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He got in my face, his eyes flashing wildly. “Look. I know you all think I’m some sort of villain, and that’s fine. I don’t mind being the monster in all your stories, but this is my home, Cait. I will not have you making my life difficult, alright?”
Difficult?
I scoffed.
I was going to make his life downright impossible.
He turned away and stomped in the opposite direction of me, and I could almost see the waves of anger emitting from him.
Good.
Maybe he’d start to feel just a fraction of what I had all these years.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Aidan
My God she was still just as infuriating as she’d been ten years ago.
I stalked away from her with my blood pounding in my ears. I’d never had Cait down as the precious victim type, but it seemed she was going to milk the fuck out of the one slightly bad thing I’d ever done.
Okay. So it wasn’tslightlybad, what I’d done to her.
I’d taken her virginity, and then kicked her to the curb like a stray cat… but it wasn’t like it was planned. It wasn’t like I set out to hurt her…
I’d considered telling her that, but I knew she wouldn’t listen. It was like I’d said. They needed a villain, and if it had to be me, then okay.
I wouldn’t be around for much longer anyway. I’d told her I was staying for a while, but it wasn’t true. I’d help Dad clean up this mess so everyone was safe again, and then I’d be on the next flight to wherever the fuck was the furthest away from this city. There were still corners of this globe I’d not explored, and that was a hell of a more interesting life than sticking around here to intimidate people and run drugs through nightclubs.
I pushed into Charm’s, one of our clubs, to find several of our men slumped over tables, utterly exhausted from the evening.
The club looked stark under the glare of the regular fluorescent lights when it was usually bathed in multicolored gobos.
My father was sitting at the bar nursing a whiskey, his head in his hands. He looked exhausted already, and the war had barely begun. It wouldn’t be long before the Italians retaliated to settle the body count and we had to be ready.
“Dad?” I called as I crossed the dancefloor to him. His head raised, but he didn’t acknowledge me, he just took a gulp of his drink and reached over the bar to grab the bottle and another glass.
I sat beside him, my eyes on him as he silently poured me a glass and pushed it across the bar top at me.
“Dad, we need to get ahead of this. They’ll be ramping up for another attack.” The lack of urgency in him was quite surprising. I’d expected to find him here rallying the troops for the next ambush.
“Who is we?” He sneered, still not looking at me.
Alright, fair point.
I swallowed back the whiskey, pouring a second glass as soon as I finished the first. The burn in my chest was good. It filled up the emptiness that was always there.
“I’m going to stay and see this through. I want this city to be safe.”
“If you stay, Aidan. That’s it. You stay for good.” He finally tilted his head to look at me, and I could see the stress lines around his eyes. “I’m done funding your drifter lifestyle. If you want to leave, fine. But you’ll not get another cent from me.”
My jaw dropped. “You can’t do that,” I floundered. My father had always been disappointed in me, but he’d never threatened to cut me off.
“I can, and I will. You wanted to go to college, you’ve done that. You wanted to travel, and you’ve done that. It’s time to get your shit together, Aidan and be the man you were born to be. The man I need you to be.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” I choked out. I couldn’t. I couldn’t stay here… not for good. I couldn’t be his heir.
“You can still leave… live your life somewhere else, but if you do, you’re dead to me and your sister. You’ll be dead to everyone. Everyone except our enemies. There will be no money. No protection. You’ll be on your own.”
