AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Like a sugar daddy.
Oh fucking God…
“I find myself enamored with you too, Sloane, and it only deepened when I met you. Before I did, you were just a file of information. Facts, but that changed.” He squeezed my arms. “You showed me who you are, your fight. The adversity and challenges you continue to rise above showed me your strength, and I’d like to take care of you if you’d let me.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I couldn’t say fucking anything, completely disgusted by all this and whatever crazy shit he had to have in his head about me and us.
“You’re strong, and I find I need that in my life.” He scanned my face. “And what’s good for you is you’ll get a say in what happens to your family’s assets. In fact, I’d give you complete control of it. Once you graduate and we go away together, we can make that happen.”
He was sick, truly. My jaw moved. “And so the fact that I have a relationship with your grandson means nothing?” My voice quivered. “The fact that I love him and he loves me means nothing?” We did love each other. I loved him so much. I lifted my chin. “You’d do that to him?”
“Love is fleeting, Sloane.” His hands left me, and I nearly fell to the floor I was shaking so bad. “Like I said. You’re young. You both are, and you’ll get over it.”
I trembled.
“And everything I do is with my grandson in mind. He’ll get everything after I’m gone. Control over Mallick included.” He smirked at me. “But I suppose, by then, he won’t even want you.”
The metaphorical dagger shot through my chest, the pain of even the thought of that causing me to sag forward.
“You’re fucked in the head,” I stated, my throat clenching. “You can’t possibly think I’d actually—”
“The alternative is, well…” He paused, his head tilting as if almost considering. “The alternative is you lose everything you love. Needless to say, I’ll make sure your grandfather’s legacy turns to ash and all the people in your new life will suffer for it. People like your mom, your dad, and your twin. As far as Bruno, he does do anything I say. I’ll make sure he lives a life far away from you, and I can do that since I’m technically still his guardian. I’d not test me here, Sloane. This plan was over twenty years in the making and long before you. You can make things harder for the people in your life, or not, but the decision is ultimately up to you. I’ll leave that for you to decide.”
He walked off, as if I were nothing, and this was nothing. Like he wasn’t trying to take any more than he already had from me.
“You did get Dorian arrested, didn’t you?” I asked, wondering why. I blinked down more tears. “You did that and threatened his mother?”
The answer seemed clear, and it was so crazy how what had started as a need for clarity had turned into this, as well as how I’d ever, ever doubted the man I loved.
Maybe I’m the monster.
“I didn’t get him arrested, Miss Sloane. You did,” Callum stated, shocking me. He picked up his cigar. “The tracking devices in the phones I gave you and Bru helped with that, and as far as threatening my grandson’s mother, I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure I’m a part of his life.” His words were serrated, deadly. I saw a peek at the monster again, and he let me see that. He pointed his cigar at me. “I’d think real carefully about your next moves, Sloane. Because you see, whatever you do next will affect everything in your life as you know it.”
I knew it would because lately, that was all I seemed to do. Everything I did affected everyone. It hurt everyone, and I was so sick and tired of it. I wouldn’t let anyone else get hurt.
I wouldn’t let anyone else pay for my grandfather’s sins.
Chapter Forty-Three
Dorian
Sloane had texted she couldn’t meet up last night, but I didn’t know why until she failed to show at school the next day. Ares said she’d stayed home that morning, sick, he said, so instead of going to classes myself, I skipped. If Sloane was sick, I wanted to see her.
I wanted to see her anyway.
I didn’t know why she’d wanted to meet last night, but if she was close at all to wanting to work this shit out, I was game. I was suffering here.
Badly.
Rolling over to her house, I didn’t plan to bring any of that up, though. I just wanted to see her. Like stated, make sure she was okay and most definitely if she wasn’t feeling well. I got to the Mallicks about twenty minutes after I left the Windsor Prep parking lot and noticed a few things right away. The first was that both Ramses’s and Brielle’s cars were parked out front. Like they’d left and forgotten something. The second was that my dad’s car was out front too.
Weird.
I didn’t know what that meant, but I definitely wasn’t supposed to be cutting classes and just showing up over here. I decided to park down the street, then make my way over to the property. I knew ways of getting in without being noticed, and I used them, sliding through the side gate to get inside. My next move was to use the tree outside of Ares’s bedroom to sneak into the house, but that route seemed to already be in use.
A little fighter shimmied down it.
I literally watched Sloane’s jean-clad ass make its way down the tree toward me, stepping back when she broke tree branches on the way down. That climbing shit was fucking dangerous with it being icy and snowy outside. I started to go up after her but decided to hold my hands out since she was almost here. She came off that final branch in jump/fall, but gratefully for her, I was there to catch her. She slid right into my arms, and her immediate instinct was to sock me in my jaw.
