“You piece of?—”
“That’s enough,” Sebastian cuts in. “Let him go, Dom. We have important matters to discuss. Aaron, leave us.”
Aaron’s eyes swivel toward Sebastian, but he can’t move his head with my hand buried in his beard.“What?”
“You heard me. You don’t need to hear the next bit.”
I let Aaron go, gaze fixed on him, waiting for him to make a move, to say something I don’t like. I’ve been doing my best to pretend I’m over Songbird, but one mention and I go full berserker.
Once we’re alone, Sebastian drops into Aaron’s seat and lays his cane across his knees, tapping his fingers against the wolf’s head.
“That really was something,” he says. “You moved likethat.” He snaps his fingers. “I suppose you’re wondering why I feel so safe being alone in a room with you.”
No, in fact. I was wondering what Aaron meant by saying herunsthe hospital. Does Pike Construction have a stake in it? Is he manipulating the staff? My thoughts spiral to Izzy’s problem, to her grandma, not the problem sitting opposite me with a smirk on his face.
“Thatwasclever,” he goes on. “The documents, feeding her false information. How did you know she was going to flip?”
“That’s not your concern.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Maybe you didn’t, eh? MaybeUncle Seb’sbetrayal hurt so badly, you’ve been paranoid ever since. Maybe I broke you and your daddy.”
“If that’s the case,” I growl, “you’re one sick fuck, saying it with so much glee.”
“I’ve tried to let you go, Dominic,” he says. “I honestly, truly have. I swear to God, I have done my best to live my life abroad, away from the States, away from the last remainingstainof your family. Away from the kin of the man who took everything from me. But I just can’t do it, you see. I wasn’t always like this. Something broke me.”
“Let’s skip the part where you monologue at me,” I snap.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to suffer through this.”Tap-tap-tapon that gleaming, grinning cane’s pommel. “I want your business. You don’t deserve to live and flourish while my own…”
He trails off, clearing his throat, looking genuinely devastated for a moment. Lookinghuman.
“The world will know who your father really is if you don’t do what we command.”
Ah, right. So he knows about Jennifer, about Liam.
“I have tried to keep my brother a secret,” I snap. “But I won’t sacrifice my business for him. You’re overplaying your hand.”
“The whore? The bastard?” He laughs humorlessly, shaking his head. “This has nothing to do with them. Not yet, anyway. I suppose we’ll have to see what Liam makes of himself, if I live that long. No, Dominic, this is about you and your father and the promise I made all those years ago.”
“How fucking mysterious,” I grunt.
He scowls. “You need to learn some respect.”
“I’ve already learned everything from you I possibly can.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong,” he says, leaning forward, aiming a trembling finger at me. “You see me as a monster, as some beast who’s doing this out of sheer… what? Greed? Sadism? Perhaps I get a thrill from hurting people, and you just happen to be in the way?”
“What did I say about monologues,” I snarl, making it a statement.
“I promised my dying son that I’d make this right,” Sebastian says, his eyes welling up.
“What?” I exclaim. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Of course you don’t,” Sebastian says. “Your father, the sick, depravedfuck, wouldn’t have wanted to shatter your image of him. The truth, plain and simple? Your father drunkenly crashed into my car one night. My wife and my son were sitting on the same side. My wife died instantly. My son? He lingered. Just long enough for me to promise I’d make him pay. And I did. I bled him dry. I forced him into an early grave.Idid that for myson.”
This almost sounds like a sick joke. My mouth falls open, but no words come out.
“Bullshit,” I say finally.
