Big Easy Temptation (The Perfect Gentlemen #3)(108)

Lara’s eyes had gone a little misty. “I promise. Do you think you’re going to jail?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. I’m going to die. If not tonight, then soon. The cancer is everywhere. So it doesn’t matter anymore if I talk or not. I’m miserable. Judith is miserable. I fought all these years to live and now I don’t really care if I die, because there are worse things than death.”

“Like betrayal?” Dax snarled. He didn’t like the fact that this man had even mentioned his mother’s name. “My father helped you.”

“But he also cheated on your mother. She’s an amazing woman. He was never worthy of her. When they offered me a way to show her the man he truly was, I took it.”

Dax tried to reconcile Morgan’s words. “Are you telling me you set him up to expose him? Or for revenge?”

“It wasn’t really revenge. I meant to scare him. Your father always had everything so easy. He got away with murder half the time because he was rich and connected.” Bitterness poured from Morgan’s mouth. “I was smarter than him. I got better grades. I was well behaved. Life still handed him everything on a silver platter. He got promoted up the ranks. He had your mother. Even when she learned what sort of man he was, she still picked him over me.”

Morgan had utterly ruined his family over jealousy? “I remember you through most of my adolescence. You came to the house for dinner. You were my father’s friend. How could you do this to him? To us? You called the Navy and sent in the fake video.”

His head shook vigorously. “I did not. Like I said, to me the scheme was merely blackmail. I wanted my cut. I was hidden in your father’s shadow for decades. Most of my life had been about making his easier. How do you think I felt when I should have been in a place of power and all your father offered me was the position of a glorified secretary? He owed me.”

Dax thought seriously about throttling the man, but he was so pathetic Dax simply sat beside Holland and stared. She took his hand in hers, grounding him. “I don’t understand how you thought blackmailing my father would teach him a lesson.”

Morgan coughed, a rattling sound in his chest. “I knew the minute Hayes won the election that Hal would crow to everyone about the fact that he knew the president.”

“Zack is one of my best friends. A loyal friend,” Dax shot back.

“Your dad talked about all you boys over the years. It’s one reason Constance Hayes’s death concerned him.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “He took a trip a few weeks before he died. He said he was going to a conference.”

Morgan’s head shook. “Yes, but he went to the UK because he thought the president’s mother had been murdered. After Joy Hayes was killed, he said Constance had told him years ago that anyone who knew would die.”

“Knew what?” Holland asked.

“I don’t know. I guess that’s why I’m still alive.” He rocked back in his lounger. “Originally, I assumed he was flying to London to meet one of his sluts and he didn’t want me to know because he thought I would tell Judith.”

“Would you?” Lara asked.

“No. She already knew,” Morgan replied. “She was too much of a lady to divorce Hal. We’re not like young people today. We have morals. But I finally saw my opportunity to ensure he never became one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—his dream job. He was so close and he knew it. I wish I could have seen the look on his face when he realized he would never be appointed.”

Holland squeezed Dax’s hand as though she knew he was close to losing control.

Morgan never noticed. He just smiled, his lips curling in a nasty snarl. “God, he wanted that position. He told me I could come with him to D.C. After holding me back all these years, he acted as if he was doing me a favor. You don’t know what it’s like to always be in someone’s shadow, to never get to step into the light.”

Dax thanked god for the friends he had. They would never bow to petty jealousy or betray him the way this piece of shit had betrayed his father. “Who approached you about blackmailing my father?”

“I guess there’s no point in concealing the truth now, is there? I can tell you because I’m already dead. You know the funny thing? I hated Hal and I loved him. I still miss him. It was never supposed to end this way. I just wanted to win at least once.” Morgan coughed again.

“Who contacted you?” Dax asked, his words clipped.

“A man. I didn’t really understand who he was until later, and then it was far too late to back out. The man who initially contacted me was American, but I found out later he worked for a Russian. Weird name. Kuilly-something.”

Connor went still. “Kuilikov?”

Morgan pointed while fighting off another coughing fit. “That’s it. That’s him. He was a big, scary fellow.”

This was the closest they’d gotten. “Sergei? Was that his first name? How old was he?”

“No, his name was Boris. He was an old guy. Probably a couple years older than me.”

Lara leaned over. “Boris Kuilikov is a name we’ve heard before. We don’t know exactly who he is. Natalia’s brother maybe. We’ve suspected he had something to do with the Russian mob, but we don’t know how he’s connected to the people who killed Natalia.”