I stood, my panting still echoing around the garage, and looked over my grandfather more carefully. One of his legs was crushed. Chase had shot him there, too.
“I can’t use it.”
He sounded resigned to his fate, and he grunted, half laughing again. A shake of his head, his beard barely moving, he let out a deep burst of air.
“Bested. Bested by my two grandsons.”
Another half laugh, half grunt and he looked where Chase was lying. “That pathetic piece of shit was supposed to be my ace. I wanted him back. If I got him back, I could turn everything around. Slap him around, lock him back up until he wasready to come out and play like the soldier he was supposed to be. Didn’t think I’d ever see the two of you team up. Pieces of shits, both of you.”
My teeth were grinding.
“I know it’s over. You…” Those eyes came back to me now, and hate filled them. Derision. Disdain. His mouth curled in a sneer. I was scum under his shoes. “Should’ve tossed you both out like pups, in a tied bag. Let you drown. But I had a weak spot for your mother. What a fucking cunt, all of you. Her sister, too. She was worthless. Then you, you should’ve been aborted when I found out she was pregnant. You both…”
I was letting him spew, and he kept saying the same shit.
He wanted us dead. He should’ve killed us when he had the chance.
His daughters were worthless, both of them.
And back to the beginning.
“Why’d you kill my mother?”
He stopped on a gargle, his eyes glazed over from the pain. He stared at me, long and hard, as if he couldn’t see me. Then he hiccupped, and some blood sputtered out of him. “For the money. Bitch had my money.”
“Your money?”
“Her inheritance from her mother. That was supposed to be mine. All the fucking stupid courts and their fancy lawyer. Your grandmother left everything to her. Not her sister. Not me.Her.She didn’t have to die, though. She could’ve lived. But no, no. In the end, the bitch turned on me and had to go. Stupid. She was so stupid. That man, too.”
My father.
Calhoun spat, “He was a worm. Nothing but a slithering, slimy worm. Losers. And you and your brother, you’re the worst of them. You’re just like your mother.”
He kept going, the blood seeping from him as he said the same shit over and over again.
“You killed my mother for money? Why not kill me?”
He stared at me again, as if confused that I had even dared address him. “Because you wouldn’t take your money. And you were a minor. Knew my daughter. I hated her, lost all respect for her, but knew her. She would’ve had something written up that if you died, everything that should go to you would’ve gone to that computer nerd. I knew his weak spot. He crumbled. Get good pussy around him and he’d have to grab it. Young. Beautiful piece of ass and he’d do anything to get his dick wet. Easiest thing I ever did, sending Quinn to him. She worked him. She could pump him. She told me all about it. We’d laugh about it, and then I’d getmydick wet. Best ass I’d touched.” He started smiling. His yellowed teeth were caked with blood.
“I had to wait for you. Took you long enough. Couldn’t understand it, why you were doing what you were doing. Who’d turn their back on the money and power you’d be inheriting? Then I got word that you finally stepped up. Quinn helped with that. Said she sent that journalist pussy what she needed to out you, said it was only a matter of time. Said that if you were outed, you’d step up and you’d take control over what your cunt of a mother left you. Knew then it was time to start moving.”
He quieted, breathing harder now. He was staring at Chase, but I didn’t think he was seeing him. His body was weakening before my eyes. The blood loss was affecting him, making him more pale.
He murmured, softer, almost faint. “I never had time. He has a daughter in Thailand. I was going to kill her if he ever turned on me, but he hid her. Now I don’t have anyone left. All my friends. They turned their backs on me, or you killed them. You destroyed everything. I have nothing. I have no one. These guys weren’t my normal guys—even those guys abandoned me. You took everything from me, everyone. Even Quinn refuses to contact me. I made her who she is today. The other one, too, worthless. All of them. They’re rats, and they scatter when there’s alittle bit of fire. Stupid fucking fire. I hate fire. I hate…” He lifted his head again, but it was straining him. “I hate you. I die, and your woman is going to die. I have a guy. He promised me that he’d kill her for me. And you don’t even know who he is, that’s the kicker.”
He had no one left.
I had drained his resources, destroyed everything he could’ve used against me.
The government froze his accounts.
He didn’t have the capability to get to what accounts he could still use.
Yeah. I had a guess who he had asked to kill Bailey.
I went over to him, kneeling down before him. “That man who was supposed to kill my woman, his name Mike Harden?” That was his death policy. Calhoun had entrusted the one person he had left, but Harden was my guy.
Surprise lit in his eyes, and his mouth parted. “You know him?”