Page 82 of Vicious Seduction
I squatted in front of him like I was talking to a child. “We need a little information from you.”
“Go to the press and tell them it was all a campaign of lies and fake news—I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” His fleeting grasp on reality was almost comical.
I shook my head with a humorless laugh. “That’s not how this works, big guy.” I patted his knee condescendingly. “But it was a nice try.”
“I’m not telling you anything unless I get something in return. Hurt me all you want.”
Says the man who has clearly never suffered a minute in his life.
“Happy to oblige.” Keir swept in and bent Wellington’s pinky finger with a crunch until it extended straight out to the side.
The animalistic wail that Wellington let loose hurt my damn ears. “Okay, okay. No more. I’ll tell you anything, please.” Pathetic blubbering—that was the only way to describe his pitiful begging. I had to stand and turn away before I put a bullet in his skull just to end my own suffering.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Keir grumbled. “You sure you don’t want to hold out a little longer?”
“No, no. I’ll talk, just please. Put my pinky back. It hurts so bad.” He devolved into a fit of tears.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I’d seen ten-year-old kids with more balls than this fuckwad. I’d suspected he’d fold quickly, but this was pathetic.
“Back in early August, an unconscious girl was dropped off at your house.”
Wellington’s head snapped up. “Ha! I knew it.” He laughed, a touch of madness setting in. “I knew from the minute I saw her that she’d be trouble.”
“Why’s that?”
“Drugged women don’t just appear at random,” he scoffed. “My son begged me to let him keep her, but I refused. She wasn’t just some whore taken off the streets. There was no telling who she was connected to.”
“You had no idea who she was?”
“No! I—” He stilled, gaze darting between me and Keir. “Why? Who was she?”
“Irrelevant at this juncture. What happened to her?”
He eyed me curiously. Keir paced around to the other side of Wellington and peered down at the man’s one remaining functional pinky.
“I took her to the hospital,” Wellington blurted in a rush. “I didn’t know what else to do with her. She’d had some sort of reaction to whatever drugs she’d taken or been given, and there was a concussion—I don’t know. She ended up in a coma for two fucking months.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Darina had been alive. I’d been so convinced Wellington’s twisted offspring had gotten his hands on her and killed her that I never entertained the possibility of other options. Occam’s Razor wasn’t always right—the simplest explanation wasn’t always the correct one.
“You say she was in a coma for two months. Did she wake up at that point?”
“She did. She woke up and had no fucking clue who she was, so Istillwasn’t able to escape her.”
“Did you go to the cops?”
He sneered. “I’m sure the hospital covered that since she was a Jane Doe. No need for me to stir up a hornet’s nest of rumors. You know how absurd the media can be.”
“You didn’t help to find her family at all?”
“I’ve been supporting the damn girl for months—paying her hospital bill and everything—isn’t that enough? I knew if I didn’t, it would come back to bite me. Andlook. That’s exactly what happened.” He spit on the concrete floor. “That’s all I’ve ever done is damage control for that worthless piece of shit son of mine.” He looked at Keir, snot running down his face. “You did me a favor by killing him, you know that? I know it was you. I don’t care how much you deny it. Don’t care that he’s gone, either. He was a fuckingliability.”
Some people had issues. Some were a little damaged. Lawrence Wellington was fucking broken. He was missing an essential component of basic humanity. That was the only way to explain it.
How ironic that his inability to empathize was likely the very reason his son had turned out psychotic. And Wellington would never be able to see that he was the cause of his greatest disappointment.
None of that was surprising, considering his lack of self-awareness. However, I was shocked shitless that Amalie was theoretically alive and somewhere in the city. I wasn’t going to fully believe it until I saw her with my own goddamn eyes.