“We have him, Remy.”
They were the words she had most wanted and yet at the same time dreaded hearing.
Because she knew the him Sinclair was referring to had to be her father.
Remy looked at Sinclair as he sat on the side of the bed where, until a few seconds ago, she’d been caught in the throes of a nightmare in which her father was definitely the villain.
Only to have been woken up knowing she now had to face the same man who was the real nightmare in her life.
She moistened her lips. “Where is he?”
Sinclair stroked gentle fingers down her cheek. “We have him locked in the dungeons under the house.”
Her eyes widened. “This house really does have dungeons?” She’d heard members of the Kingston family referring to them jokingly in the past, but never really thought they existed.
He shrugged. “The house was built during Cromwell’s time, so yes, there are secured escape tunnels under there, as well as dungeons.”
And her father was now locked in one of them. “Where was he hiding?”
Sinclair sighed. “Casper’s software eventually located him buying petrol at a service station in a London suburb. We were able to track his route out of the city from there. He’s been sleeping in the car, which was reported stolen in Wales a week ago. That location gave Casper another timeline to follow. He discovered that Ralph was renting a cabin in North Wales when the car was stolen, not too far from where the helicopter was when the Mayday call was sent out.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Do you think that was by design or coincidence?”
Sinclair knew how hard this must be for Remy to hear, but he also knew not to keep the truth from her. “The rental for the cabin was paid from April to September, and your father has been missing since early July. Which is probably why the police made no connection between the man supposedly living in the log cabin in the woods for the previous three months and the man who had just gone missing in a helicopter crash.”
Remy’s cheeks pale. “It was all premediated.”
“It’s starting to look that way, yes.”
She flinched. “Has he said anything since you found him?”
Sinclair shook his head. “The moment he started venting his vitriol against us and everyone else in the world, we decided to gag him. We’re now waiting for you to join us before we start questioning him.”
“We?”
“The brothers, except Max and Adam, who are obviously still away on their honeymoons, are waiting for us to join them downstairs.” He knew his brothers’ presence in the dungeon was a show of support.
For Remy.
And for the three people who had been murdered, either indirectly or directly by Ralph Mitchell.
Remy’s steps were heavy as she followed Sinclair down the stone staircase to the dungeons, knowing that the next few minutes were going to give her the answers to all her questions.
“I should have known this would be where you’d run to,” her father snarled the moment the gag was removed from his mouth, his gaze malevolent as he glared at Remy across the confined space.
He was secured to a chair in the middle of a dungeon that was lit by a single electric bulb overhead. The room had a metal grill at the front and three rock-hewn walls, the floor smooth rock. Plastic ties about his wrists and ankles kept him in place.
It had been only a matter of weeks, but her father looked like a feral creature rather than the suave surgeon in bespoke suits Remy had seen him in her whole life. His tailored trousers and formal shirt were dirty and creased, his blond hair in need of a trim. No doubt because he’d been living in a stolen car for the past week.
“You always did think the sun rose and set at the whim of the Kingston family.” His glittering gaze shifted to Sinclair. “Especially him!” He continued to glare. “How long did it take you to become his whore and suck his dick?” he mocked. “Not long, I’m sure.”
“You—”
“Let him vent, Sin,” Malachi dismissed. “It means nothing.” His gaze hardened. “He means nothing.”
“And how would the freak know what anything means?” her father scorned.
Remy knew exactly what her father was doing with these insults, and she wasn’t about to let herself be distracted. Besides, sucking Sinclair’s beautiful cock was no hardship at all, and he certainly didn’t need to coerce her into doing it.
But insulting Malachi was another matter entirely. “If anyone is a freak, then it’s you,” she said with disdain.
Her father snorted. “I’ll take your answer as a yes, you’re sucking Sinclair Kingston’s dick.” He glanced at the other men in the room. “Maybe all their dicks?”
“It’s okay, Remy,” Sinclair soothed as she took a step toward the bound man. “Ralph is just trying to inflict as much verbal damage as he can before we hand him over to the police so they can question him about his involvement in his sister’s death and that of his wife and the helicopter pilot.”
That might be true, but Remy cared about the Kingston family, and listening to her father deliberately insult them was unbearable. “Did you kill Mama?” she demanded.
“I did, yes,” he confirmed as if he was talking about the weather.
In contrast, Remy felt as if someone had punched her in the chest with their fist, robbing her of breath, if not speech. “Did you also know the men you paid to kidnap Aunt Cathy were going to kill her?”
He glanced at Sinclair. “She and Gina were going away together. I couldn’t allow Cathy to just take my wife from me.”
“Mama was a person, not someone you owned.” Remy’s voice broke emotionally.
