I suck in a sharp, surprised breath.
Fuck me.
He takes his father’s seat, and while technically it makes sense for him to be here, I hadn’t expected it, which is my own stupidity. Of course he was going to be here. I should have been more prepared.
He watches me closely, following each step I take until I hit the top of the table.
My heart thunders in my chest as I look around the table. This is so much harder than I thought it was going to be. I know I told Tobias that I was ready, but nothing in the world can prepare someone for this.
This meeting will determine my fate, it will determine if I spend the rest of my life rotting in some shitty cell or if I will get the chance to fly. All my life, I’ve been the one in charge, I’ve made the rules, and lived by my own free will. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and now, my future rests in the hands of these sixteen strange men who don’t know a damn thing about me—half of them who have already gone to extreme lengths to try and have me killed.
The odds aren’t even close to being in my favor.
I slowly drop to my seat, keeping the mask of confidence stretched across my face despite knowing that Carver can see straight through it.
My ass hits the chair, and as I look out at the sixteen men before me, I let out a silent, shaky breath.
It’s showtime.
CHAPTER 4
“Alright,” I say, addressing the room. “Let’s not pretend that we’re here for a good time. Let’s say what needs to be said and get this over and done with so I can go home.”
Carver scoffs from across the table, along with a few other men sitting beside him. “You’ve got a lot of confidence for a little girl who just murdered a man in the middle of a ballroom with hundreds of eyes watching you.”
I raise my brow, more than ready to throw myself across this table and wrap my hands around his throat in the same way he’d done to me, but hey, if he wants to be petty, then damn it, I can be petty too. “You didn’t think I was so much of a little girl when your hands were all over my body. So, what’s it going to be, Carver?” I demand, purring his name, more than happy to call him out in front of these old assholes. “Am I a little girl or just a bitch who your father shouldn’t have messed with?”
Carver’s eyes harden, his jaw clenching as his hand curls into a ball on the table. “Watch your mouth, Elodie,” he spits, using my real name as an insult just because he knows how much I hate it. “You don’t get to speak of my father.”
“That’s the exact reason we’re here though, right?” I question, my voice strained with fury as I fight to remain in my seat. “Royston Carver had no issues speaking ill of my father last night. So, how is that fair? One rule for him and another for me because I’m a woman? Fuck you.”
“Now, now,” Earnest Brooks speaks up from beside me as the room turns into chaos, one side yelling at the other. “Let’s not allow this to get out of hand.”
Carver scoffs, ignoring Earnest’s pleas. “Oh, you’re going to play the woman card now? Like you give a shit about that.”
I stand, making at least four of the men around the table flinch. “Don’t act like you fucking know me, Dante. You don’t,” I spit at him. “The woman card is the whole reason we got into this fucked up mess in the first place. All of you sorry fuckers couldn’t get on board with the fact that my father’s firstborn was a female. That’s what started this shit and I’m going to fucking end it.”
Carver just rolls his eyes as men from all around the table scoff. No matter what side they’re sitting on, no man can handle being called out on their sexist bullshit. “We’re not here to discuss what happened eighteen years ago,” Carver insists. “We’re here to condemn you for killing my father, one of the heads of this grand organization.”
“Grand organization?” I laugh. “Oh, we’re putting on a show, are we? You want to get some brownie points for talking up Dynasty like you owe your life to it? Well, guess what? Dynasty is the whole fucking reason that I’ve never had a life. The men sitting around this table are the reason I lost my family, I lost my childhood, I lost everything I know. So don’t go pretending that this grand organization isn’t filled with corruption—a corruption that I can guarantee your father was behind. You fucking hate this world. You don’t want to be in that chair just as much as I don’t want this one.”