The Princess (Filthy Trilogy 2)

I think of Eric’s claim that death is too good for his father. He’s right. It is. What am I freaking out about? Eric isn’t going to let him off that easy. He didn’t call me and tell me he loves me because he’s about to kill his father. I have a moment of relief and I shut Smith outside, shutting myself inside Eric’s apartment. He’ll meet with his father. He’ll buy us time to end this in a reasonable way. Then we will confess our love while naked and in his bed. The end. That’s the ending I choose.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Eric

Savage sips from the coffee I just handed him. “Your father likes hazelnut latte,” he observes. “I would have taken him for more of a black coffee, no cream or sugar kind of guy.”

“My father’s the kind of man that sweetens his drink and pisses in yours.”

“Ah. Gotcha.” He downs another swallow. “I’m sweetened up and caffeinated. Ready to fight. What’s the plan? Kill him? Punish him? Tickle his feet until he pees himself? Or just piss in his coffee? I can do that right now, if you like?”

“I’d get the honors on all of the above,” I say, offering nothing more. My plans are my plans. I don’t need anyone else inside them, crawling around and fucking them up. I start walking toward my father’s hotel. Savage falls into step with me. “Decision yet to be made, aye?” he asks. “I get it. He’s your father, but he sent a hitman to kill you.”

He knows as well as I do that that man wasn’t sent to kill me. He’s looking for answers that I’m not going to give him. “My father has a funny way of showing love.”

“Love by way of a hitman. Your family is more fucked up than mine.”

He hits about ten nerves with his “love by way of a hitman” comment that shoots me right back into the past. Into the day my mother became her own hitman and shot herself. For me. She did it for me. Because she loved me and I’ve had a lifetime of fucked-up mixed emotions about her actions that all blast me right into this moment. Into the one where I walk into my father’s hotel and head toward the elevator to pay him a “loving” visit.

My cellphone buzzes with a text message and I grab my phone and glance down at a message from Harper. I talked to Gigi. Please call me.

I stop walking and eye Savage. “Give me a minute.” I step to a vacant seating area to our right and dial Harper.

“What about Gigi?” I say when she answers.

“She called. I didn’t want to take the call, but I felt like it might buy more time.”

“And?”

“She had a panic attack when I told her I was attacked. Eric, she wasn’t acting and she didn’t know your father was here. She hung up with me to call him and she was pissed. I’m not misreading this.”

“She set us up.”

“I’m going to use your own words on you right now. What if she didn’t? I know you hate her, but being a bitch and arranging a murder are two wildly different things. What if she was set-up, too?”

“You’re suggesting my father used her to get me to Denver, and she played an unwitting role in all of this.” It’s not a question. I’m simply letting her thoughts calculate in my mind.

“Isn’t he the only person that could use her that way? Which means he has to be the mastermind behind the attempt on my life.”

It’s logical with one flaw, the one that has my father desperate enough to bury the problem I believe Isaac created. That’s why he was at the warehouse before he got on a plane and came here, but nowhere in that equation, or any equation I’ve created, does my father use Gigi to get me to Denver. Gigi is

playing Harper and that’s not something she will want to hear.

“This changes nothing,” I say. “My plan is still my plan.”

“And that plan is what? Because I feel like you called me and told me you loved because—”

“Because I do, Harper. No other reason.”

“Gigi set me on edge. I have a bad feeling in my gut now that I didn’t a few minutes ago.”

“There is no end to today that doesn’t end with you naked in my arms when I tell you I love you again.”

“Do it now. Come here and do that with me now.”

“Not until I deal with my father and send him back to Denver with time on our watch to end this properly.”

“That bad feeling isn’t going away.”