Your father deserved everything that happened to him.
She dropped her blond head against the window. Although her back was turned to me, I knew that if I could see her face right now, the expression I’d witness wouldn’t be one of denial. It would be disgust. Her thin shoulders shaking inside her immaculate designer dress, she curled her fingers on the glass. In spite of the brutal pulses pounding my ears, I heard her quiet weeping, but still there was no doubt in my mind she had murdered my dad.
Taking a shaky step away from her, I wrapped my arms over my stomach. “You killed him, and then you took everything from me.”
“He had it coming,” she muttered. Every muscle, every vein, in my body felt like it was slowly shutting down. Was it possible Linc was getting any of this? Or had I lost him when Margaret had ripped the watch off my wrist?
“Do you know what kind of man your father was, Gemma?” she questioned.
From everything I’d heard from Margaret and had discovered on my own over the past couple months, I did. My father had been a womanizer. He’d cheated on my mother and Margaret and probably his first wife too. But God, he hadn’t deserved to go before his time.
I took another step back and then a couple more. I couldn’t stand close to her. I wouldn’t. Because the nearer I was to Margaret, the more likely I was to do something erratic before Linc burst through the French doors.
“How did you do it?” I rubbed my palm harshly over my chest, like the motion would somehow force the words to break through the painful lump that had formed in my windpipe. “How was it possible for you to get away with murder and still win everything?”
Margaret turned to me slowly, the corners of her cornflower blue eyes glistening with tears. “I. Didn’t. Win.” She stalked to her desk, bending over the massive structure of glass with her head down and her hair falling over her flushed face. “You think because you lost, I won? How incredibly selfish of you, child.”
Ignoring her jab, I clutched the white sculpture in the center of the office, holding on to it for support. All I had to do was keep her talking until Linc arrived. Screw with her head while every little word she said killed a piece of me.
“Why did you kill him?” I glanced at the remnants of the watch and tremulous cry of frustration ripped from the back of my throat. “There’s nothing stopping you from telling me the truth now, so you might as well get it out.”
Casting her own gaze down at the broken wire, a smile trembled her thin lips. “Then why does it matter if you can’t prove a damn thing I say at this point?”
She was right, it didn’t matter if I could prove whether or not she played a role in my dad’s death, but I wanted to sleep at night. I wanted to sleep knowing that every piece of this awful, heart-ripping puzzle had been shoved into place.
I dug my fingers into a jagged edge of the abstract sculpture and held my head high. “I’ve proven enough,” I sneered. “And if that sends your ass away for ten, fifteen years, that’s good enough for me. I can prove what you did to me. I can prove—”
Quicker than I could blink, my stepmother jerked open the top drawer of her desk, reaching inside. A flinch jerked through my body when the barrel of a pistol stared back at me. The triumphant twist of her mouth sent my pulse racing at an excruciating speed.
She had a gun.
She had a gun, and she was pointing it right at me like she didn’t care that the FBI would burst in at any moment to take her down for everything she and Michael Scott had done over the last several years. I wanted to believe she wouldn’t use it—God, I wanted to believe that—but she was a captive animal right now, and that made her a terrifyingly dangerous force.
Placing her other hand on the pistol, she started around her desk, each tap of her heels on the onyx floor challenging the deafening thunder of my heartbeat. “You broke into my business—” she began, sounding like she was trying to give herself permission to shoot me.
“It’s my company, Margaret,” I blurted out stupidly, letting go of the sculpture. Out the corner of my eye, I looked at the door, willing it to open. Linc had to know I was in trouble, right? He had to be on his way.
She inched closer until she was leaning against the front of her desk, her head cocked to one side. “You broke into my business, and you threatened me. You threatened my employees. You blackmailed me.”
I looked back at the door again, but Margaret’s soft warning eradicated any notion I had of making a run for it. “I promise I’ll shoot you, Gemma.” She jabbed the gun to the chair a couple feet from where she stood, indicating she wanted me to use it. When I didn’t rush to do her bidding, she seethed. “Sit down.”
Dizzy, I complied, and the moment my butt touched the seat, she grabbed her bag from the middle of the desk and headed toward the door. As she moved, I felt the harsh glare of the gun positioned on my back. I clutched the armrests with clammy hands.
If she ran, how far would she get before they found her? Would she win again?
Hell, would I even live to find out?
“Are you going to shoot me?” I breathed. At the sound of her throat hitching, I worked up the nerve to turn slightly and look at her. She stood just a few inches from the door with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Or are you going to figure out a way to give me a heart attack too?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” She sniffed loudly and slumped her shoulders. “I didn’t want to hurt him, but he couldn’t—” She lowered one of her hands from the gun. “Your father was a horrible man. He couldn’t keep it in his pants to save his life and that’s what killed him. Not me.”
“That’s not true.” At her silence, I marched on tentatively. “How’d you do it?”
“Your father loved his coke just as much as he loved his whores. I just helped him along.”
It hurt. I wasn’t even going to deny that processing those words through my brain hurt so much I nearly crumpled in my seat, but I stiffened my posture and completely let go of those childish fantasies that my dad had been a hero.
He’d been human, just the same as Margaret and myself.
“And you laced it with something and watched him die?” I guessed. She didn’t respond, and the silence was a greater weapon than her words—her silence broke me down another notch. “And then you confided in Michael Scott because he was your lover. He turned on you.” I took another nervous glance at the door behind her. “He turned on you, and you’ve been paying him off all these years.”
Where are you, Linc? Where the fuck are you?
“You don’t know a thing,” my stepmother sneered, but she palmed her eyes with her empty hand. “I’ve never let that man touch me. I can’t even stand him for what he did to me.”
Keep her talking, I told myself. Keep her talking and get all the answers. “What do you mean?”
She squeezed her eyes together to subdue her tears. “I’m not some whore like his—”
“Like his ex-wife?” I asked, offering Pen’s theory of Finley Scott being my sister. When Margaret’s eyes remained shut, I eased out of my seat, inching quietly in her direction.
“Like his daughter.” Her lashes parting, she looked at me hard. “Like that cunt Finley. That whore whose been living in my house, making claims to my son.”
I froze as she lifted the pistol to me again. “What?” I gasped, struggling to wrap my head around her words. “But you tried to force her on Oliver.”
“I like my freedom more than I despise that woman.” Studying my expression, Margaret raked her hand over her face, and I could see she was breaking. Why else would she still be here with me instead of running? Unless of course, she had no plans to run at all.
Another jolt of panic pierced my chest.