
Everyone had gotten used to Markus. They might not like the guy, but he’d kept the family running, inducted more members into the family, and expanded their reach this past decade. More and more waves in the basement—there used to only be one or two a year, if what my father told me was correct. More kills meant more money, and more money meant more influence, and not just in Midpark and Hillcrest.
I didn’t know if that meant most of the house would mutiny, so to speak, to put Markus back in charge or not. For now, I think, everyone was simply waiting to see what would happen.
I didn’t tell Markus that the others had gone after Juliet. After what he did, almost forcing Lincoln to rape her, I didn’t think he had the right to know. But rumors went wild in a house like this, and with Tori being so upset that Juliet was once again missing, he was bound to realize the others had gone sooner or later. Still, I didn’t trip over myself to tell him.
Jaxon kept me informed. He got Rave to watch the house, and then… then Fred stabbed Juliet and ran away. Rave was on his tail, but who knew whether he’d actually get the guy, or if Fred had too much of a head start.
My heart ached when I thought about Juliet being stabbed, left alone to die. Every part of me hurt when I imagined what she must’ve felt, so terrified and in pain, alone. Thank God Jaxon and the others had gotten there in time to save her.
Last I knew, Juliet was in the hospital, unconscious, and the doctors didn’t know when she’d wake up. Honestly, I tried my hardest not to think about it too much, because if I did, I’d be a lost cause. I’d pack up my things and go, leave this house and its inhabitants behind—but I couldn’t do that. As much as the others had hurt her, this had still become a home to Juliet, and she would want to come back here, once it was all said and done.
You know, provided Johnathan Scott was no longer in the picture. I didn’t think she’d want to come back to the estate while he remained here since he was the one who’d handed her off to Fred without giving a shit what happened to her afterward.
I sat in my office, laptop open on my desk. I’d just checked the cabinets for the third time these past few days to check my inventory on everything. A few things needed ordering, but beyond that… I didn’t have much to do here. Not with Juliet gone, not with so many rooms in this house empty.
So many Scotts were in the field. So many had left this house and didn’t want to look back. It was a hazard of doing what they did, I supposed, but whereas Johnathan didn’t seem to care, Markus did. Markus kept tabs on the Scott family members who had left after signing NDAs, kept watch over them. If they needed aid, he was there. The man cared more than he showed, and he cared a hell of a lot more than his father.
Would the others, for lack of a better word, overthrow Johnathan in favor of Markus? I didn’t know, but I did know Markus would never ask them to. Family, to him, was the be-all, end-all of everything. Without family, you had nothing.
I understood that sentiment, of course, but at the same time, sometimes family was nothing but a toxicity you had to cut out of your life—like Fred was to Juliet.
My door was shut, but that didn’t stop whoever was in the hall from barging right in like he owned the place, and when I glanced up from my laptop and I saw who it was, I knew that was because he did own the place. Technically.
Johnathan Scott strolled in, his gaze checking the office, looking at everything before looking at me. He wore a sleek black suit—a style Markus had gotten from him—although he was a less imposing figure. Just as tall, but nowhere near as wide or as strong. He was an older gentleman though, so that could be why. It very well could be he was just as strong as Markus currently was back in his prime. I didn’t know how old he was, but I’d definitely place him in his sixties, at the youngest. He’d waited to have children until his thirties and forties, too busy being in charge of this family.
And beyond, I should say, because I’d heard the man had quite a few younger wives, or girlfriends, or whatever they were called, and they were all too happy to pop out children for him and send them here like little soldiers. Little soldiers that would turn into killers.
“Theodore Ward,” Johnathan spoke my name slowly, drawing it out as if he wasn’t used to the taste of my name on his tongue. His dark eyes were narrowed in my direction, a stare Markus had inherited, along with the perpetual scowl. His face held quite a few wrinkles, and yet the man wore them well. Even now, he commanded the room by his mere presence. “I’ve been meaning to stop by and see how you’re doing.”
I didn’t get up. I didn’t say a single word back. The only thing I did was glare, and I glared hard. Or, at least, I liked to think I glared hard, for Juliet, for all the pain he’d inadvertently caused her.
He did not go to sit in one of the chairs facing my desk. He instead stood there, hands behind his back, studying me like I was in a job interview. “I was a big fan of your father. Great work that man did. It was a pity he wanted to retire early, but I can understand the sentiment. Seeing the things we do here… it’s not for the faint of heart.” The corners of his lips quirked upward in something that resembled a smile. “The Scotts were fortunate that he had you to replace him. It is a… messy business, replacing one of our own, but sometimes it must be done.”
That got me to lean back in my chair. Unless I was completely mistaking his posture and his tone, along with the way he’d said that, I was pretty sure the man was threatening me. Or maybe that was just my imagination since I didn’t particularly like the man.
