Page 26 of Her Wicked Husband (The Huxleys #2)

Bryce

So I didn’t imagine Mom?

Anxiety and dread throb at the base of my skull. I scan the lobby again, to no avail.

Where did she go?

Okay, time to think. Red was sent to seduce me last night. Mom has to want to check on her handiwork.

I start toward the elevator bank. The area is heaving with convention attendees. No Mom.

I turn back and walk out onto the street. Cars, pedestrians, arriving guests dragging their suitcases from the trunks. Loud honking and voices buzzing. I make a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn. No brunette in blue.

I drag in some air and force myself to take a mental step back. I could be overreacting. It isn’t like Mom’s the only woman in the world with red lipstick. My eyes drop to a random blonde’s mouth, which is painted bright scarlet.

A man approaches from the left and places a meaty hand on my shoulder.

Adrenaline jets through my veins. I twist around, fist raised .

He lifts his free hand, palm out. “Easy, big guy. Harvey wants to talk.” He gestures toward Nieve, a bistro inside the Aylster.

I freeze for a moment, cursing my luck. “Got nothing to say to him.”

I start to turn, but the man puts pressure on my shoulder. “Let’s keep things dignified. Nobody wants a scene.”

My first urge is to break his pug face, but Harvey probably brought more than one minion to do his bidding.

When I turn toward the bistro, Harvey waves with a broad smile from a table just inside the window, showing off straight white teeth.

A black suit makes him stand out against the ivory interior.

He’s built like a tank, wide and thick, with more power than he lets on.

A relatively trim waist says he’s vain enough to worry about having abs.

His mahogany hair is slicked back, revealing a forehead with lines that make him look like a deep thinker rather than a potential mob heir.

His pale amber eyes and heavy lids are nothing like Mom’s.

He took after Vincent, got the narrow nose and thin lips. Not attractive, but charismatic.

I head inside and sit, my body sinking into the leather seat. A waiter fills my glass with water. “Talk.”

Harvey laughs. “Hello, dear nephew. I missed you. It’s been, what? Twenty-two years?”

Two beats.

My silence doesn’t faze him. He grins. “Have a drink.”

I drop my gaze to the water and give him a do-I-look-stupid look.

“Did you get my birthday present? I had it hand-delivered for your thirtieth. A Glock and an AK-47. For self-defense. When Zoe shows up again”—he points a finger gun in my face and pulls the trigger—“ pop goes the weasel.”

He waits for me to react. I merely stare at him.

A deep frown. “It’s unfair of you to show no gratitude. Actually, your entire family is a bunch of ingrates.” He takes a sip of whatever he’s drinking and sits back. “You know Zoe sent you a bunch of presents? Mostly age-appropriate toys, I heard, but it’s your mom.”

Haven’t heard anything about that, but it wouldn’t surprise me if The Fogeys sent them back without informing me.

“Probably not anything as useful as a gun. After all, she cares about herself the most. Your family returned them, along with mine. That’s the only reason I let the insolence slide.

The Huxleys are rude to everyone. They even turned away Father’s gifts for you.

” Harvey’s expression turns reptilian—cold and soulless.

“He’s lonely, Bryce. Misses you and your brothers very much. ”

I yawn mightily, feigning boredom. I didn’t miss his emphasis on “insolence.” He seethes with resentment against my family, wants to humiliate us and force us to our knees.

Over my dead body.

“But look, I get it. You think he chose your mother over you guys. But what else could he have done? She’s his own child. And prison isn’t a pretty place, especially for the daughter of Vincent Dunkel. She’d have suffered over a little indiscretion.”

Did this motherfucker just call the kidnapping a “little indiscretion”?

“Besides, he didn’t want to lose another child.”

Another child? I frown, but ignore it for the moment. “It was prison, not death.” The law doesn’t believe kidnapping your own children merits the death penalty, even if you do leave one of them to die in a fire.

“Yeah, well, maybe it would have been death—for her. Besides, he was in a vulnerable emotional state back then.” Harvey shrugs. “Swayed by her tears, you know how it is. Lucky for you, I’m not like my father. If I’d been in charge, I’d have made her pay.”

“Isn’t she your beloved sister?” I heard Vincent was furious with Mom, but eventually decided to protect her. Made some low-level sucker take the fall instead. That’s the Dunkels—blood is thicker than water.

“She was impolite to you and Josh. And almost killed Ares. Made your entire family unreasonable toward us.”

“Look, Harvey. You want to use us as pawns in your internal struggle, I get it. But frankly, I don’t give a shit who wins. None of us do.”

Harvey’s smile doesn’t falter, which is creepier than if he started yelling.

“You think you’ll be better off if Zoe takes the reins?

Twenty-two years, Bryce. She’s waited and prepared for twenty-two years to retake what she thinks is hers.

