Page 53 of Wicked Games (Silvercrest U #1)

We’re silent as he opens the door, and I follow him inside.

He strides over to his desk and undoes the buttons of his blazer so he can comfortably perch on the edge of it. I stand in front of the chairs he’s set up in front of the desk. I know better than to sit before I’m told I can.

“So, do you want to explain to me why your uncles and I just spent the last few hours dealing with a body and why one of my cars has more lead in it than an x-ray shield?”

“Do you remember the situation at the house when Felix was attacked in the pool?”

He nods.

“That wasn’t the end of the threat.”

“Explain.”

I tell him about the car and how we’ve been tracking both the killer and the hacker. He listens carefully, and I can tell he’s conflicted by the time I finish.

“I’m not happy you decided to keep this to yourself,” he says after a few beats of silence. “But I applaud your initiative and how you’ve handled yourselves.”

I breathe out a little sigh of relief. I was expecting a lot more blowback for keeping him in the dark about all of this.

“Is there anything else you need to tell me before we talk about this afternoon?” he asks pointedly.

“Um, yeah. Me and Felix…we’re kind of together.”

“Kind of together?” Dad asks.

“Not kind of. We’re together.”

He nods slowly. “Is it serious?”

“Yeah. I love him.”

Dad’s eyes widen, but he quickly schools his face into a neutral expression. My dad and Felix have both perfected the blank look, and it only then occurs to me that’s probably why Felix’s always pissed me off so much.

It’s the same shit my dad’s done to me my whole life when he wanted to hide things from me or when he decides the conversation is over, no matter what I have to say on the matter.

“Are you queer?” he asks bluntly.

I shake my head. “I don’t think so. He’s the only guy I’ve ever thought about that way. The only one I’ve wanted.” I pause as nervous energy fills my chest. “Is that a problem?”

As far as I know, my dad isn’t homophobic, and neither are my aunts and uncles. But it’s easy to be supportive of a community when it doesn’t affect your daily life at all.

“Is what a problem?” Dad looks genuinely confused. “That you’re with a man?”

I nod, not trusting my voice.

“Of course not,” he says dismissively. “I don’t care who you date as long as they’re an appropriate choice.”

“And Felix is an appropriate choice?” I ask, hating how tentative I sound.

“Yes,” he says simply. “Felix is a great kid. He’s smart, loyal, and he has a good head on his shoulders. And I already know he can be trusted, so he’s probably one of the most appropriate choices you could have made.”

“But the stepbrother thing…?” I leave that to hang in the air.

He waves his hand and makes a little pshhhh sound. “I don’t care about that. You’re not blood relatives, and you won’t have to worry about the stepbrother thing for much longer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m divorcing Jasmine.”

My jaw actually drops. Of all the things he could have said, that would never have been on my radar as a possibility.

He smirks and crosses his arms. The sleeves of his blazer pull tight, showing off the bulging muscles he still has.

“You are?” I ask when I’ve found my voice.

He nods. “I’ve been preparing the paperwork and getting my affairs in order for the last year.”

“But I thought you were happy?” It’s not that I’m not ecstatic about the news; I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around it.

“And that was by design.”

I nod slowly. My dad is all about appearances and how things look to people outside of our circle. Of course he’d pretend everything is fine even as he’s prepping to serve Jasmine papers.

He lets out a heavy sigh. “It’s complicated, but things haven’t been good for a long time. I was in a bad place when we got married, and I thought settling down again and going back to the way things used to be would help cure my grief over losing your mom.”

My throat tightens, but I don’t say anything. Dad doesn’t talk about Mom often, and he’s never opened up to me about any of this. There’s a reason he’s telling me this now.

“It didn’t, and the more time that passed, the more I realized I made a mistake. Unfortunately, ending a marriage isn’t a simple process, especially when you’re in my position, and I’ve been slowly setting things up so we’ll have a completely clean break once everything is set in motion.”

“And you’re doing that soon?” I ask when he doesn’t elaborate further.

“Yes. Today was the last straw, so to speak.”

“Today?”

“My nephew was shot saving my stepson from an assassination attempt. My son and all of my nephews were shot at and nearly killed, and she hasn’t shown even a moment of concern or worry. Not even for her own child.”

I slow blink at him.

“Family is everything, and she knew that when she married me. She knows I will always put my family above everyone else, and the blatant disregard for all of you that she showed today is unacceptable.”

“I…I don’t know what to say.” My stomach does a weird little flip-flop. “What about Felix? If Jasmine leaves?—”

“Felix is part of the family,” he interrupts. “Even if you weren’t together, he’s still my stepson. You divorce spouses, not children. He will always be my stepson regardless of whether I’m married to his mother.”

I blow out a breath. I can’t imagine what losing his home would do to Felix after everything he’s been through, and the selfish part of me is ecstatic that I’ll be rid of his mother while still getting to keep him.

“Now, before we discuss what happened this afternoon, I got an interesting update this morning from Jace about the situation with Natalie and her paramour,” he says pointedly.

I’m not surprised Jace told him about William drugging Felix, but it would have been nice to have a heads-up before I walked into this conversation.

I explain what went down at the party, leaving out the more graphic details about what happened between me and Felix.

“That explains the phone call I got from Lloyd this morning.” He rubs the bridge of his nose tiredly. “I apologize for pushing you into dating her.”

My jaw drops for the second time in twenty minutes. My dad doesn’t apologize, and I can count on one hand the number of times he’s apologized to me for something he’s pushed me into doing that’s backfired on him.

