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“It was a slip, that’s all,” he blustered. “I cared about your father. I cared about your father, and I cared about you two boys.”
My finger was shaking as it pointed at his throat, my temper nearing its limits. “You didn’t care for anyone. You don’t know what it means to fucking give a shit.”
His finger pointed right back at me. “Yeah, well at least I taught you fucking something, boy. I taught you right back how not to give a shit. Giving a shit is weakness, nothing more than a fucking weakness. Power and cold, hard cash. That’s the only strength in this world. That’s the only thing to be giving a shit about.”
And I’d have believed him. Just a few short weeks ago, I’d have believed him.
I was shaking my head as I pulled the memory card from my inside pocket.
“I’ve got plenty of versions of this in safe places,” I told him. “And there are plenty of contacts on my list ready to receive them if I don’t call it off within twenty-four hours. If you’ve any sense you’ll step down from every fucking thing and get running.”
“Get running to where?” he spat. “If you’ve any fucking sense you’ll realise we’re in this business together and always will be. That I’ve taught you well. Taught you to be the man your father should have raised you to be, if he wasn’t too much of a fucking sap to see sense.”
I shot a glance back at the beautiful Paige, and her knees were to her chest, her eyes fixed on me and filled with love amongst the fear. Because it was real. Love was really real and always had been, I’d just been too blind to fucking see it.
“Get running, Drake,” I said. “This business is fucked. Everyone should just walk fucking free and rethink their options from here on in.”
I wanted him to pay. I wanted to see the fear in his eyes that should be brewing. The pain in his eyes that he deserved.
But I was also aware that I’d been too caught up in coldness and power and self-righteousness for this lifetime already. A new leaf was calling me. A new leaf that I needed to chase after and find anew.
Drake shook his head. “Too many clients have us on a cash rich thread,” he said. “Too many clients to walk away from, no matter what crap you think you’ve got saved on a memory card. I have contacts. Enough fucking contacts to bury it, I just need the time to pull the strings.”
And so we stood. Eyes burning each other’s. The memory card gripped in my fingers like the menace it truly was, and both of us knew it.
Check fucking mate, but he was telling the truth too. He really did have a lot of strings he was capable of pulling.
“Brandon,” Paige began, clearly seeing the standoff. “Brandon, Rebecca needs us. She needs a doctor. We need to get out of here.”
I was turning to face her when the sound of a door behind Drake rattled off its hinges. I prepared myself for an onslaught, maybe security springing into action, before the bellow of my brother’s roar sounded loud in the space.
“You killed my fucking father!” he screamed, and his fists were flying.Chapter Twenty-EightPaigeIt wouldn’t be possible to be any more tense than I was in that dungeon room while the confrontation escalated. My pulse was fast in my throat, my mouth as dry as a bone listening to the saga unfold once Brandon’s brother came charging in to the action.
“You killed my fucking dad!” he screamed, and swung his fists towards the man known as Drake and not Mr Sinister. “You killed him! You fucking killed him, you piece of shit!”
As much as I hated the creep of it up my spine, I couldn’t hold back the relief. As Brandon’s brother landed his fists hard into the older man’s face, I felt the waves of weird therapy rush right over me.
I couldn’t stand the wolf in the room. He was vile. Nasty. Determined to tear me into a whole new mixture of awful while Rebecca was writhing in agony downstairs.
I couldn’t stand him and had been petrified with him looming larger than life in front of me, promising punishment until I couldn’t take any more.
No. I couldn’t stand him, but I still covered my mouth in horror as Bran’s brother continued to swing like a crazy, landing fist after fist into Drake’s mouth before Bran closed the distance and raised his hands.
It didn’t matter. The fists were still flying hard, Bran’s brother’s eyes burning like coals as he pummelled the shit out of the guy who’d seemingly cost them their father. Bran reached out to stop him, but his young brother didn’t pause, not even for a heartbeat as he thrust Drake to the floor and kicked his feet into the evil guy’s gut with every ounce of strength in him.
