The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 819

The aunt held her wrist against her chest and stared at Preston as if she had never seen him before.

"Preston, why did you hit me?" Her voice shook. "You told us yourself, at breakfast. You picked up the phone, and by morning the harbour was clean. Did I say something wrong?"

"Shut up!" Preston's voice cracked down the middle. "Will you just shut up!"

"A witness," said Curtis Bennett.

He took his hand off the coffin for the first time since they had come in. He walked down the line slowly, and stopped so close to Preston that Preston had nowhere to look but at him.

"Your own family," Curtis said gently. "Under my brother's roof. I'd call that a witness. Wouldn't you?"

Preston's knees went. He grabbed at the arm of the man beside him, and the man shook him off.

"No! Listen to me! Please, listen!" It all came out of him at once. "I never called anyone! I don't have friends in the capital! I don't have friends anywhere! I was at home that night, drunk in my own bed! I woke up and the harbour was finished, and everybody was looking at me!"

The hall went very still. Only the candle flames moved, low along the black lid of the coffin.

"Gran called the Gazette," Preston gasped. "Not me! They put me on the television! What was I supposed to say? No, thank you?" He spread his shaking hands at the guns along the walls. "Look at me! If I had friends like that, would I be standing here?"

Nobody in the line breathed.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive.

The Baroness's cane, which had not moved all night, slid an inch on the stone.

"You stood on the steps," she said, in the flat voice she kept for a bad account. "In a dark suit. And you told the whole coast that a Tiffany doesn't forget."

"You told the coast!" Preston laughed, high and horrible. "I only smiled! You all wanted a hero so badly. I just stood where you put me." He swung round. "Ask Patricia! She knew! She knew before the banquet!"

Every face turned to Patricia.

Patricia smoothed the silk over her hip. "Don't look at me, I don’t know anything," she said sweetly. "I only told him to smile."

"You looked me dead in the eye and gave your word," the aunt hissed, stepping into his personal space until he had nowhere to turn. "You swore that if we bankrolled you and your partner, the harbor docks would belong to our family. Five hundred thousand dollars, Preston. Half a million wired directly to your name!"

Preston’s spine hit the wall. Cornered, his cowardice turned into feral panic.

"That’s on you, you old hag!" he shrieked, clawing at the wall behind him. "You practically threw the cash at me, so why wouldn't I take it? I dumped it into online poker tables, alright? It’s wiped out! Every single cent is gone!"

She flew at his face. Before anyone could catch her, her nails raked down his cheek and left three red lines.

Then the whole line broke.

"Liar!"

"We sent our money to you!"

"We gave you a banquet!"

The guns came up, and the Brotherhood's men shoved them back into a row like cattle at a gate. Preston touched his cheek and stared at the blood on his fingers.

Serena did not move. She was not looking at Preston at all.

She was hearing a voice from the breakfast table. While the house praised Preston and his friends from the capital, the idiot had looked up from his plate and said, "The man on the television said it was a shadow."

Somebody had laughed. Nobody had listened. Nobody ever listened to him.

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