Page 135 of Corrupt Me

“What do you want?” she snaps, gripping her glass so tightly her knuckles turn white.

“To know where Felix is,” Cassandra says matter-of-factly.

“I told you to stop,” Andrew says to my mother, sipping leisurely from his glass of wine as he leans back in his seat. When our eyes connect, there is neither parental love nor hate in his gaze. I have always been nothing to him.

My mother slams the glass down, and the contents spill over. “It’s all your fault!” she yells at Cassandra, who points at herself in mock incredulity.

“My fault? What happened when I caught you and Felix together? I told you that you deserve each other, so you have my blessing, but Felix went and married Christine. You never wanted to accept that he is incapable of love. He manipulated me like he did you.”

Her chin quivers, her words coming out shakily. “You know nothing. What we have is something special.”

I snort at her delusion, and she sends me a frosty glare. It’s a wonder an icicle doesn’t materialize to pierce my chest.

Cassandra tilts her head at my mother, compassion flashing in her eyes before it quickly vanishes. “That will cost you everything.”

“I think you just lost, my dear,” Andrew says to her with no trace of empathy.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she hisses.

“It means that I won’t sink with you.”

Her chest puffs out with her harsh breathing, losing her composure by the second. “You would be nothing without me.”

He waves a dismissive hand her way. “You forget that our marriage was arranged to unite two powerful media companies. I am the one who made it into what it is. And I don’t even have a damn heir of my own.”

“This is not why I came here,” Cassandra says, stopping their fight.

“What will happen to us?” he asks, his tone, as usual, collected and devoid of inflection. I wonder if anything could ever rattle him.

“I will let you know once we catch Felix.”

My mother thrusts her chin out. “He should have been the patriarch, and I refuse to betray him.” I almost pity her. Almost.

Cassandra shakes her head at her. “He would discard you and claim all that power for himself.”

“That’s not what he said,” she says in a small voice. The house of cards is crashing down around her, entombing her—she’s out of reach and lost to me for good.

I don’t even think as I pluck the bracelet out of the box and slap it around her wrist. Done. Inhaling deeply, I accept the fact that I won’t get any resolution. I won’t tie my capacity to love myself and my worth to their inability to love me.

“What is that?” my mother shrieks.

Slapping my palms on the table, I lean into her, reaching the end of my patience. “You will start helping us, or so help me, if something happens to one of my friends, I will make you regret the day you decided to keep me.”

“I already regret that.”

Eyes locked, neither of us breaks contact. She’s mistaken if she thinks she can intimidate me any longer.

“Good. Now, what is it he wants from me?” I ask in a cool, unaffected tone.

Her eyes droop, and she stares at her fingers, fidgeting at the table. Her tone becomes calmer, as though she’s accepting her fate. “Felix doesn’t know you’re not his. He would kill me.”

“You have bigger fears to worry about at the moment,” Cassandra reminds her.

“He wants the entire Family dead, but because I told him that Bailey is his daughter, he wants her as his new heir. He can’t have any more children.”

The picture becomes clear. It’s not because of any feelings for me—which I didn’t even think he had but because he knows he’s not immortal.

“Where does Eric fit into all of this?” I inquire, needing all the information to know what I’m working with.

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