The Empire (Filthy Trilogy 3)
He cups my head and gives me a long, drugging kiss. “Hurry up and come back to me then,” he says, turning me to face in the direction I need to walk.
And so I do. I leave him behind, and it feels like that’s exactly what I’m doing: leaving him behind. I round the corner and enter the hotel, and for no good reason, I feel like I’m never going to be the same. Like we’re never going to be the same.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Eric
The numbers in my head count down and fling sequences at me in a random rotation that might mean something if I slowed them down. I don’t even try. They haven’t stolen my control. At this point, they pulse and spin, they fill my mind, but they don’t own it. I meant what I said to Harper. They’re cold comfort right now, the distraction that won’t let me chase ideas and emotions. They allow me to hyper-focus on this moment, to narrow my thoughts. To walk down the alleyway in pursuit of Harper, with Savage by my side, in controlled agitation. “You didn’t call Grayson,” he reminds me. “He’s texting me and you.”
I don’t look at him. “He’ll understand. He’d be just like I am right now if this was Mia walking into a minefield.”
“You really think her mother’s that volatile?”
“She does,” I say, as we round the corner to the hotel entrance. “She knows her mother and the very fact that she’s worried about her agenda speaks volumes to where we’re at right now. Her mother is a problem.”
“Agreed, but she wouldn’t hurt her daughter.”
I eye Savage. “If I thought she would, Harper wouldn’t be going up to the room alone.” We pause at the entrance of the hotel. “We stand out together. You take the lobby. I’m going to the bar where Blake can meet me.” I don’t wait for his approval or agreement. I enter the hotel, a fancy number with a big price tag befitting the Kingston standard. I walk through dual seating areas hugging my path, eyeing the registration desk to my left, where Harper is now turning away from the counter. She hurries to the right, and then walks into the bar, not toward the elevators.
I pass the desk and turn left to a sitting area that is a bar occupied with couches and chairs in burgundy and brown, with oversized pillows meant to irritate people, or at least me. Harper motions me forward, and screw it, I’m here. If there’s someone watching, they might as well know, because then they also know I’m trouble they don’t want. I close the space between her and me and sit down. “She’s not answering in her room. They won’t let me up.” She pulls out her phone. “I’m trying to call her.” She listens a minute and it clearly goes to voicemail. “Mom. Mom, I’m here at your hotel. I need you to call down and let me come up.” She disconnects. “I’m worried. What if she found out he’s dead and is melting down? I think I should ask the manager to walk me up, or just to go check on her.”
“Yes. Do it. I’m not going with you. I don’t want him telling her that I’m by your side, and her using that as a reason not to see you.”
Harper shoves her phone back inside her purse and hurries away. I move to the other side of the table to be able to watch her. The waitress approaches me and I order a whiskey. Blake slides in across from me. “Make that two.”
The waitress hurries away and Blake wastes no time getting to the point. “There are things you need to know before Harper heads upstairs to see her mother.”
“Speak quickly.”
“I know what Gigi meant when she called Harper.”
I stiffen. “Gigi called Harper?”
“You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t fucking know. When?”
“Right when you were finding out about your father, man. I’m sure that’s why she called me and didn’t tell you. Gigi thought she was being attacked. It was my man trying to get to her but that worked in our favor. She called Harper and ran her mout
h.”
She didn’t fucking tell me. I don’t like that. I don’t like it one fucking bit. “Did she now? What’d she say?”
“That her mother knows the truth. That Isaac knows that you’re not a bastard. Harper didn’t catch that part of the conversation. The call was choppy but we cleaned the recorded version up. She said, that you’re not a bastard.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Blake? Stop speaking in code because I’m focused on Harper right now. Not a game and a puzzle.”
“Read this.” He slides a folder in front of me and I stare down at the contents, reading a summary that has me sucking in air.
It’s then that Harper pokes her head into the bar. “They’re taking me upstairs. I’m going up now.” She dashes away toward the elevator and I want to run after her. I have to stop her because I know what her mother is going to tell her. I know what Harper might think. I know what I would think if I was her. This might be the end of us. I stand up and start walking, but Blake catches my arm.
“Let her go.”
I rotate to face him. “You think I did this? You think I killed him?”
“No, man.” He stands and faces me. “But I think Harper’s about to find out who did. Let her. End this.”
“She’s going to tell Harper everything in that file I just read.”