"I'll handle it,” I decide. They destroyed my family, burned our home with my parents inside, and left my brothers and me for dead. All for power and greed. And now they're going to tell me everything. About the fire, about the past ten years, and most importantly, about what their daughter is hiding.
Whatever game Keira's playing, I'll know the truth before I marry her. One way or another.
"What's the update on the legal situation?" I ask, turning back to my brothers and other business at hand. "How longcan we realistically hold the Keans before questions start getting asked?"
Flint straightens in his chair. "It's complicated. Hampton's disappearance is already raising eyebrows. The cops who are on our payroll can only deflect for so long before someone higher up takes notice."
"Give me a timeline," I demand.
"A week, maybe two at most," Flint says, rubbing his jaw. "The Feds are already sniffing around. Hampton had too many connections, too many business partners who are wondering where he vanished to."
"And if they find him in the basement?" I ask.
"Kidnapping charges would be the least of our problems," Flint replies bluntly. "We could lose everything we just reclaimed. The businesses, the territory, all of it."
I nod, absorbing this information. "Then we need to be strategic about this."
"We could just kill them," Ash suggests, not for the first time. "Clean, simple, problem solved."
"No," I say firmly. “The families need to see their ruin for us to solidify our power. We'll hand them over to the authorities on the wedding day. After the loyalty ceremony, after everyone has pledged themselves to the Ifrinn family, we'll make a show of turning Hampton and Lana over to the police."
"With evidence of their crimes," Flint adds.
"Exactly. We'll be the upstanding citizens who discovered Hampton's illegal activities and did the right thing." I smile coldly. "He'll spend the rest of his life in prison, watching as I take everything he built and make it mine—including his daughter."
Ash shakes his head. I know he’d rather kill Hampton, and I don’t blame him. We all have a reason to want him dead, but I’mmore and more enjoying the idea of thinking of him rotting in prison.
“It’s a good idea, but not without potential problems. The wedding gives our enemies the perfect opportunity," Blaise says, lowering his voice despite our being alone in my office. "All the families in one place, including us. We'd be exposed."
“He’s right. We'd be fools not to prepare for it," Flint agrees. "We're back from the dead, Phoenix. Some people may question our legitimacy or our strength. There are plenty of people who'd benefit from seeing us gone permanently."
He's right. The wedding is a potential trap. It has my mind spinning with possibilities. "What about Keira?"
Blaise's eyebrows shoot up. "What about her?"
"Could she be involved in something? Planning something?" The moment I say it aloud, I realize how paranoid it sounds. Yet the nagging doubt persists. Maybe I’m overthinking this. But what if while I've been plotting my revenge, she's been plotting hers?
I've been so focused on the idea that she might be protecting a lover, I never considered she might be playing a longer game. Hampton Kean didn't build his empire by raising a naive daughter. He raised her to be cunning, to see opportunities where others see obstacles. What better opportunity than marrying the man who just took everything from her family?
The theory builds momentum in my mind. She submitted to this marriage too easily. Even her defiance could be calculated, enough resistance to seem genuine, but never enough to truly jeopardize her position. And the sex… God, the sex could be the oldest manipulation in the book. Make a man think with his dick instead of his brain. How many times throughout history have men fallen for that particular trap? How many empires have crumbled because a man couldn't see past his desire?
If she's planning to reclaim her family's power, she'd need allies. People loyal to the Keans who are biding their time, waiting for her signal. The wedding would give her the perfect opportunity to enact her revenge.
Maybe that's what she was doing that night, meeting with conspirators, planning how to turn my triumph into my downfall.
"You think your bride-to-be is plotting to kill you at your wedding?" Blaise asks, not hiding his doubt to my theory.
"I don't know what to think anymore." I stand up, frustration building. "She's hiding something. If it’s not a secret lover, maybe it’s a resistance team. She’s very, and I mean very compliant. Why do that if you’re not trying to give me a false sense of security?”
My brothers glance at each other, all looking uncertain.
“She could be a part of something, but I doubt she’s organizing it,” Flint says.
“Keira strikes me as a woman who’s given in to her lot in life,” Ash says, which is strange since he hasn’t seen her since our return.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“You know. Learned helplessness. She had her chance to get away with you, but then that all went up in smoke, literally. I can’t imagine the fire didn’t send a message to her as well. Be careful fucking with the Keans or they’ll burn you alive. So she does what she's told. She becomes the dutiful daughter… now the dutiful fiancée. She knows she has no power.”
