Page 148 of The Finish Line
“He got it last night,” I say with a grin. “It’s the least I could do after the brain damage you nearly cost him. Julien has been a raven for almost six years.”
Antoine curses and shoots a death glare at Julien, whose lips twitch with a smile. Palo remains silent, but I can see the amusement dancing in his eyes. Tobias studies both of them for long seconds and then shifts his gaze back to me.
“Thank you, Julien,” I dismiss him, and with a nod, he retrieves his gun and moves back into place. Tobias goes to speak, but I press my fingers to his lips. “But the fact that you challenge me is probably one of the reasons I love you most. Knowing you, loving you, and understanding you helped shape me into the woman I am.”
He swallows, my sentiments hitting him as he examines each word carefully.
“A few weeks in,” I explain. “I knew something with you wasn’t right. And I couldn’t figure out what it was. I already had Greg on my radar and thanks to my old partner Ryan, he checked him out, and we concluded his game was weak. Let’s face it, Greg never had a fucking chance.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “But I had to find out what or who had you so on guard. I had to know what unspoken threat was bothering you, a threat you repeatedly refused to tell me about, even after you promised you would. I was so furious with you at one point because I knew you’d fallen into old habits again, keeping me in the dark, so I called Sean.”
“Sean is in on this?”
“He had his suspicions, but we sent Julien in to make sure he was right.”
His eyes widen. “You . . . baited me?”
I keep my voice low as the commotion sounds around us. “Yes. Antoine was never aware of me. Never. You covered your tracks, our tracks, perfectly. He would have never discovered us. But I didn’t care if Antoine was a threat at that point. I wanted him gone regardless because of the state you were in. So, when I found out about Greg, I fed him bits and pieces to lead him to Antoine. But Antoine came at my invitation. I brought the fight here.”
He gapes down at me. “You fucking what?”
“To kill two birds, no pun intended.” I tilt my head as it sinks in. “This was inevitable. I just sped up the process, my way.”
“You lured him here?” he rasps out, his features twisting in fury.
“I did. And you damn near put a kink in my plans by legitimizing us with condition of protection from the Secret Service. I really wanted this to be an in-house job to show you the strength of your own club, but, luckily, I knew a guy. We worked our way around it.”
“You knew this whole fucking time?” Realization takes over as his flaming eyes narrow on me. “This is why you nearly castrated me the day your mother came... you found out I was keeping secrets. It was the day after...” he turns to Julien and then back to me.
I nod. “I got so angry when you didn’t tell me about your run-in with Julien, who was reporting to me the whole time—by the way, nice photos—and when you didn’t come clean, I was furious. So I used your past secrets and our issues as an excuse to yell at you for it. That anger wasn’t fake. And the longer you didn’t tell me, the angrier I got. Because...”
“I promised no more secrets,” he finishes, hanging his head briefly, his eyes filled with apology when he lifts them. “Cecelia—”
“Shut up, King. And try to keep up,” I scold as I run my hand along his jaw. “My next step was all about picking the size of the spoon.”
“The spoon?” I stroke his face with my palm and lift to press a brief kiss to his lips before I look him right in the eye. “To get that medicine down. Checkmate, my love.”
Complete and utter disbelief. The look on his face is priceless, making this moment one hundred percent worth the effort.
“So, Palo?”
“Not dead,” he replies from where he stands feet away, and I can’t help my giggle.
“Clearly,” Tobias snaps, turning his head to look up at him catching his smirk.
“Sean can be convincing.” He shrugs, his lips lifting briefly.
Tobias narrows his eyes at Palo. “What’s in it for you?”
“A wife. Antoine’s wife, to be exact,” I answer for him. Antoine’s face turns beet red due to the evident restraint from the guns trained on him.
The house starts to go quiet as the rest of Antoine’s men are taken away, zip ties securing their wrists as they struggle, cursing in French and promising retribution. Tobias looks down at me, his old world tilted on its axis as his new world comes into focus.
“You’re exhausting. You know that? Between the secret meetings I held with David, Oz, and Julien, working with Sean and Tyler to get Greg to lure Antoine here, and persuading the rest of the boys to jump on board so they wouldn’t face your wrath, I’ve barely had a moment’s rest to make sure you got your vacation.”
“Tyler, Russell, they all knew?”
“We all agreed it was the only way you would ever fully trust me.”
“All of this was a setup?”