“I’m so sorry, Jhay,” Chad consoled, his eyes leaving the ceiling and finding mine. “It was after…it was after I realized part of the reason he made me carry out that particular assignment was because he wanted to scar me permanently before letting me go. He knew I loved them. He knew I considered your…father as my own. He could’ve assigned someone else, but he wanted to ruin me.” A shaky inhale. “I hate him.”
For a long, long while, we paused the conversation. Chad’s eyes were vacant, distant, as he stared off at nothing, while I cried silently on his chest. Giving myself the freedom to mourn, suppressing my tears no more. If there were anywhere suitable for me to shed my tears, it was on the chest of the man who pulled the trigger. Even if I was wrongly, irrationally, nonsensically, immorally in love with said man.
When I decided to tuck the grief back inside, Chad apologized again, using his thumb to eliminate the traces of tears from my face.
“What made my mother a target?” This was something I meant to ask a million times before, but held back, not wanting to relive the moment. But if there was ever a time to get over the tragedy of that night, it was now, in this moment of revelations. “What did she do?”
With an agonizing groan, Chad rubbed his eyes, as if he’d rather be doing anything else but talking about my dead mother right now. The onehekilled. “I was told she was a mole. Your mother wasthetop assassin for The Organization. A volunteer. She was treasured and had extremely special privileges, on her way to becoming an actual member of The Organization. But then sensitive info about The Organization started getting leaked. And targets were being rescued hours before their hits could be executed, assassins getting ensnared. Someone pointed the finger at your mother, said she was a double agent with The Organization and The Altrus—The Altrus is another organization that does the opposite of what The Organization does. They help people, save lives, perpetually trying to counteract everything The Organization does. But they are not nearly as advanced or powerful as The Organization, so nine out of ten times, they lose.—Anyway,someonewent behind the Pinnacle’s back and ordered the hit on your mother and her entire family.”
What a hard fucking pill to swallow. “Someone as inRafail Niiveux,” I dripped in bitter, scornful drops.
Chad nodded in the affirmative.
“Do you think she was really a mole?”
A long pause, then, “Until recently, that’s what I was led to believe.”
“Until recently?” I stiffened and peered up at him. “Does that mean it’s possible someone framed her?”
“Yes.”
That was a very pregnant yes. “She was framed, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
I knew it. “By your father?”
“Yes.”
I sat up now, brown sheets bunching around my waist, and dug my fingernails into my palms to prevent myself from screaming. “That…that heartless piece of…Ohmygod… “ I closed my eyes and counted to ten, lest I took my emerging rage out on Chad. “Why? Why would he do that? What was his fucking motive?”
Chad eyed me carefully as I sat next to his hip fighting rage. “My father has been planning to usurp the Pinnacle for a long time. But in order for the members to pledge him as the Pinnacle, he needed extreme wealth, and incontestable power. To build that kind of power, he needed deeper pockets. My father’s plan to take over The Organization was solid; he even had a few of the members on his side. But then Grandad fucked him over by passing the legacy on to me. His plan got shot to shit. Of course, that plan was revived years later when I made the deal with him.”
Flicking his eyes to mine, he locked our gazes. “This is the real truth: Isabel was collateral damage. She was having an affair with the Pinnacle before she moved to Russia—he was her reason for migrating there. He was madly in love with her. She was his weakness. If my father could frame her for being a mole, other members of The Organization would question the Pinnacle’s judgment. How could he not know his lover was the mole? With quite a few of the members siding with my father, it was possible for them to clandestinely order a hit on Isabel without the Pinnacle’s knowledge.”
“But it wasn’t just her!!” I screamed at him, unable to contain my anger any longer. “It was my whole family!! And then my freedom!”
Chad winced, but cautiously reached for my hand and squeezed. He wouldn’t apologize again. I knew this much about him. “The hit on the entire family was to hurt me as much as it was to hurt the Pinnacle. Killing two birds with one stone.”
“Did he succeed in taking over The Organization?”
His head shook no. “The Pinnacle had bigger, badder guns that the rest of the members knew zilch about. After Isabel’s death, he figured something was up, and pre-emptively set up a stronger defense to protect himself, but made them none the wiser that he knew of the corruptive dissolution among them. He had more wealth and more power than he’d let on, which I guess he kept a secret for instances such as usurpation. Rafail backed off. But knowing how power-hungry that man is, I’m sure he’s still searching for a way to win.”
“Why don’t the Pinnacle just boot him from The Organization?”
“Because Rafail’s seat is inherited. His uncle was a part of The Organization, and he named Rafail as the inheritor of his seat for when he died. If your seat in The Organization is inherited, you can’t be booted or voted out. You’re a lifetime member. Matters in The Organization are very sensitive, and remember they answer to no one but themselves. There are no laws to adhere to but their own.”
My shoulders slumped as a sigh breezed out. “What a stupid ass organization. Those dumb laws need to change. If I knew where to find Rafail, I’d kill him my fucking self.”
I made that comment without thinking. The man was Chad’s father, after all.
Taking no umbrage, he merely chuckled. “Get in line.”
I studied his hand on mine. His fingers were long and masculine, but delicate at the same time. They weren’t crooked from too much knuckle cracking, and he had square nail beds with clean, filed fingernails. Nice hands, he hadreallynice hands. Oh, but the dirty, dirty deeds those nice hands did…
“Why does he want you dead?”
As if tired of answering questions, he let out a loud, obnoxious sigh, and dropped back on the bed, eyes drifting back to the ceiling, probably wishing he hadn’t started talking about this.
