Chapter 4
It was only a matter of time, but I’m surprised it took this long for him to muster up the balls to drive up here.
Maybe it shouldn’t.
The man is a spineless piece of shit, allowing his daughter to sacrifice herself for him to a man with a reputation like me. It doesn’t matter that Callista claims he forbade her from coming. He should have removed her from the equation, assured she couldn’t run off and do exactly what he told her not to by giving herself to The Beast.
Instead, he left the country.
Left her exposed and to her own devices.
Permitted her to come to Barker Mountain unimpeded.
The fact that Harold Fox took three days to finally come after Callista really ought not to rattle me. But it does. Because the longer that woman is here, occupying the same space as me, living and breathing in my home, the more I realize what a fool he was for exposing her to any of this.
She’s far too intelligent, observant, inquisitive, and feisty to be stuck here with a man like me—almost twice her age and not even half her virtue.
A woman like Callista deserves a better father, a better future, and a better life than one stuck in this place of death and destruction.
The car ascends the mountain, picked up on each camera as it climbs closer and closer to the house. My body tenses more and more as the minutes tick by, waiting for his arrival.
I could go down, intervene, stop him from making it all the way up and cut off the inevitable confrontation that will ensue before it happens and Callista has to get dragged into it. But I almost want her to see it, need her to know who he is and that coming here was done for a man who doesn’t merit that kind of love and loyalty.
There was once a time when I was like her, blind to the real nature of people who were supposed to love and protect me, when I followed orders without asking questions any normal person might have. I wish someone had shed light on the hypocrisy and sinister intentions of others then so I wouldn’t have been caught up in the fallout.
Callista will see the truth before it’s too late.
I’ll make sure of it.
I grab my axe and make my way toward the front of the house, pausing at the base of the stairs to listen for signs of where Callista might be, but she’s likely still in her room.
Though she seemed better this morning on her way to breakfast, when I snuck a peek at her descending the stairs from my perch on the third-floor landing, she still seems to be in some pain, opting to spend her time in bed with the books she requested rather than risk injuring herself further by wandering the house as I permitted.
But once she realizes what’s going on outside and sees who’s here, that’s going to change.
She’ll make an appearance soon enough, and it will cause my heart to jackrabbit just like it has every time my eyes have landed on her.
There’s just something about that woman…
It goes far beyond her physical beauty, but no matter how many hours I’ve spent obsessing over the question of what it is about Callista Fox that gets under my skin, I have yet to find a firm answer.
Maybe it’s that even though she’s clearly afraid of me, she has no problem standing her ground and making demands.
Fucking unheard of.
You don’t make demands of the Barkers; the Barkers make demands of you.
Yet, the blond librarian from Helena seems not to give a shit. She stands her ground mentally, only retreating when I use my strength and size to my advantage in the physical arena. And for some reason, that’s as intoxicating as it is dangerous for both of us.
Because this will end; I’ll find a way to end it.
When it does and I can go back to having this space be quiet and peaceful, save for the ghosts of my past, I don’t want to think about Callista Fox ever again.
I tug open the front door and walk out onto the porch, then lean against one of the railing beams to wait for the car. The afternoon sun peeks through incoming clouds that threaten to drop chilly rain, and another twenty minutes pass before I hear the telltale crunch of gravel under tires.
Here we go.
Harold Fox has arrived.
To beg and plead for his daughter…
Or for himself?
It’s too late in my book for him to redeem himself. Beyond fucking with Rosewood, that he’s allowed this to happen to his own daughter is enough to seal his fate where I’m concerned.
His car pulls to a stop in the U-shaped drive near his daughter’s, and he shuts off the engine, staring at me with wide eyes from the driver’s seat. Even from here, I can see his Adam’s apple bob as he gulps before he swings open the door and climbs out.
He adjusts his suit, smoothing the jacket and re-buttoning it before running a hand through his salt and pepper hair with a trembling hand. At least a decade older than me, the man can’t blame youth or naivety on his actions. Anything that comes out of his mouth will be nothing more than bullshit tumbling from the mouth of a panicked, desperate man already neck-deep in quicksand.
“Mr. Barker…”
I scowl at him, keeping my casual lean though annoyance and anger pulsate through me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I’ve never had a conversation with this man before.
Never met him.
Never seen him as far as I can remember, save for perhaps passing him on the street decades ago while in town.
Yet here he is, ready to prostrate himself and lick my metaphorical boots.
There was a time I would have relished this power, the terrified look in his eyes that match his daughter’s, but knowing the pain this conversation will bring to Callista makes it impossible for me to enjoy it.
He gives me a little half bow, awkward as fuck from a man who considers himself powerful enough to have involved himself with Rosewood. “I um…”
“You um, what?”
His eyes dart up to the house, but I sure as hell am not about to bring up his daughter.
I simply raise a brow, waiting as I use the axe blade to clean my fingernails absently.
