All the progress we made in the last few weeks seemed to vanish as we came to this crux.
My husband had a far bigger ulterior motive.
“You didn’t just marry me to take over the family business, did you?” I screeched.
Zeno remained silent.
“You threatened to expose my family’s secrets and coerced me into a marriage, knowing how much my mother valued our reputation. She’d never let her son-in-law rot in jail or be labelled a murderer.” Agony drenched my vocal cords. “You married me to ensure we’d keep our mouths shut and you killed an innocent man for nothing, Zeno! You make me sick!”
Zeno launched to his feet and crowded me in three steps. He fisted the collar of my robe and tugged me to him. “Innocent man?” he barked. “You think Armel Lancaster was innocent?”
“Let go of me, Zeno!”
Zeno did with a snarl and raked his fingers through his hair. There was a savageness in his eyes that scared me more than his outburst.
“He touched Éva. He tried to finger my sister at her sweet sixteen birthday party!”
I stopped breathing.
“You call that fucking innocent?” Zeno growled. “You have this perfect image of Armel in your mind because you grew up with him. But he was a pathetic excuse of a man, Darla. He did horrible things.”
Shock robbed me of words.
“Oh, now you’re all quiet?” he sledged with a rough chuckle. “You want to know something else? Armel Lancaster was known for trafficking young girls from the city and selling them overseas.”
Like a fool who’d acted on her emotions, I stood there frozen.
“Armel trafficked twenty girls alone in the last year. One of them was a sixteen-year-old student from St. Victoria.”
No. No. No.
Please, no.
“He also had a taste for minor, foreign pussy. The youngest one he ever fucked was a fourteen-year-old. Do the math, Darla. That makes him a fucking pedophile.”
Grabbing my middle, I fought the tide of nausea overtaking my system.
Silence strained between us. I counted my breaths. Zeno cracked his knuckles and neck and adjusted his cufflinks before rolling his shoulders back.
Resetting himself.
When he spoke again, it was all business-like. “Do you believe me now or do you need more evidence,Principal Hill?”
Oh, I believed Zeno all right.
He would never lie about something like this.
My haunted gaze rose to his.
“I murdered him and I have no regrets, Darla.” Zeno’s smirk was scary. I imagined this was how he looked at his traitors before delivering justice. “Our society saw this man as a saint, but I knew this fucker for what he really was: pure garbage.”
“Zeno…”
“There was never a chance for Mayor Hill and the MPD to successfully put me behind bars. The very day I saw the inside of a jail cell is the same day they’d all be dead. I have many allies that would carry out justice in my honour. So I’ll put it this way: I did your mother a favour by showing up at your doorstep with that folder and asking for your hand in marriage. Otherwise, the city would have been bathed in carnage.”
The gravity of the situation finally dawned upon me.
“No matter what game I or anyone chooses to play with me, I always win.” He trickled his fingers down my cheek in a taunting caress. “Je suis leroi de ce royaume. I will not be bested by mere pawns, Darla.”