Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
The godmothers never wanted us to incriminate them. To find their origins.
Let me make this clear—I don’t give a fuck about what Varrick has to say. I don’t care if he’s being honest. If he’s blowing smoke. We will never really know if he’s spouting facts or feeding us lies. I believe mostly what I can see.
We saw him on camera breaking into the loft.
We saw pinpricked condoms in Phoebe’s room.
We saw him shove Nova into a fucking mirror.
So now, we’re entertaining him the way you would a guest at a dinner party. He thinks he’s placating us—fine.
Placate me, bitch.
“She never told me,” Varrick says, “but I suspected Beth was from Jersey. Addison, New York, originally—her accent would fight through in the early days. Your mother is likely Italian, maybe Scillian. Or even Greek. Probably had parents or grandparents who immigrated over here through Ellis Island.”
I want to dump my liquor in the ocean. I don’t drink it as I ask, “These are your unproven theories of how many years? When did you first meet?”
“They were nineteen. Though they said they were older at the time. I was around twenty-one, twenty-two. Young. Ran into them at a bar on the Upper East Side. We had mutual acquaintances. The rest, as you know, is history.”
“Romantic,” I say dryly.
He grins. “You remind me of me. Phoebe of her mother.”
“Yeah?” I tilt my head, appraising him before I lean forward. “Funny you say that, considering we’re in a bit of a…situation. Kind of the same one Elizabeth found herself in.”
“Phoebe’s pregnant,” he says with a satisfied smile. “I know.” He raises his champagne, congratulating me.
I raise mine back, not hiding my surprise. Only I’m more surprised he filled the blank in for me. Rookie mistake. “How’d you figure it out?”
“A dad always knows.”
Sick fuck.
Nova is crawling out of his skin. He has to ditch the champagne and stand up. Varrick is confused at his volatile reaction. He’s trying to make sense of why Nova wouldn’t want Phoebe to be pregnant. He’s wondering if Nova knows he’s the cause.
“It was an accident,” I say, capturing Varrick’s attention. “Me and Phoebe. Unplanned. Surprise pregnancy, whatever you want to call it.”
“I assumed.”
I’m sure you did.
Fireworks whizz overhead. Just intermittent pops in the sky, slowly building to the climax. I’ve been to enough of these extravagant parties to know no expense is wasted on the two-hour firework show.
Whistling, whooshing, and crackling in the night sky draws eyes upward and off us. Varrick’s face lights in greens as I tell him, “Nova knows me and Phoebe don’t want kids.”
This takes him aback. “No?”
“No.” I shake my head tensely. His mind is working overtime right now. I try to guide him in a direction. “You want a kid?”
“Pardon?”
“You want a baby?” I enunciate very clearly. “A child to raise?”
He searches my face so rapidly. All he can likely see is pure fucking rage. “What are you getting at, Brayden?”
“Let’s cut to the fucking chase.” I set the glass in a cupholder. Varrick does the same. We stand at the same time.
He threads his arms over his chest, his brows pleated as if he’s patiently awaiting me. “You go first.”
“Fine. I’m not going to work with you after we pull the rope on Trent. None of us want to work with you, and I think you know that. I think you’ve always known that we’d never be one big happy team.”
“I did.” He smiles a little, impressed. “Keep going.” Sizzling gold embers rain down behind him.
“We’ve figured out you want a baby. For whatever reason. You want to tell me why?”
“You six turned out to be great assets to Beth and Addy. Better than they even give you credit for, and I know you’ll never trust me to the extent that you trusted them. Even if they’ve burned you now.”
“But a child will trust you?”
“My child will.” Varrick arches his brows. “You don’t understand the pain Beth caused me. By lying. Taking my kids away from me.” He points at Nova. “She did what we said we’d do together, educate our children in the family business in our way. How she betrayed you—multiply it times a hundred. So I would love nothing more than to raise my daughter’s child. It will…destroy Beth. Do you know how much she loves Phoebe?”
Yes. “I’m aware.”
Varrick drops his arm. “So let’s make a deal, all of us.”
“Let’s make a deal,” I repeat in a biting tone.
“I’ll leave Victoria if you give me the baby.”
Yeah.
I knew this was coming.
“I’ll raise them as my own,” he continues, purple hues bathing his pitiless face. “You’ll never hear or see from me again. You get what you want. A town without me in it. I get what I want.”
Revenge and a little pawn of his own making.
I start laughing. Barrel-chested hard laughter while we lock eyes. His features become a brick wall, but he can hide in every musty fucking corner all he wants, trying to scurry away from me. It doesn’t matter what he makes me believe anymore. “You think you’re going to ride away from Victoria as the Lone Wolfe?” I ask, using the name the town has adopted for him. “With a billion-dollar fortune still at your disposal?”