Chapter 14
The footage on screen was vile. There was Blanche, naked and entangled with the very man who had once kidnapped Finn. The images were so explicit, so revolting, that some guests averted their gaze.
“Blanche, who’s better in bed-me or that stiff Edmond Robinson?” the man asked with a lecherous gasp.
Blanche let out a breathy, vulgar laugh. “You, of course. Edmond’s useless in that department.”
The man chuckled darkly. “Spending Edmond’s money while screwing his woman? Hell, I’m living the dream.”
Their dirty talk grew nastier by the second. The scene devolved into an obscene parade of entangled limbs and vulgarity.
The crowd erupted. Shocked gasps rippled through the hall, phones flew into the air, and camera flashes lit up the
ballroom like lightning.
“Turn it off! Shut it off now!”
Blanche’s face went pale in an instant. She lunged for the AV table in a frenzy. “It’s fake! It’s all fake-Al swapped or
something! Stop recording!”
In her panic, she slammed her elbow into the sound controls, amplifying the moans until they echoed through the hall like
sirens.
“Edmond!” she screamed, stumbling toward him. “Help me turn it off!”
She barely grazed his sleeve when the diamond bracelet on her wrist released a sharp jolt of electricity.
BZZZT!
Blanche collapsed like a marionette with severed strings, convulsing on the floor, her hair standing on end from the
current. Two security guards immediately rushed in and pinned her arms behind her back.
“What the hell did you give me?!” Blanche shrieked, trying to tear off the bracelet, but it held fast-digging deeper the more she struggled.
Edmond stood there, his eyes colder than death, watching her squirm like a squashed bug. Blanche suddenly scrambled to her knees and wrapped her arms around his legs, sobbing hysterically.
“Edmond, please! You have to believe me! I only ever loved you! This must be Amelia’s doing! She’s jealous-jealous of what we have!”
Edmond let out a low laugh and snapped his fingers. Two bodyguards dragged in a man-beaten bloody, bruised, and naked, wrists and ankles bound in thick rope. It was him. The kidnapper.
Blanche’s face drained of color. “No… but he-he disappeared-”
“What? You thought he ran off with my money and I’d never find him?” Edmond sneered, kicking her hard in the chest. She toppled backward with a strangled gasp.
“You think I’m a goddamn fool? He could’ve fled to the ends of the earth, and I still would have dragged him back.” Chapter 14
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“Please, Edmond, let me explain-”
SMACK!
He backhanded her so hard her head snapped violently sideways.
“You really thought this was your big moment?” Edmond grabbed her by the jaw, forcing her to look at him. “That I’d throw a party to announce you as my partner?”
He looked around at the stunned crowd.
“Every single person here is an actor. This whole night was staged. Just like your entire life. You’re not fit to lick my shoes,
let alone wear my name.”
He kicked her again-this time square in the abdomen.
“You even wanted to have a second kid with me? Are you delusional? The first one wasn’t even mine.”
He stepped over her as if she were trash.
“All these years, all the money I poured into you and that bastard son of yours? You think I’m some clueless mark? I’m
Edmond Robinson. People who cheat me-they pay.”
Blanche shook like a leaf, bowing her head repeatedly, begging as blood trickled from her mouth. She knew exactly what
Edmond was capable of.
Just last year, a client who crossed him ended up with three broken ribs and was left for dead in an alley. Another man-
who dared flirt with Amelia at a bar-was “relocated” to a cult overseas and never heard from again.
“I was wrong! I’m sorry, Edmond, I swear, I messed up!” Blanche sobbed. “For the sake of Finn-he’s called you Dad for seven years. Please, please have mercy!”
“AAHHHH!”
Another electric jolt ripped through her body as Edmond activated the bracelet’s remote control. She writhed on the floor,
screaming like a banshee. Edmond stared down at her, unmoved, then calmly called Harris.
“Bring Finn to the Westhill estate,” he ordered. “It’s time for their happy little family to reunite.”
He lowered his phone, voice quiet but cutting like a blade.
“It’s time you paid your debt-in full.”
An hour later. Finn walked into the villa clutching a worn Superman toy, only to stop dead in his tracks.
His mother and the “uncle” he sometimes saw were kneeling on the living room floor, their mouths taped shut, faces
contorted in terror.
“Mom?” he blinked, confused. “What happened? Where’s Dad?”
Blanche and her lover shook their heads violently, muffled groans rumbling from their throats. Finn, puzzled, reached up to tug the tape off her face. “Is this a game? Are you guys playing the kidnap game again? I remember this one! I even gave Chapter 14
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you the rope!”
A slow clap echoed behind him.
“Well done,” Edmond’s voice drawled from behind the curtains. He stepped forward, his expression twisted with disgust. “You really didn’t even try to hide this mess from a child. Like mother, like son.”
Finn turned, wide-eyed. “Mom said two dads aren’t allowed to be in the same room. She said one has to hide when the
other’s here.”
The room went still.
Then-BAM!
Edmond kicked him squarely in the chest. Finn flew backward and slammed into the wall, crumpling to the floor with a
whimper. Blanche screamed against the tape, eyes bulging in panic.
“That was for my daughter,” Edmond said, his voice low and savage. “Your mother made her bleed.”
He stalked over, grabbed the boy by the collar, and slapped him-once, twice.
SMACK! SMACK!
“And these,” he growled, “are for shoving glass marbles into her mouth. She was barely a month old, you little freak. Were
you trying to choke her to death?”
Finn’s face was covered in blood, and then-he snapped. Screaming like a feral animal, he lunged at Edmond, flailing fists
and feet.
“You’re the bad guy! You’re evil! Mom! Dad! Help me kill him!”
Chapter 14
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