I reach out blindly, grasping the railing before I can fall over the edge.
“I think it was your precious Damien Villa,” he declares. “Murdering the key players. Killing your
father with oleander. Causing your suicide. In fact, I’ll make sure there’s enough damage to your skull
to obscure the bruising on your throat.” He tugs me closer to the railing. Below, my coveted view
looms, desolate this time of the morning.
“But it’s too late. My father kept the evidence,” I say. “I’ve already had it sent to the news—”
“Hearsay,” Harrison says. He lets me go, his lips quirked, his smile chilling. “We both know that, as
your father feared, nothing sticks without fucking evidence. So I suggest you jump on your own. It will
be more conclusive that way.”
“Evidence,” I rasp, cradling my throat. “Like a voice recording? Of you confessing like some cartoon
villain.”
His smug expression slips, his eyebrow raising. “What?”
I nod to the interior of my suite. “You’re smart. You’ve monitored me undetected for over twenty
years. But someone else took up your game. He’s played it better. My apartment’s been bugged for
four years. He’s captured everything. Every gift. Every henchman you’ve had break into my suite.”
“Villa?” He scoffs. “The bastard isn’t untouchable. You think you matter to him? I have enough dirt to
bury himandhis fucking empire. No. I think he’ll sit back and watch you die.”
And maybe he’s right. Maybe this was all another layer of a twisted, sick game?
Damien will get his revenge threefold and no one would ever be the wiser.
I almost believe it…
Until I hear him.
“I don’t believe that will be the case, chief.” His accent rides the gathering wind, more cutting than
ever.
I turn, my heart stopping at the sight of him looming over the threshold of the balcony.
His hands are outstretched on either side of him, a subtle clue that he navigated here without his cane.
“Step aside. Your men should be arriving any minute to take you into custody.”
Chief Harrison chokes on a sound between a laugh and a growl. “Are you playing the hero now,
Villa?” he wonders. His eyes cut to me, his smile dastardly smug. “Did you tell her? How you
advertised her little show to the members of your club?”
My thoughts slow, my heart clenching like a fist over any blood flow.