Page 108 of Callous Shot

Dad:

The Hoytons will pay for their crimes tonight, and the Bellingham name will be avenged. You played your part, and for that, I thank you.

It was the first time he had ever praised me.

Pulling to a stop outside the mansion, I stared out of the windscreen, unseeing, clenching and unclenching my fists around the steering wheel.

Eventually, I turned off the engine, unclipped my seat belt, and went to face my father.

Everything inside was so quiet. I ascended the stairs, taking a right towards my father’s office. Lifting my hand, I knocked.

“Enter,” came the muffled voice, and I swallowed hard, turning the handle.

My father came into view, standing behind his desk, staring out of the window at the gardens.

“Close the door behind you,” he demanded. When the door had shut with a soft click, he sighed. “So you can obey some orders.”

“What do you mean?”

“It took you long enough to ensure Michael would investigate the Hoytons.”

“But I did it.”

“Hmm.” He turned around then, and I was taken aback at the malice in his eyes. “Finally, all my plans are falling into place. As of tonight, the Hoytons and the Culverhouse Network will cease to be a problem, and we can return to our lives without the threat hanging over us.”

“The Culverhouse Network? That group you represented in court years ago? What about them?”

“They required my services more recently,” he said. I knew this, thanks to the papers I’d taken from this very office, but what I couldn’t work out was why he’d risk working with a known criminal group.

“Services?”

“Hmm, yes. Frank Culverhouse made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. A chance to rid the Hoytons of their assets—all their properties, bar their house. Those assets will go to Mr. Culverhouse, as far as he is aware, and I…well. I’ll be a very rich man when all is said and done.”

“How is that possible? Aren’t their properties legitimately owned?”

“Lincoln, it’s time for you to learn an important life lesson. You can do everything by the book, but if you want to get ahead in life, in law…sometimes you have to get your hands dirty.” He chuckled. “Preferably using someone else to take the fall. In this case, it will be Mr. Culverhouse.”

My brows pulled together. “How?”

“Simple. I laid a trail. Frank Culverhouse thinks he is getting the Hoytons’ assets. In fact, the only thing he will be getting is a prison sentence. You see, I knew that once Michael began investigating the Hoytons, he would eventually notice the link to the Culverhouse Network. Frank couldn’t resist antagonising the Hoytons, and as we speak, Michael and his team are in Wiltshire, raiding the Culverhouse stronghold—or the Cartwright stronghold, if you prefer.”

“So you double-crossed Frank Culverhouse? Why?”

“Why?” His fist slammed down on the table, his expression turning thunderous. “Why? Because that bastard thought he could blackmail me, that’s why!”

“What?” I stared at my father, open-mouthed.

“Lincoln. You know that reputation is everything in our world. Without our reputation, we wouldn’t have the connections. We wouldn’t have the money. We wouldn’t have the power.”

I tried to make sense of his words, to hear what he wasn’t saying out loud. “So…he had something on you that would ruin your reputation?”

“Not only mine. Your mother’s. Yours. Everything we have worked for all our lives…gone.” His shoulders slumped, the fire leaving him. “Frank Culverhouse has enough dirt on us to bury us six feet under.”

“Dirt?”

“Yes. He…well, he faked his own death, a long time ago. Disappeared for years. Long enough that I became complacent, to my own detriment. He gathered reams of evidence. Deals I’d made without going through the proper channels. Cases where clients had been quietly paid off. Photographic and video evidence of your mother’s indiscretions⁠—”

“My mother’s what?”