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“I know who and what you are,” he wheezes. “And I don’t care what you do to me. Shoot me in the head and throw me in a ditch. I don’t care. Do you have a message for your father when I see him in hell?”
“Don’t plan your trip so soon.” I watch the traffic out the car window as if I’m a tourist enjoying the ride. “You’ll be receiving medical attention where I’m taking you.”
“I’ll refuse it. I want to die.”
“If it was up to me, old man, I’d let you die. Hell, I’d even keep you around to witness your slow and painful decline. But your daughter Paige would be devastated. So, you’ll be under a doctor’s care.”
“How do you know what she wants?” he asks. “What have you done with my daughter?”
“What haveIdone to your daughter?” I meet his gaze in the rearview mirror. “I married her.”
“Liar.” He folds his arms over his chest and winces in pain.
“I don’t lie,” I say as I turn to look him in the eyes. “That’s something thieves do.”
A shadow of a recoil passes over his face at the mention of the word, and that single shadow tells me everything I need to know.
***
Gerald coughs the entire way, and I wonder if he will die before we get to the mansion. We arrive seconds after the doctor. Dr. Amal Meyer has no loyalties to any of the Bratva. He treats us all equally for good pay, and it is understood that he is protected by one and all so he can continue to patch us all up.
Dr. Meyer looks curiously at Gerald in his hospital gown.
“He has been refusing his cancer treatment,” I reply to his unspoken question. “He is also my wife’s father.”
Dr. Meyer nods to his nurse, who grabs his bag and orders my men to take Gerald into the house carefully.
“Do you think he will last long enough to tell us what we want to know?” Dmitri asks after we enter my office.
“A man on his deathbed has no secrets,” I reply. “Paige will want to see her father after we get her back. Has Talia made contact yet?”
Dmitri shakes his head. “She’s waiting for you to go to her.”
I would rush to get Paige back if I could. I will lose control if she isn’t back safely in my arms. But to let Talia know how much I want and need Paige would be fatal for all of us. I wish I had told Paige how my feelings for her have changed, and I don’t want to regret never having the chance.
“Tell Talia that if Paige is hurt, I will consider it war.”
In less than an hour, a spare guest bedroom isolated from the others on the second floor has been transformed into a hospital room. Gerald lies in a reclining hospital bed, and the machines beep softly around him. A guard stands outside the door, and a private nurse sits beside Gerald, browsing her phone. She puts the phone away when I enter, and I motion to her to leave us alone.
She exits out the door, and I make a mental note to have it locked from the outside.
I stand over him as I did at the hospital, but now we are on my property. I could place a pillow over his face and put him out of his misery, just as he demands.
But I won’t.
Because of Paige.
“I don’t believe you.” His eyes stay shut, but he knows I’m there. “My daughter would never marry you unless you forced her. That’s what your kind do. You force women because you don’t have the balls for rejection.”
“Do you want me to tell you how I forced her, old man?”
His eyes open gradually and stab me with hate. “You are scum, like your father. I’m glad he’s dead, and I wish you were too.”
As feeble as Gerald is, he tries to fight back with words. But there’s nothing he can say to me that I cannot take. Not after growing up with my father. I move away from the bed and head for the door.
He tries again. “Do you know why your father beat your mother?”
My feet freeze before I can make it.