Her father glared at her through narrowed lids. “She was my wife,” he spat the words. “Mine!”
Remy gave a dazed shake of her head. “I don’t think I ever knew you.” Nor did she want to.
“Your mother was so fucking protective of you,” he scoffed. “I told her you’d grow up to become someone’s whore.”
“Take your own advice, Sinclair, and don’t let him get to you.” She placed her hand against his chest when he gave a low growl. “He gets off on it,” she added with disgust.
Her father chuckled. “When did you suddenly become the wise one?”
“Well, it certainly has nothing to do with having you as my father,” she bit out scathingly. “Tell me how you did it? How you killed Mama and the helicopter pilot.” If nothing else, she was going to get a full confession out of him.
“It was far too easy.” He gave a triumphant smile. “First, I disabled my own car, so Gina would accept flying back in the helicopter to enable me to arrive back to London in time for the conference I was attending as a speaker. Ten minutes after takeoff, I stabbed your mother in the neck with the knife I’d brought with me and cut her carotid artery. She bled out within seconds. I opened the door nearest me and threw her body out. The pilot realized what I was doing and tried to stop me, but I pushed him forward and smashed his face into the control panel. Over and over again until he stopped breathing too. I then sent out a Mayday to the Coast Guard claiming I was the pilot, telling them we were going down, before cutting off the radio and getting out myself. Conveniently close to shore, of course.”
“God forbid you should be inconvenienced by having to swim too far,” Remy said bitterly. “They found the pilot’s body a few days later. Mama’s body was found just a few days ago.”
He nodded. “I expected that. Although, there’s nothing to say the pilot’s head injury didn’t happen when the helo went down. Your mother was in the water so long, I’m sure it’s going to be difficult proving definitively how she died.”
Remy felt the nausea once again roiling in her stomach. “And yet you’ve just confessed to killing Aunt Cathy, Mama, and the pilot.”
“No point in trying to lie about it now.” His smile was completely lacking in concern. “Not when neither the Kingston family nor you are going to allow me to get away with it anyway.”
“In that case, you won’t mind telling us how you managed to escape?” Sinclair prompted evenly.
He gave a dismissive shrug. “I’d taken a few lessons, and watched Malachi fly a helo for long enough to be able to keep us airborne for the small amount of time I needed to dispose of Gina’s and the pilot’s bodies. I was already floating in the water when the helo crashed into the sea. Then it was just a case of swimming to shore. I then had to walk to the cabin I’d rented a few months previously, but I managed that too without being seen. After that, it was just a matter of waiting a few weeks until the search had been called off, allowing me to go back to London. When I considered the timing right, I stole a car, and here I am.”
He sounded so proud of himself, as if he expected to be praised for how smoothly his plan had worked.
“You’re completely mad,” Remy realized.
His eyes turned cold. “I wouldn’t have needed to do any of it if your mother hadn’t refused to give me the money left to her by her aunt. I needed that fucking money. I had debts to pay, and she wouldn’t give it to me.” His hands were curled into fists.
Remy frowned. “But it was just a small inheritance of a broken-down farmhouse and a few acres of land.”
He gave a scoffing laugh. “It looked that way on paper, but when your mother’s lawyer checked into it more thoroughly, it turned out the farmhouse and land were next to a vineyard. The owner of that vineyard wanted to pull down the farmhouse and plant more vines on the land. He gave your mother half a million pounds to sell it to him.”
“I didn’t know that.” Remy wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, she was pleased that her mother had been given this unexpected means of financial independence, but on the other, she couldn’t understand why her mother hadn’t confided in her about it.
“She was keeping it a secret until she was safely away from me.” Her father unwittingly supplied the answer to that question. “She certainly had no idea I already knew about it when I persuaded her to come away to Wales with me for a week’s holiday. It was supposed to be a last attempt for us to try to save our marriage.”
Sinclair’s gaze was cold on the other man. “You knew once Remy went away to university that Cathy and Gina planned on making a life together.”
Scornful eyes turned in his direction. “How the hell can you talk about your wife leaving you so calmly? And for another woman! No fucking balls, that’s your problem.”
“Make up your mind,” Sinclair drawled. “Either your daughter is currently sucking my dick and nonexistent balls, or she isn’t.”
Her father’s top lip turned back. “I never did much like you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
“Well, at least I wasn’t willing to meekly sit back and accept my own fucking sister stealing my wife from me!”
“You drove Mama into the arms of someone who loved her, with your rages and rigid control,” Remy accused.
She’d never doubted Cathy’s affection for her mother. She just hadn’t realized the depth of it until Sinclair told her. But she had always known that her mother and Cathy were close.
She sincerely hoped that, wherever they were, the two women were together now.