Page 81 of Reaper Flame

“Help?” I scoffed. “Why would I ever help you?”

Did he have amnesia, too? He was intent on signing me up for a lifetime of hell with Hiram a few months ago. If he was hanging off the edge of a cliff, I’d happily kick his hands away.

“I want to keep the Briarly legacy alive.”

“Haven’t you ever thought it’d be better for the old legacy to die with you?” I snarled. “The Sevens are the future for Port Valentine now.”

Anything Bryce built was something we’d want to take down. Any association with him would be a lasting reminder of all the shit he’d put everyone through.

“If Vixen doesn’t sign the contract, Giles will get everything,” he said. “I don’t know whether that would be in anyone’s interests, do you?”

He pushed the contract across the table.

“Go to hell, Bryce!” I snatched up the paper and scrunched it into a ball in my first. “Giles already has Hiram’s backing. Your money doesn’t mean shit. If Giles gets your money, all I have to do is kill him to make it mine, or have you forgotten we’re married?”

“Maybe there is another incentive I can give you?” Bryce suggested.

“We’re done here,” I said, standing up and throwing the paper on the floor. “Whatever you’re offering, we’re not interested.”

“If you help, I’ll tell them where their mother is buried,” he called after me. I stopped in my tracks, and he continued, “If you don’t, I’ll take that secret to the grave. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

Just when I thought Bryce couldn’t get any more manipulative, he knocked it out of the park. Even cancer hadn’t been able to stamp the evil out of him. The man was rotten to the core and would stoop to the lowest of the low to get what he wanted.

“How do I know you’re not lying?” I asked, turning around.

He pulled out a new contract and tapped it with his fingers. “Doesn’t a dying man’s word count for something?”

“Not when it’s you.”

“How would you ever forgive yourself if you robbed them of the closure they’ve been desperately seeking all these years?”

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I didn’t know whether to believe a word coming out of his mouth, but he was also right. If there was the smallest chance Bryce would honor his word, then it was a risk worth taking.

“If I get her to sign the contract to be your successor, you’ll tell us where she’s buried,” I said, snatching the contract and stashing it in my purse. “And we want to know the truth about what you did. Do we have a deal?”

“I have one more condition,” he said.

“You know I could stop that ticking clock whenever I want, right?” I shot him my most fierce glare. “I don’t think you’re in a position to be negotiating.”

“Call it a last dying wish,” he said. “Don’t tell the others about my cancer.”

“Why?” I mocked. “Do you think they’ll be sad? Because I promise you they won’t be.”

“I have my reasons,” Bryce said. “If word gets back to me that they know or anyone finds out, I’ll take my secrets to the grave.”

“You know you’re going straight to hell, right?”

“The best people always do,” he replied smugly. “I can see what my son sees in you. You have spirit, Candy. He needs someone like you. Someone with spirit.”

“If having ‘spirit’ is what you call controlling the urge to put an old man out of his misery, then yes, I have it in spades,” I snapped. “And I don’t need your fucking approval.”

“You’d better get her to sign quickly!” His voice followed me as I hurried from the restaurant. “Who knows how long I have left?”

I didn’t look back, but the contract in my purse felt like it was burning a hole straight through the leather. The last time I kept a secret for the good of the Sevens, it had ended in me shooting Rocky and being escorted back to Blackthorne Towers. What had past mistakes taught me? I should go back to the club and tell them everything. Maybe they’d even agree with me, but I knew I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to take the chance.

Zander and Vixen needed closure, and I was going to make sure they’d get it — even if that meant tricking Vixen into signing a piece of paper.

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