The Empire (Filthy Trilogy 3)

“I am not sure what you mean,” I reply cautiously, setting my coffee down and rotating to face him.

“At some point,” he says, setting his coffee down and lifting my leg over his, “you said that no matter what, he’s my last living parent. You said that the idea of losing him would affect me.”

“And it does?” I prod gently.

“It does. I don’t know why the fuck it does, Harpe

r. I considered killing him. I hate him. He took my mother from me and yet, hearing that he had another heart attack, it punched at me. And I hate him all over for making me feel anything but hate.”

“Maybe it’s not about him,” I say, thinking of what I know of Eric, what I’ve learned about what matters to him. “Maybe it’s about your mother, about him being the only connection to her. You two are the only two people in the world that share her. Maybe losing him, in some part of your mind, heart, and or soul, registers that as losing more of her.”

His broad chest expands on a breath that he slowly inhales. “My mother doesn’t know how many times and ways she’s saved that man.”

“What was Isaac’s mother like?”

“I don’t know. I never asked. She died before I ever came into the picture, at least from the standpoint of the family knowing me. I believe that’s why my mother was willing to come forward. She wasn’t around to be hurt.”

A really crazy thought occurs to me. “How did she die?”

“I don’t know. Never cared enough to ask. Why?”

“Let’s find out,” I say. “Can Blake find out for us?”

“What are you thinking, Harper?”

“Nothing I’m ready to say out loud. Not yet.”

Maybe not ever because it’s completely insane, but then, so is this family.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Harper

Eric sends a text about Isaac’s mother to Blake. When he’s done, he slides his phone into his pocket and picks up his coffee, his strong hand and long fingers, wrapping the heavy white ceramic mug. The colorful tattoos inking his forearms draw my attention, the letters and numbers telling a story of this man, and I want to understand every piece of the puzzle that is his life.

Eric sips his coffee and sets it back down. “You think Isaac’s mother was murdered?”

“I think that if we’re looking for a motive in all of this, and a tie to you, that it stretches back to your beginning.”

“She was gone before I went to live with my father.”

“Yeah.” I pick up my own mug, “I know you said that.” I don’t offer more. I’m not sure I want to say what’s in my mind.

He tilts his head, his brows furrowing. “You think this is somehow connected to my mother.”

“Both of your mothers,” I say. “I mean, I’d say Isaac’s mother had a motive to kill your mother if she wasn’t dead before that.”

Ignoring his cup on the table, he reaches for the one in my hand and takes a drink. “It’s an interesting idea though. Her being murdered, that is. We’ve certainly seen that my father is willing to kill.”

“Is he?” I ask. “I mean yes, ultimately you and I look at what he did to your mother as murder, but perhaps he justified that in that—” I touch his arm, “sorry, but in that she was dying anyway.” His lips thin and he sets my cup on the table next to his.

“She was dying, but she had the chance to survive. Others in that study she was entering got years out of it. I know. I looked it up.” He scrubs his jaw. “Years ago. I looked it up years ago, Harper.” He doesn’t look away, as I believe he would have when we first met. He looks at me, really looks at me, but more so, he lets the pain bleed from his soul through his eyes. “You know losing her defined me then and now.”

I settle my hand on his knee and twist to face him. “No. I don’t. I think loving her has defined you which is exactly why you have turned a cheek with this family so many times. You know that she didn’t want you to become one of them and you aren’t. Don’t let this, right now, change that.”

“They took her. They tried to take you.” His voice is low, a mere whisper, but the emotion, the intensity, the anger, radiates through every syllable. “They have to pay.”

“And they will. Making them pay doesn’t make you like them. How you make them pay does. They need to pay. No one as evil as the Kingstons deserves the life they lead.”