“I didn’t realize how manipulative she is,” he continues. “Or how little her father actually knows about her or her actions. She’s not the girl I used to know.”

I get why he said that. He’s known Natalie since she was a baby, thanks to his working relationship with her father, but he obviously still held that idealized version of her when she was sweet and innocent and a nice kid.

He has no idea what she’s like now, and it’s not surprising her dad is clueless.

He’s brilliant in business, but he has a major blind spot when it comes to his daughter.

“No, she isn’t. Not anymore.”

“How do you want to deal with her?” he asks.

“I’m not sure,” I say honestly. “I mostly just want her to fuck off and leave me alone, but I also want her to pay for betraying me and for what she’s done to Felix.”

“Do you think she was involved in what happened to him at the Rapture?”

I shake my head. “She wasn’t even there. Jace blocked her ID. I think William let his intrusive thoughts win and acted on his own.”

“You said you have proof of her cheating?”

“Videos taken over several weeks.”

“Have Jace hold on to those in case we need to use them as leverage. I’ll have a chat with Lloyd and let him know exactly what’s going on. If he’s smart, he’ll deal with her. If not, we’ll do it ourselves.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” I say quickly.

A week ago I wanted to personally destroy her. Now I’m so done with her that I never want to see her again. Letting my dad handle this is exactly what I need.

“And William?” I ask. “What are we going to do about him?”

Dad smiles coldly. “I had his pending membership terminated after I read Jace’s report, so that will be a delightful surprise for him when he comes back after the break.

I also directed my IT team to do some digging into his father’s records and look into his pharmaceutical company after our last chat about him. ”

I can’t stop my smile. My dad is diabolical when it comes to getting revenge on people, and he’s known for not only going after the person who wronged him but also their family, friends, and businesses. Only children are off limits to him, and it’s one of the main reasons no one fucks with us.

“It seems his R&D team is very close to developing an mRNA vaccine that targets cancer.”

“Really? That sounds profitable.”

“Very profitable,” he agrees. “They just put in the paperwork to start human trials next year.” His grin deepens.

“It’s a shame there was a security breach in their system a few hours ago and all their research was leaked to their competitors.

He’s out billions in funding and future revenue, and his investors are pulling out in droves.

I’d say he has maybe three months before the company goes bankrupt. ”

“Looks like poor William just cost himself his inheritance—and his meal ticket.”

“What’s that saying you boys always use? Fuck around and find out? I believe this is what you mean by the find out stage.”

“He’s definitely in the find out stage,” I say with a laugh.

Dad’s smile fades, and my good mood dissolves.

“We’ll discuss what happened this afternoon in more detail once we finish our investigation,” he says. “But our preliminary findings aren’t promising.”

“What did you find?”

“It’s what we didn’t find that’s the problem.

There’s no smoking gun. Nothing that ties all three attempts to one person.

We had our best go over the footage Jace has been working on, and the hack job that was done on Felix’s phone, but none of our guys were able to gain any additional insights.

In fact, Jace’s tracking is miles ahead of theirs, so I’m not hopeful they’ll find anything that Jace hasn’t.

The shooter is different. We were able to ID him. ”

“Yeah?”

Dad nods. “He’s a nobody. Just a low-level thug who sometimes contracts out hits.

His financials are clear, and we haven’t been able to find any correspondence between him and whoever hired him.

He also has no connections to the school, to Felix, or to us.

Whoever set this up covered their tracks, but it’s the use of these amateurs that doesn’t make any sense. ”

“Yeah. We can’t figure that out either. The pool and the car were weird choices if you’re not wanting to leave evidence, and they weren’t very well executed.

The shooter was more organized, and the hit was better planned, but it was sloppy.

As much as I hate to say it, Felix shouldn’t be alive right now.

He had a clear shot, and the only reason Jace and Felix are still here is because he hesitated.

And he was worm food as soon as he gave away his position. No pro would do that.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” he agrees. “It’s baffling. You’d think that someone who has the resources to arrange three hits on a college student would have the money, and the sense, to use professionals and not discount thugs and student hackers to get the job done.”

“Thank fuck this asshole is either cheap or an idiot.”

“Two things can be true,” Dad says with a smile.

“We’ll keep digging on our end and see what we can uncover.

You boys keep doing what you’ve been doing, but I think we can agree that Felix should stay on the grounds for the rest of his break, and he shouldn’t be left alone for even a second if he does leave.

We’ll figure out a way to make things safer for him at school, but we’re not taking any chances while he’s here. ”

“Yeah, I totally agree.”

“Good.” He stands and does up the buttons on his blazer. “I’ll let you get back to your evening. We’ll talk more about everything tomorrow.”

“Okay. Sounds good.”

“And son?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t mention anything about Jasmine. Not even to Felix. I’ll deal with her when the time is right.”

I don’t like the idea of hiding this from him, but I nod in agreement.

“I’ll see you later,” he says and pulls out his phone, effectively dismissing me.

“Later,” I echo and quickly leave the room.

I’m not sure how I feel about everything I learned, but I feel more settled as I head back to the kitchen.

My dad and immediate family are fine with our relationship, and it’s only a matter of time before Jasmine is out of our life. We’re no closer to figuring out who’s after Felix, but I can wash my hands of both William and Natalie, knowing they’re getting exactly what they deserve.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a win, and right now, we could really use one of those.