Page 41 of Trial of Deceit (The Family’s Oath #1)

Her breaths were quick against his skin as he pummeled into her. His fingers dug into her ass while his other hand remained on her neck, keeping her locked in a position where he could notice everything about her.

Every curve of those plump lips.

Every moan from that witty mouth.

Every bounce of her small braids.

Every twitch in her facial muscles as she accepted him over and over and over until his name was the only thing etched into her tongue.

“Jed!” Ashari screamed, tossing her head back and welcoming the throes of another orgasm.

“Say you’re sorry,” Jediah demanded, maintaining his hard, quick thrusts. His brow raised as she bit into her bottom lip, as if to prevent the words from tumbling out. He gave her a hard thrust, sending a flash of pain into her pussy.

“I’m sorry!” Ashari cried out. A tear pushed through her defenses and rolled down her cheek. “I’m sorry…”

He smirked. “And tell me you love me.”

Ashari’s eyelashes fluttered, her eyes unable to stay open as he continued giving them mutual pleasure. “I love you… So much. I love you until I hate you.”

Jediah sucked in a breath. He stopped his strokes. His heart paced as her words replayed in his head. It made him feel an emotion he hadn’t felt since she left him three months ago: happiness.

Relief spread throughout him. Jediah smirked, then buried his head into her neck.

He licked her skin before sinking his teeth into it as he continued his strokes and his orgasm built.

His abdomen tightened, and before he could pull his teeth from her skin and tell her the same sentiment, his body jerked.

Cum shot from his dick, settling deep within Ashari, whose legs had tightened around him while her walls fluttered.

His jaw slackened as he reveled in the feeling for a minute that became two. Then three. Pulling from her shoulder, he looked at her face. Ashari gave him a quick peck, then untangled their bodies. She shuffled about while he settled onto his back.

“I know it’s mine,” Jediah said finally.

Ashari scoffed. “Now you believe me?”

He turned his head to the side to look at her. The annoyance in her expression was amusing. His wife was surely a beautiful woman whenever she wasn’t giving herself frown lines from scowling at him. “A no ’cause mi know you a lyad… It’s because of the doctor.”

“Which doctor?” she asked with a raised brow.

“Think back to when you made them arrest me…”

She thought for a moment before recognition dawned.

“Oh… I was waiting for instructions on how to move forward, given that I was pretty sure that you figured out that I was the one who made them arrest you. During that time, I started feeling uneasy, and I went to the doctor, who said I’m pregnant… Don’t you have a vasectomy?”

“Yes.”

“Guess not all of your swimmers are blank,” she joked.

Jediah didn’t laugh. Nothing about the situation was funny. Kids had never been a goal of his. He knew someone had to carry on the Richardson empire, but he never wanted it to be him.

It couldn’t be Reine, either… but damn.

He’d always considered himself a selfless person, but not having kids was the one choice he’d made solely for himself.

Was it selfish that he was yet to ask Ashari how she felt about the pregnancy? Selfish that he never wondered what’d become of the family if he didn’t have kids?

Ashari propped herself on her elbow, then rested her head on her hand. “You good?”

“I’m great.” Jediah cleared his throat. “You stopped using your bad accent?”

She laughed. How he missed that sound. “Yes, I don’t need to use it anymore.”

“Good. I hated hearing it.”

Ashari playfully swatted at his chest, and he grinned. She allowed a moment to pass before she asked, “How’d you get to the doctor?”

Finally — a conversation that didn’t make him tense. He shrugged. “Anybody will do anything once the price is right.”

“Why didn’t you ask him where I was?”

“Don’ play wid mi intelligence, Ashari. Given the circumstances, and how hard Reka had to search, the doctor was the closest I could get to you. I know you guys gave him exactly what you gave to me. He doesn’t know the location.”

“You love to use people’s weakness over their head, huh?”

“Chess, not checkers,” he answered, stiffening as she laid her head on his chest and her arm across his abdomen. “When him tell mi seh yu pregnant, mi did in a disbelief and angry…” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Ash.”

“And I’m sorry you thought I’d ever betray you.”

He scoffed. “Yu hitch up wid dem how much months now, and have something fi hold over mi head. Mi don’ fully trust you.”

She craned her neck to look up at him. “You should.”

“Why?”

“Before I left, I told Lyssa that I’m pregnant ’cause I didn’t know who else to tell. She got upset and said she would tell Senior to not close the case until loose ends got tied up. I’m telling you so you won’t get caught off guard.”

His brows furrowed. “Why’d she get upset?”

“She’s the one I was sleeping with. Not Jaia,” she answered, and his eyes widened. She smirked as she returned to her original position. “Ashari, one.”

Later that night while Ashari slept, Bryony dragged Jediah and Reine to Kayon. Kayon sat before the window with his children standing behind his chair. They had two paces of space between them while they glowered at each other.

Kayon moved his hand along the joystick. A moment later, the chair emitted sound. “You are not children anymore. Bryony should not have to bring you to me.”

“Daddy, Jediah don’ fair! Yu wouldn’ believe wa him do!” Reine exclaimed.

Jediah’s glare intensified. He sneered as Reine returned an equally fierce one. “Yu deh wid a man weh twelve years older than yu. Yu don’ have no shame?” he hissed as Kayon spun the chair around.

Kayon’s surprise being evident despite his condition had Jediah stunned. It took a moment longer than usual for his machine to say, “What?”

Reine looked at the floor. “We’ve never had sex before… He’s lying.”

“Mi don’ born last night,” Jediah hissed. “How yu did in a mi skin ’bout Dimitri and yu reaction when yu find out wa mi do to him, it seh otherwise.”

