Page 147 of Jake's Angel
Pussy.
Kyle’s struggling to catch his breath. I land blow after blow to his body. He cries out when each punch connects.
Gabe stands up, tapping my shoulder. His eyes are narrowed in on me, then back to Kyle. He makes his way over to the table and starts running his hand over Pop’s tools. He’s not the guy to torture people, but this asshole doesn’t know that.
“Wh-what—what do you want from me?” Kyle stutters.
“You said Eleanor gave Avery to you as part of a deal. What was the deal?” Gabe asks. The look of recognition lights in his eyes, and quickly fades when Kyle smugly answers.
“If her mother had just done what she was told, instead of becoming your whore, she might’ve saved Avery from this fate.” The asshole decides he wants to poke the bear. He must think we’ll end this quickly if he pisses Gabe off.
Not a fucking chance.
Gabe grabs an ice pick from Pop’s table and jams it into Kyle’s thigh and twists, not bothering to pull it out. Kyle screams loud like the bitch he is. His body is thrashing in the shackles as he struggles through the pain.
“Motherfucker!” he shouts. The agony playing on his face is oddly rewarding to me, even though I’m not the one who put it there.
“Let’s try this again. What deal did you make with Eleanor West for my daughter?” Gabe asks again slowly, drawing out each word.
“She’s just a payment!” Kyle shouts. “She’s my down payment!”
“For what?” I shout back. He lifts his head, looking at me through his now swollen eye, and smirks for just a second, then seems to think better of it, eyeing Gabe standing next to me with another ice pick in his hand.
The fuck is wrong with this guy? One minute, he’s a screaming bitch. The next he’s smirking like a lunatic.
“Wait a minute. I’m confused,” Jameson, who has been silently watching, taking in every detail, speaks. “I thought Eleanor sold Avery to you. But you keep saying she’s a payment. So, which is it?”
Kyle’s groaning, trying to gain some composure and failing drastically. “To me,” he sputters. “Eleanor gave her to me. We made a deal,” he grumbles. “I gave Eleanor a good faith payment to keep Avery’s virtue off the market until we’re married. Once the wedding is over and the marriage is consummated, we kill the girl, and I get my down payment back. Eleanor gets half of everything she’s entitled to, and I get the other half Avery’s inheritance.”
I launch another round of punches alternating between his face and body, landing several hits to his ribs until I feel the sickening crack of his bones under my knuckles. He screams in pain, struggling to catch his breath, until he finally passes out.
Fucker.
“Looks like Kyle here wasn’t lying. He definitely works for Cusenza. He’s on the books as a floor manager at one of the nightclubs, Club Rush. Kyle’s not the most interesting piece to this puzzle, though. It seems his dear old dad owes Cusenza a great deal of money in gambling debts. Cusenza is becoming a partner with Michael Whittmore on his chain of hotels,” Hawk says.
“Where’s Michael Whittmore now?”
“In the hospital on life support. Has been since early yesterday morning,” Hawk replies. “He was admitted with congestive heart failure. Came in unresponsive and was placed on life support. Notes in the file say he has no prior history of any health issues.”
“He’s never had any issues and then all of the sudden his heart up and quits on him?” Declan asks. “Something doesn’t add up here, Pres.”
“He’s wealthy. Owns a hotel chain, right?” I ask “Who’s in charge of the hotels if something happens to dear old dad? All rich people have a will. Can you find his?”
Hawk’s fingers take off, flying across the keyboard as he does his thing. It seems like only seconds later we have our answer. “The hotel chain is being left to Kyle in the event of Michael’s death.”
“What about siblings?” Gabe asks.
“There’s no mention of them here. Everything goes to Kyle.” Hawk reads. “Hey, Pres. This will was updated five days ago, just hours before Michael Whittmore was admitted to the hospital.”
“My brothers don’t deserve my father’s money,” Kyle says, having coming to. He’s choking out a breath between each word. We all turn to face him. “They couldn’t handle our way of living,” he groans, the pain and struggle with each word written across his face.
Standing in front of him with his arms crossed, Declan asks, “What way is that? From what we see here, your pops owed Cusenza a shit ton of money. If he croaks, your family stands to lose everything in order to pay the debt back.” He digs his finger into Kyle’s chest.
“Except for you,” Jameson suggests. “You cut another deal with your boss. You marry the girl, inherit your father’s hotels, in exchange for Avery. You gave her to Cusenza to settle your father’s debts. Cusenza turns her out until she inevitably dies.Kyle here then becomes partners with Cusenza in owning his father’s empire. Kyle, as Avery’s widow, keeps his wife’s fortune, and since Avery would most likely be beaten to death while strung out on drugs, there’s nothing tying him back to Avery’s death.”
“You weren’t going to pay Eleanor off. You were going to cut out the middleman and keep everything for yourself.” Ethan deduces.
“Cusenza picked me because I have no loyalties to any of them. Not Eleanor, not even my father. His debts were his own, but half his empire will soon be mine.” I’m certain his ribs are broken by the bluish black marks swelling on the sides of his torso and the way he struggles to say his words. “Cusenza made a deal with my brothers to wipe my father’s debt clean if they signed over their share of the hotel business to us,” he grumbles.