Page 45 of Violent Little Thing
The Truth
DELILAH
T he headache I wake up with the next morning doesn’t match the sleep I got the night before. I didn’t wake up once throughout the night, and the last thing I remember is Adonis’ hand working out the tension in the back of my neck while I laid snug against him.
Yet I wake up alone in his bed with a band of tension across my forehead and the pain narrows my eyes down to slits.
After leaving his suite to freshen up and get dressed in my room, I head down the stairs, shielding my eyes from the sunlight cascading through the arched window facing the staircase.
“Morning, Victor.”
“Ms. Delilah.” The routine bow of his head at my arrival sparks a question I’ve never voiced.
“Does Adonis tell you to stand here until I come downstairs every morning? ”
He looks sheepish.
“No, Ms. Delilah. You have very distinct footfalls, so I always know when you’re about to come down. I wait here to say good morning.”
“Did you just politely tell me I’m heavy-footed?”
His lips twitch. “I would never say that, Ms. Delilah.”
I kiss my teeth, and his smile crinkles the corners of his eyes as I walk past him to the kitchen.
On the table, Adonis’ plate is empty and covered with a balled-up napkin while he holds a phone up to his ear with one hand and uses the other one to type something on his laptop.
My place is set and my mouth waters at the pool of melted butter on top of my pancakes.
“That’s what she said,” he grumbles to whoever is on the other line. “Forty…yeah…by next week.”
He talks until I’m halfway done with my food and ends the call on a ragged sigh.
“Morning, baby.”
The endearment drapes warmth all around me. So much warmth I smile at the remains of my stack rather than meeting his gaze. This bashful side of me has some nerve after the things I let him do to me last night. After the things I did to him . “Morning. Where’d you go last night?”
“I woke you up?” He sounds uneasy as he pours another cup of coffee from the carafe Ms. Agnes left on the table.
“No, I only noticed when I woke up.”
“I’m working on something that couldn’t wait.”
I nod, prepared to drop it until his phone lands beside my hand with a thump.
“That’s yours, by the way.”
Breakfast forgotten, I stare at the screen.
And all the zeroes and commas displayed on it .
An account ending in four digits I don’t recognize.
Today’s date.
My name.
My name?
“What am I looking at?”
“A bank account I opened for you.”
When disbelief hits me, I slide his phone back across the wooden surface with too much force.
Adonis barely catches it before it slides off the other side of the table.
I’m seeing things.
Because if I’m not, Adonis just showed me an account with over ten million dollars in it and told me it’s mine.
Ten million, six hundred thousand dollars to be exact.
“What do you mean you opened it for me? Why is my name on it?”
“Because it’s yours.”
“How?”
An excruciating throb joins the pain already punishing my head.
“It’s yours , Delilah.” His voice is sure. Confident, even. But I still don’t get it. “I took it from the men who took something from you. Give me time and it’ll be more, I promise.”
Three times. That’s how many times I open and close my mouth. The words aren’t there. Not until the fourth time.
“Did you get my brother to return my inheritance or something?”
The chances of my father having more than six figures in his account when he died are razor thin. But still…
Adonis cocks his head. “What inheritance? ”
Why does he look confused? “The one I agreed to give Wes so he wouldn’t turn me in.”
“Any money your dad had left was used to settle debts after he died. The rest went to Weston, and it wasn’t that much.” His frown adds to my unease. “But Delilah, you weren’t in your father’s will.”
I snatch my hand away when he tries to cover it with his own.
“Baby, your father changed his will six weeks before you killed him. There was no inheritance. Weston played you.”