Reine’s head snapped up. Her hands tightened at her side as her nostrils flared. “Him wouldn’ do it if yu neva tell him to!”

“So, him shouldn’ a tek off yu draws ’cause mi don’ wan’ nuh man round yu!”

Reine hissed her teeth and looked at their father. Kayon released a labored breath. He must have grown tired from not being able to get a word in.

Reine crossed her arms. “Daddy, yu son a get outta hand, and mi tired! Jediah treat mi like a pickney. Mi don’ have no freedom ’cause a him!”

Kayon looked between the two before his focus settled on Reine. “All the freedom you have is because of Jediah. If it were up to me, you would’ve been married long ago,” Kayon said, making Jediah’s heart skip a beat.

Her hands loosened. “What are you talking about?”

“Kayon…” Jediah warned, but Kayon ignored Jediah as his hand began to move. Jediah stepped forward to grab onto the man’s hand, but Reine was faster. As she halted Jediah by gripping his arm, he set his angry glare on her.

“No. Mek him talk. Yu do enough already,” she hissed.

Jediah shrugged her hand off him. He walked around his father’s chair to stop before the window.

His eyes skimmed over the lit lanterns spread across the backyard while his hand slipped beneath his suit jacket.

He worried that Kayon would tell Reine the truth.

If Kayon did, then every sacrifice Jediah made to keep Reine away from him , would’ve all been for nothing.

Jediah found the travel case of cigars and lit one, doing a big puff and savoring the taste on his tongue before a mechanical voice filled the room.

“After the accident, I could barely walk, talk, or breathe on my own. Cedella gave me a very slim chance to live. Elias wanted to take over, but I declined and insisted he guide Jediah. He disagreed because Jediah was only twelve, but Elias knew better than to disobey my wishes. Jediah has always been mature for his age, and when he realized how our world operates, he came to me to make a deal,” Kayon said.

“What deal?” Reine asked.

Jediah stopped gazing at the backyard to focus on the reflections on the window.

Reine dragged a chair from a table, causing an annoying scraping sound to reverberate throughout the room, and settled it before their father.

She sat and laid a hand on Kayon’s thigh.

He smiled at her, and Reine’s expression softened momentarily.

Jediah knew their father used a load of his energy to smile at her.

She hooked onto every word as the machine spoke again.

“Every woman in the families begins training to be married when they’re sixteen, but Jediah didn’t want that for you. He wanted you to live a normal life, but he had to give something in exchange for that,” Kayon said.

Reine’s eyes darted toward the window. They lingered on Jediah’s eyes while she asked Kayon, “What?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Kayon asked, followed by a ragged breath. He must have tried smirking.

“Jed…” Reine stood and moved toward him.

She stopped beside him, but he didn’t look at her.

Not even when Kayon spun his chair around, drove forward, and stopped at his other side.

“I didn’t know that you made big sacrifices like that for me…

I do appreciate it, and I won’t waste them because of my relationship with Dimitri. ”

Jediah scoffed before taking a long puff from the cigar, then removing it from his mouth. He placed it in the overflowing ashtray on the window sill.

“You have to understand… I didn’t mean for our relationship to happen, but I really love Dimitri, and I know that he really loves me.”

“I’m not listening to this.” Jediah turned to leave, pausing as Reine’s fingers wrapped around his arm.

“He wanted to tell you, but I begged him not to do it because I didn’t want to come between your friendship,” Reine explained, on the verge of tears. “Please, Jed… This is just like you and Ash.”

Jediah yanked himself free from Reine’s grip, almost dislocating his arm from the socket.

He scowled, hating the desperation her vulnerability brought to her eyes.

He’d taught her not to be weak. Yet, here she was.

Being weak over a man. A man who should’ve known better than to look at her as anything more than a little sister.

“You and Dimitri are not like me and my wife!” Jediah spat. “You know why I love Ash? She never faked with me. She kept it real even when we showed each other the darkest parts of ourselves to each other. You and Dimitri have to lie and hide because you shouldn’t be together in the first place!”

Anger returned to Reine in full force. “This a wa mi a talk ’bout!

Yu don’ understand we! Yu know how Dimitri chip lick after him kill Marquis daughter.

Yu know how him did more hurt and distracted when Sashoy leff,” Reine yelled over Kayon’s gargling in the background.

She stepped closer toward Jediah until they were face-to-face, glaring with their fists clenched at their sides.

“Wa yu did expect fi happen when yu mek him mi driver and gwan like mi caan’ have a life outside a wa you want fi mi? !”

The corner of Jediah’s mouth pulled upward, twisting his lips into the meanest scowl he could muster.

His face was drained of all emotion except anger and the desire to punish Reine as he’d punished Dimitri.

Jediah’s lips parted to tell Reine to choose her next move carefully, when a louder gargle startled him.

Jediah snapped his head to the side. His eyes widened. Kayon was foaming at the mouth while his body spasmed.

“Daddy!” Reine exclaimed, running around Jediah to get to her father. Her palm slammed against the emergency button on Kayon’s wheelchair, causing a deafening blare to ring out throughout the house.

Shock froze Jediah in his spot. All his major bodily functions became useless except his arms. As Dedrian rushed into the room, Jediah reached an arm behind his body.

He got his still-lit cigar and moved it to his lips, his hand shaking as he took a short puff.

The nicotine coursed through his veins, rendering senses back to all of his nerves.

Moving the cigar from his mouth, Jediah blew the fumes to the side. A sneer formed on his lips as he watched the scene before him.

Reine crying and begging Kayon to stop spasming.

Dedrian doing her best to stabilize him.

Attempts being futile.

Finally: Kayon Richardson was dead.