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Then again, neither of them was ever burdened with being the oldest or one compared to the ever-hated grandfather and father.
Then there was the fact this jackass was the last of our elder relatives.
Jesus. Why was I here again?
Oh yeah. Guilt and obligations of being Stuart’s only relative willing to give him the fucking time of day.
A smirk touched his lips as he sat on the other side of the partition. Would he greet me like a civilized person and jump right to insults?
I pushed the button to open up the two-way speaker.
Before I could say a word, he spoke in words tinged with an Irish accent. “You look like hammered shit. Is the supermodel not putting out for you?”
Insults it was.
“Good to see you too, Grandfather.” I lifted my wrist, looked down at my watch, noted the time, and spoke. “You have your required ten minutes per our agreement. Tell me whatever it is you need me to hear.”
“You think you’re something big with your degrees and money. Remember, I’m the one who got you there.”
I inclined my head. “Noted.”
“Everything you have is because of what I brought over from my homeland. The money, the power started with me.”
Here it started. The same song and dance. He needed to show me he was the boss, even behind bars or plexiglass.
He wasn’t too tired for this shit, but I was. He liked to paint himself as some great patriarch. I refused to let him rewrite history.
What he’d done to begin our family was tainted from the very beginning.
Manipulative bastard, my great grandfather on my grandmother’s side had called him, and I couldn’t have agreed more. But then again, it was his daughter this fucker had trapped into marriage.
“Everything you had was because you impregnated the fourteen-year-old daughter of an American land baron while he was on vacation with his family in Ireland.”
“Your grandmother knew what she was doing.”
I kept my face impassive. “Seriously, I’m not in the mood to rehash this story. You have your version. I have the truth. It’s getting old.”
“What do you know of the truth? I was there, boy.”
“As were the many others who gave very different accounts of the story.”
“I didn’t rape her.” The vehemence in his words to cover up his lie always made bile rise in the back of my throat to think I shared genetics with this man.
“Of course, you didn’t.”
No matter how many times he pretended it away, the truth was the truth. A girl only two days past her fourteenth birthday, who lived a very sheltered life, would never have consented to sex with a total stranger. Much less allow him to lock her in a hotel room without her chaperone for hours.
“She was my wife. Fucking a man’s wife is not rape.” His voice grew loud and harsh.
I blew out a bored breath. “Let’s just state the facts and move on. You were twenty-one, from a different social class and standing. Grandmother Josephine was a child, a virgin without any knowledge about anything. Neither of you would have encountered each other if you hadn’t arranged it. You forced yourself on her and compromised her for future marriage prospects. When she discovered she was pregnant, her religious father resounded himself to you as his son-in-law. You got yourself a wealthy prize. End of story.”
“You will not disrespect me. I am still the head of our family.”
“Who is in this family? Everyone has washed their hands of you. Has Claire or Sean ever visited you, much less acknowledged you, since dear old dad’s death?”
My sister and brother refused to give anyone on the Pierce side of the family the time of day. The only exception was our Grandmother Josephine. Then, once she passed away, they cut off ties completely.
Our mother and grandmother were the only people ever to show us any form of love, and this fucker and his look-alike son, David, abused and neglected the purity of the two women until they were husks of the people they were in their youth.
