Sebastian and Rowan share a look.
“What is it?” August asks.
Clearing his throat, Rowan mutters, “The condom Sebastian used at the pig farm was one of the ones from my room.”
August rolls his eyes, “Oh, is that all?”
“What do you mean, is that all?” I question.
He stands and grabs a beer from the fridge before returning to his seat. “Do any of you care who the biological father of our babies are?”
“Of course not!”
“Fuck no!”
“Why would we?”
“Hell no.”
We each retort with varying levels of vitriol.
“None of that matters. Any kids we have are ours. All of them will have part of her embedded in their DNA. Who the other part comes from doesn’t concern any of us,” I add.
August smiles. “Then what’s next on the agenda? Because the way I see it, Samantha’s fuck up is absolutely our gain.”
“He has a point,” Karl agrees.
“It also puts an even larger target on Emma’s back,” I begrudgingly state.
They each focus their attention on me. “Explain,” Rowan demands.
I massage my temples in an attempt to stave off the growing headache pulsating through my skull before I answer. “Even if we are forced to marry Samantha,” I pause, waiting for their outbursts to die down. “Even if, and that’s a gigantic if with a negative zero probability of occurring. Any kids,” I hold up my hand, signaling for them to spare me the dramatics so I can get this out. “Any kids Samantha had wouldn’t be Heirs.”
I watch in real-time as my words sink in. Sebastian is the first to say something. “Samantha would need to get rid of the twins for any children she had to be legitimate Heirs.”
“Samantha’s fucked either way,” Karl exclaims. “If she hurts a hair on Emma’s or the twins’ heads, she’ll lose hers, and none of us would touch her with a borrowed dick, so we’d never consummate the fraudulent arrangement.”
“Still, we need to bump up security around her. As annoying as they are, her guards protect her at all costs,” Rowan grumbles.
Turning, I shoot Thomas a text. He might be Samantha’s “official” guard, but he’s been running Emma’s security team from here. He immediately replies, informing me that he’ll take point on Emma’s detail beginning next week. “Fuck yeah,” I cheer. “Thomas is back on Emma’s team.”
August snorts, “I can’t wait to see the meltdown Samantha has when she hears this.”
“What else happened tonight?” Sebastian inquires, facing Karl.
Karl’s lip curls into a devious, self-satisfying smirk. “I may or may not have left her with a superficial scratch on her face. I’m quite surprised she didn’t deflate when Mary poked her.”
The room fills with raucous laughter. “You didn’t?” I blurt between trying to catch my breath.
“Damn, I wish I was there to see that. I always miss the good shit,” August harrumphs.
Suddenly, all remnants of Karl’s jovial demeanor vanish. “That would’ve been the highlight of my night if it weren’t for Samantha getting off on it and Emma witnessing her do it.”
“Shit,” Rowan barks. “That’s not good.”
Grimacing, Karl mumbles, “Not even remotely. The look on her face when she saw my knife-it broke a piece of me.”
It’s breaking pieces of all of us-especially Rowan.
I look over to Rowan, watching as he stares off into space. This has been hard on all of us in different ways. But I can’t imagine what it’s like having to go back to pretending you hate the girl you love after you fought so hard to gain her trust.
“She’ll understand. We’ll have a lot to make up for, but it won’t be the incidents she sees that have us groveling. It will be all the secrets we’ve had to withhold,” August declares. I gaze in their direction to see him squeezing Karl’s shoulder. “That and, um, our spying,” he grins.
The crazy fuck has been waiting on this showdown. I don’t have it in my heart to burst his bubble that Emma will kick all of our asses once she finds out about all of the ways we’ve been keeping tabs on her.
Karl composes himself and then continues. “There’s the fact that I overheard Samantha confessing to killing her friends to get into the Selection.”
I spring from my seat. “What?”
“You should’ve led with this,” Sebastian shouts, and I’m inclined to agree.
We’ve been looking for who was responsible for the deaths of former selected girls for months. After both Vivian and Madeline were killed, we assumed the murders were the work of Elise. However, after Karl was taken, we took a closer look and discovered it was none of them.
“Do you really think Samantha would do this?” Rowan questions. “I wouldn’t put past her to manipulate one of her lackeys to kill for her, but Samantha doing it herself?”
Sighing, I open my laptop and pull up my files on all the murders, including the body parts sent to Emma. Based on what we have on file. It’s not a stretch to think Samantha hired someone. She was around when some packages were delivered, but I put nothing past her-her evil knows no bounds.
“You also wouldn’t suspect she’d fuck her own brother,” Karl begins. “Scratch that. Yes, you would.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Sebastian snaps. “Is there anything the conniving skank won’t do?”
“No,” we all bellow in unison.
I bring up the last known murder, Meagan. She was Sam’s most trusted ass-licker. “Why would she kill Meagan?”
“Wasn’t her last date with you, Liam?” August asks, and I confirm with a quick nod. “What happened on that date?”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.