Page 192 of Brutal
He doesn’t answer right away.
Instead he turns slightly, his gaze cutting toward the document still in my hand as though seeing something on it I haven’t yet.
Then he takes it from me.
Reads it again.
“What?” I ask again, sharper now.
“This isn’t about Halstead,” he says. “It’s about me.”
The words don’t make sense.
“About you?”
“He knew Halstead wasn’t the one,” Samson continues, voice flattening. “We already know that. So why didn’t he stop me when he could have? This explains why.”
I go still. “What?”
“Because if I stopped, questions would be asked. Everything would unravel. He didn’t want that.”
Cold slips through me. “So he let it happen.”
“Yes.”
“He chose you,” I say quietly.
“Yes.”
My throat tightens. “You over my father.” I swallow the lump. “And over the truth.”
He nods.
Nathaniel chose his family, his brother, their empire—which could have come crashing down if anyone got wind of the situation—over Victor Halstead, the man in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In a warped way, I understand. I open my mouth to say so when?—
I jolt at a low vibrating sound.
It’s not my phone. I’m still holding onto it, the flashlight still shining.
“Is that yours?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I left it in the bedroom.” He follows the sound to the inside of the compartment.
There, half-hidden beneath the remaining papers, something glows.
Another phone.
A burner. It’s plugged into a charger that must go straight into the electrical wiring in the wall.
My heart stops for one terrible second.
Samson reaches past me, plucks it from the back of the hidden compartment, and looks at the screen.
His eyes go dark with rage.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice trembling.