You, Ares, Josh. Prescott.” He adds Dad to the list. “And, of course, the family business . ”

“In Nesovia?” I snort a laugh. The country is so medieval in its attitude toward women, they can’t even control their own money before the age of thirty without being married. Most Nesovian men would fornicate with a dog before taking orders from a woman.

Harvey waves the point away and purses his mouth. “Father’s ill. Doesn’t have much time left. The only thing he wants is to see you and your brothers and shower you with all the love he couldn’t before.”

“I’m thirty now. It’s too late.”

“Is it? When a man faces his mortality, he doesn’t believe anything’s too late.

He told me and Zoe whoever could give him the ‘complete family’ he wants will inherit the business.

” His eyes burn with anger and resentment at being denied what he’s believed would be his all his life.

“I want to bring you and your brother into the family fold, and have Ares join the business in an advisory role.”

“Is that what you call drugging him and trying to force him to sign a contract?”

He waves the hand again. “Just a little drink to help him relax and think better. No harm in it. Besides, why are you upset with me? Zoe does the same thing.”

I narrow my eyes. Is he trying to direct my wrath toward Mom? Hoping I’ll side with him in an “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of thing?

He continues, “She’s the one who only sees you as a means to an end. She wants to use you to move Father to tears and have him give her the business.”

Can’t imagine Vincent in tears, even though my memory of him is vague. I saw him a few times when I was little. He was always a bit too stern and controlled, handing out lollipops with a dark frown on his face when he ran out of things to say to us.

“Being near death makes one sentimental. Father has gotten emotional lately. Won’t even let us battle it out—winner take all. Tragic. It would’ve been quicker and cleaner.”

Indeed. It would’ve been great if Mom and Harvey hacked each other to death.

“Even more tragic,” Harvey says, studying his coffee, “is that your family won’t hire an expert to permanently take care of Zoe. ”

Does he seriously think we’d hire a hit man? “We aren’t like you.”

“Sure, I get that. And Father respects it. He admires your loyalty to your family. Wants us to learn from it. You wouldn’t believe how fast his attitude changed when he found out Lareina married Ares.

Before, he considered her a potential tool to extract money from the Hayworth fortune.

Now… He’d murder us if we touched his precious granddaughter-in-law.

Guess things changed when she became family.

” Harvey shrugs, then focuses on me again.

“Help me out here, Bryce. Come to Nesovia with me, meet Father, tell him how much you miss him, and how I convinced you to give the relationship a chance.”

“Why should I?”

“Because your hatred for Zoe is personal. You wouldn’t hate me if I wasn’t related to your mother.”

“If we weren’t related, I wouldn’t even know you existed.”

“Don’t be rude. I’m giving you a chance to protect yourself and the people around you. You think just because Zoe and I can’t kill each other, we’re going to play nice? That’s not how it works. And Father never said anything about collateral damage.” He pulls a finger across his neck.

Is he threatening to kill other members of the family? Or is he warning me that Mom will?

He continues in the same even tone. “Since I’m a civilized man, I showed my familial affection by whacking the groom’s other knee after you kicked him and took his bride. A stand-up move, by the way. A real man always takes what he wants. Father was proud. You’re a true Dunkel.”

“I didn’t do it for Vincent.”

“Doesn’t matter why you did it. Father admires you for it, which does matter.

” Harvey shrugs. “Unfortunately, your mother doesn’t believe in being civilized.

You probably already know she drugged you last night.

She wants to breed one of her young, nubile sycophants with you.

After all, infants are much more malleable than a trio of adult offspring with minds of their own, and no old man can stay stonehearted when he’s presented with a girl who’s pregnant with his first great-grandchild. ”

For fuck’s sake. The entire plot is sociopathic, but also very much Mom.

“She’s working under a deadline, you know.”

“She is?”

Harvey nods. “Father’s reinvestigating what really happened to our youngest brother.”

Vincent had a third kid? I really don’t need another uncle as insane as Mom and Harvey.

“You never met him. He died young, before Zoe married your father. Was the baby of the family, the apple of our father’s eye.

The golden child who could do no wrong.” No hint of grief passes over Harvey’s face.

He’s probably happy that a potential rival was eliminated so early, without his having to dirty his hands.

“Could be she had something to do with the helicopter crash that killed him. Father doesn’t want to jump to conclusions—’cuz, you know, I could’ve set her up, a lot of things could’ve happened—so he’s going to do his due diligence.

But Zoe…” A shrug. “She isn’t known for her patience or finesse. ”

No. She prefers blunt force. Seducing Dad and getting immediately pregnant.

Kidnapping us. Trying to get in the way of Ares’s marriage.

And Red last night. If what Harvey said is true, Mom isn’t going to play nice.

She needs a quick result—something to save her ass when Vincent finds out that she caused the crash and killed her own brother.

Harvey shifts, a hint of triumph glinting in his eyes. “Right now, she’s here to see if the girl she picked is full of your cum, except”—his eyes flick upward—“that girl you left up in the suite isn’t the one she sent you.”