Beneath This Ink (Beneath #2)(73)

Lord lowered himself into the chair beside me and sat something on the table between us.

The gun.

My eyes cut from the revolver to Lord. “What the hell?”

“Your girl gave it to me. Told me to take it. She covered for you. Said they were all working late and she found him collapsed on the floor.”

“What about Hennessy? Titan said he’d called him. Said he was on his way.”

“A bluff.”

“Fuck.” I dropped my glass onto the table next to the gun and swigged the whiskey straight from the bottle, welcoming the burn as it slid down my throat. “Taking it to his grave, then.”

“I doubt it. Your girl doesn’t seem like the type to let something like this lie.”

“I think after tonight, it’s safe to say she might take issue with being called my girl.” I hated to say the words, but they were undoubtedly true.

“You might be surprised.”

“After I killed her great uncle? I doubt it.” I stared at the horizon, lifting the bottle to my lips once more.

“So you’re just going to walk away from her? Let that Titan prick have her?”

The thought gutted me.

For once in my life I should be the better man. Let her go. Or at least not chase her down when she walked away.

Lord snagged the bottle from my hand, interrupting my thoughts, and took a long pull.

We passed the rest of the night like that, only moving to get another fifth. We drank in silence, both lost in our own thoughts, until the sun rose over the lake.





I would be pulling a funeral dress out of the closet yet again. My emotions were all over the map. I was still trying to reconcile the facts that Lucas had uncovered with the Archer I had known until yesterday.

Not to mention trying to process what Con had—and hadn’t—done. And the aftermath.

If I’d wanted to run away and hide from the world before, I desperately wanted to do it today.

But I couldn’t. I had to sit in my office, white knuckling the arms of my chair while the board of directors held an emergency meeting. In that meeting, Lucas would lay out all of the information he’d discovered. We’d discussed it, and I’d agreed. It would be up to the board to decide what to do with the foundation. Even though it was my heritage, I was just an employee without a say. Hell, I didn’t even get to attend—not unless the new chairman invited me. Which he hadn’t.

So instead, I sat and wondered what Con was doing. If he’d washed his hands of me. If I should be washing my hands of him.

I was having a difficult time holding what he’d done against him.

The need for vengeance had been driving him for so long, I wasn’t sure he knew how to operate without it. And the fact that his vengeance intersected with my relative’s nefarious activities… that was something I couldn’t see him ever getting over.

I honestly didn’t know what to do.

One thing I was certain of: I needed to hear what the board decided before I’d be able to face him. I needed to be able to tell him that steps would be taken to make things right. Or if not right—because things could never really be right again—at least… better. Somehow.

I stacked all of my project folders and notes about the new headquarters and nonprofit incubator in a box. It would never happen now. I thought of the deed in one of those folders. How Con had given it to me because he didn’t want to wonder if that was the reason I was with him. How pissed he’d been when he’d thought I’d taken it and walked away.

What should I do with it now? Tear it up? Give it back? I was supposed to go to the parish clerk to have the deed recorded and made part of the legal chain of title for the property, but I’d kept forgetting to take it there.

Maybe that was fate.

Because now it seemed abhorrently wrong that Con had donated it when he’d already lost so much because of the foundation.

Regardless of what the board decided today, I would give it back. It would at least give me a flimsy excuse to go see him.

And God, did I ever want to see him.

The wildcard was whether he could look at me and not think about what had happened to his parents.

At least Con no longer had to carry the guilt of thinking he was responsible for their deaths. It was a tarnished silver lining.

A knock sounded on my office door.

I tensed, glancing at the clock on my wall. It had only been an hour and a half since the meeting started. How could they be done already?

“Come in,” I called.

Elle poked her head in, and I relaxed in my seat.

“Hey, babe. How are you holding up?”

I waved her in, and she shut the door behind her before sliding into one of my guest chairs.

“Okay, I guess. Don’t have much of a choice. Are rumors flying yet?” Lucas had given me the go ahead to tell Elle, surmising accurately that I’d be unable to keep it from her.

She shook her head. “No. None that I’ve heard anyway. Everyone is just shocked by Archer’s death and very sad. That bastard.” She looked up at me. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t say that around you.”

“It’s fine. It’s nothing worse than what I’ve already called him in my own head. And you didn’t even hear him. There was absolutely no remorse. He was so confident that he’d done the right thing. He was… sick. But that doesn’t excuse his actions. I mean, I want to believe that he’d just gotten old and senile, but he’d been doing this for at least a decade, Elle. That’s insane.” I met her eyes as she slouched in her seat.