Page 19 of The Revenge
Because Preston decided he was staying.
Syn and Gemini like to underestimate Preston’s intelligence, but just because he has the personality of a wet tissue, doesn’t make him stupid. While Gemini was looking up phone records, I was googling the Salaway family. His mom is in a long-term care facility, and there are rumors that his younger sister was just caught up in a DUI scandal.
Hell, if Gemini could cause the stocks of the company that belonged to the father of the guy who’d screwed his sister over for a bag of coke, Preston could easily have found the same information and then had the foresight to keep Salaway here to be able to use him later for the purpose of blackmailing Salaway to hurt Tori.
“You thinkyou threecan protect me?” Tori asks, disturbing my thoughts. “You couldn’t protect me from Declan.”
“You stand zero chance without us,” Syn calmly counters.
I open my mouth to agree with Tori, but something else comes out. “If I have to take a life to save yours, I will. Even if it’s my own.”
The fact that I’ve verbalized them surprises me, but what I actually said and the fact I meant it, doesn’t.
Like a strange, possessed doll, Tori slowly turns her head to face me. She stares at me, and I feel like her gaze is going to bring me to my knees. Then she lets out a soft sigh and drops her attention to the mug in her hands.
“If you think Cole didn’t do it, then who did? Who’s blackmailing him? The XXXVII?” She looks back at Syn, frowning. “Is this about that video I found of JP?”
“What was on the video?” I ask. I was there the night she presented Syn with a phone and a threat, but even now, Syn’s never told me what the video was of.
“It wasn’t the video,” Syn tells me in a clipped tone.
“Are you sure?”
“It wasn’t the damn video,” he snaps, then he rubs his face. “It was a video of JP and some guy having sex.”
JP was gay? I’ve known Syn and JP all of my life, and at no point had I ever even suspected that. Then again, it is the twenty-first century, and if it’s still impossible for so many people to be who they really are and love who they truly love, for JP in his position? I wouldn’t have breathed a word of it either.
“It wasn’t the video.” Gemini agrees. “I mean, everyone loves butt stuff.”
I fold my arms. “No, we don’t.”
“If my brother was still alive, it might have been an issue, because they were never going to allow JP to be the first gay president—”
“JP was gay?” Gemini asks in genuine surprise.
This was news to me too, but I’d manage to put two and two together when Syn said it was a video of him and another guy. “Gem, guys don’t fuck guys unless they’re either gay, or bi like you… or basically blackmailed into it.”
“Hang on,” Tori says, her voice breaking when she doesn’t quite hit the volume she intended. “Are you saying JP was killed because he was gay? That my brother didn’t just confess to murder, but to a hate crime as well? Cole would never—”
“That tape is the only evidence I’m aware of that showed JP’s sexual preference.” Syn gets up and walks over to the fireplace, placing both hands on the mantle as he leans his weight into them. “If your brother had killed JP because he was gay, they’d have made a point of it in the charges, because my father did everything he could to make sure the death penalty was on the table, andthatmight have been the deciding factor.”
“My brother didn’t kill JP,” Tori tells him through gritted teeth.
Syn’s shoulders sag before he turns around. For the first time in as long as I can remember, he looks lost. “I know, Victoria. I know Cole didn’t kill JP. At this point, it’s the only thing I do know…” Syn looks up to me, and I see the helplessness.
“If someone had found out that JP was gay and threatened to release evidence of that, or even if they did release it, the XXXVII would have moved so fast that, at worst, the world would be convinced it was AI. And JP…” Fuck, I felt awful for theguy. “He’d have continued pretending he was straight because that is what he was required to do. It’s not like he was actually running for president when he died. He was still in college. By the time he did run, everyone would have forgotten about it, and the opposition would hardly bring it up because it would make them look bad.”
Tori chews her lip, then she takes a few sips of her drink before setting the mug down on the floor beside the chair. “You said you think Preston gave the order to Declan to kill me. Does he know about JP? He was his best friend.”
I bring my attention to Syn, finding him already looking at me. I’ve done my best to hide my feelings for Tori, but he’s still figured them out.
Maybe it was possible Preston did know about JP?
“He might think he’s protecting his friend’s memory,” Syn says, though he’s still looking at me.
“Then all I need to do is speak to Preston and tell him the truth. Even if you refused to allow me to join the Initiation, I wasnevergoing to release it. That was a bluff. I deleted the only copy of it that I had.”
Gemini lets out a derisive snort. “You’ll never get close to du Pomp-ass. You don’t have access to the types of places he goes, or the circles he moves in.” Then he cocks his head. “Unless you tried your luck at being a call girl.”
