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Chapter 43 Damien
“Party’s over,” I tell Geoffrey as the ambulance drives off with the governor and Margaret. “Kick everyone out.”
Turns out Bexley’s years of bad food and no exercise caught up with him and he suffered a massive heart attack while eating an eggroll. The EMTs are trying their best to keep him alive, but they don’t think he’s going to make it to the hospital.
Looks like karma is catching up with everyone tonight.
Geoffrey bows. “As you wish.”
“Wait,” I bark before he scurries off.
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to spend some time with Eden tonight. She’s…just hang out with her. Do whatever it takes to make her happy. I’ll be in my office for the remainder of the evening. I don’t want any interruptions.”
I have an opponent to torture and kill.
“Of course, sir.”
The heaviness in my chest eases as I make my way down the stairs.
Revenge is so close I can taste it.
My heart beats like a drum as I walk down the dark, narrow hallway leading to my office.
Tick tock, Cain Carter.
I’ve been waiting to do this for eleven long years. It’s better than the last bite of a decadent dessert.
Hell, it’s almost better than sex. My dick gets hard just thinking about slitting his throat from ear to ear.
My lips twitch as I enter my office. The evil, vile things I’m going to do to him.
“Time to rock and roll, Cai—”
My heart stops cold. No.
Dread crawls up my throat, squeezing like a vise.
How does a man who’s cuffed, hogtied, and fastened to a tank…get up and disappear?
Easy. He doesn’t. Not without a lot of help.
I check my office phone. It doesn’t look touched. The tank is fine. Eden’s ball gown is still on the floor. Everything other than Cain not being tied up looks exactly the way I left it.
Pressure tightens against my ribs.
Eden’s ball gown is still on the floor.
My insides twist into something dark and vicious. The thing currently beating out of my chest tells me not to believe it, but the writing is all over the wall.
I brace my arms on my desk and blow out a heavy breath. She let him go.
Why the fuck would she do something so stupid? I know I hurt her—but Cain. It doesn’t make any sense.
Eden was in the clear. She never had to see or hear from him ever again after tonight. Hell, her plane was leaving…
The anger in my gut takes a sharp turn, propelling up my esophagus before surrounding the vital organ she snuck her way into.
That fucking bitch. I trusted her. I thought she was playing Cain…not me.
Not only does Cain win the girl, but he also gets twenty-five million dollars of my money to boot.
Christ. When she demanded money, I didn’t question it.
Faster than my brain can catch up with my reflexes I rip the cord of my lamp out of the wall and raise the steel base over my head.
Then I bash it against the fish tank.
The first crack is small—they usually are.
There’s damage. Water is trickling out. But it’s repairable if you patch it up in time.
But my mother didn’t give a fuck.
The second crack is worse—it’s deeper. Bigger. Water isn’t trickling anymore…it’s pouring out onto the floor.
The damage is too significant to repair. The only thing you can do is take the chunks left behind and turn them into something else.
Something stronger.
So you can get your vengeance.
Until that third crack—because that third one is catastrophic damage. Nothing is salvageable.
Nothing matters anymore. You’ve lost everything.
Including the piranha flopping on my office floor. The one you’re currently beating to death with a lamp because Cain’s no longer here to take the years’ worth of payback you’ve saved up for him.
Because Eden let him go.
She took my heart, my money, my plane ticket, and my revenge…
And then she betrayed me…just like everyone else in my life.
I should have known something was wrong. The way she looked at me. The way she went from spilling her heart out and crying while proclaiming her love…to becoming a stone in the blink of an eye.
It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before…
I drop the lamp.
Not since Cain told me his father and brother died.