Disinterest always makes people nervous, causes them to sweat. They don’t know what to do when the other party in a conversation appears not to give a shit about them. I’ve used it to my advantage many times, and today, I do it again to buy the time I need to ensure our guest of honor can make it down the stairs on her injured foot.
Harold clears his throat. “I came to ask…”
I hear the footsteps behind me before he even finishes the question, and Callista comes flying out the door behind me, limping badly in her effort to rush.
“Dad!”
She hits the first step, attempting to put her full weight on her stitched sole, and stumbles on her way down.
I reach out quickly and grasp her upper arm, holding her steady. Her eyes immediately dart to mine, a thank you written in her gaze as she tries to tug herself out of my hold without a word.
Harold’s eyes widen, and he rushes forward toward her. “Callista, are you okay?”
His gaze darts down to her bare feet and the bandage wrapped around her wound. I tighten my grip on her arm, helping to keep her upright while she tries to balance on her one good foot.
She sucks in a little breath like she’s fighting back a bite of pain and looks to her father. “I’m all right. I just cut my foot a little.”
Harold casts a furious look my way. “You hurt my daughter?”
I release her arm so she can embrace her father, snarling at the incredibly daft man. “Fuck you, Fox. You sent her here as a goddamn sacrificial lamb after your fuck-up. So, don’t go accusing me of hurting her when you’re using her like a piece of meat.”
Harold pulls away from her hug, keeping his arm wrapped around her shoulder to help support her. “I didn’t send her up here. I told her not to come.”
I glance at my watch, the old tourbillon that’s been in the family for hundreds of years and still keeps precise time. “Yet it took you three days to show up. You must not have been that concerned.”
He scowls at me. “Callista is quite crafty when she wants to be. She waited until I left the country on business to come because she knew I would have chased right after her if she attempted it while I could intervene. As soon as I landed and found out what she had done, I came after her.”
It’s the same bullshit placation Callista offered on her father’s behalf, an insistence that he isn’t to blame for the situation when this all comes down to him.
“Yet you left town, knowing that note had been stuck to your door.”
Harold’s worried gaze darts to the axe still in my hand, and he gulps again, tightening his grip on Callista, who shivers.
“Daddy, really, I’m all right…”
Her effort to defuse the situation tugs at something in my chest. It’s almost like she’s attempting to defend me to him.
Why the hell would she do that?
Callista presses a hand to her father’s chest, then glances between us. “Mr. Barker has been”—she swallows thickly, her gaze locked on mine—“very hospitable.”
I bite back the laugh at her description of our last few days together, vacillating between being glad she describes it so unemotionally and annoyed that’s the best word she can come up with for the time that’s felt like torture for me.
Harold examines her for a moment, trying to gauge her veracity, then turns his attention to me again. “What do I need to do to resolve this issue, to make things right?”
He can’t possibly think it’s that easy.
“We’re long past that.”
He moves away from Callista, leaving her standing precariously. “Then take me, kill me. I don’t care, as long as Callista can go home.”
“No!” Instead of launching herself at her father again, the blond spitfire flies toward me and presses her hands against my chest.
Instead of pushing her away like I should, instinctually, I wrap my free arm around her to keep her from falling forward farther on her unsteady feet.
She settles into my hold, pleading at me with eyes that match the trees around us. “Please, no.” Her hair flies around her as she shakes her head. “You can’t hurt him. You can’t—”
Tightening my grip on her, I lean closer. “I can do whatever the fuck I want, Callista. And I think it’s time you start acknowledging that. It’ll make your life a lot easier.”
Harold takes a step forward but immediately retreats when I snap my gaze to him. “Callista, don’t do this. Don’t give up your life, everything you’ve worked for your whole career because of my fuck-up.”
He almost sounds like a good father for a moment.
Almost.
Yet, he was willing to risk her and anyone else he cares about by messing with Rosewood in the first place. This isn’t an innocent man wrongfully accused. It’s a guilty man fighting the consequences of his own actions.
Callista peers over her shoulder at him, tears in her eyes. “After everything you’ve done for me, it’s the least I can do for you. I’ll be all right.”
She glances up at me, a question in her gaze, one that makes my heart thunder under my ribcage, something she can surely feel with her hand pressed against my bare chest. “I’m going to stay here with Mr. Barker. We’ll come to an”—she swallows thickly again—“agreement, an arrangement that will suit both of us, if it will keep you safe.”
There’s a question in her statement, a good one to ask.
“You staying here doesn’t get your father off the hook for what he’s done. He knows what he needs to do. And if he doesn’t take care of it, there’s nothing you can do to protect him.”
Despite my best attempt to appear unaffected by The Beast’s words, I shudder against him at the threat. My fingers curl into his muscles and heated skin as I seek some sort of confirmation of something that will help me accept what I’m about to agree to.
The Beast doesn’t respond to my silent plea.
His intense, rigid gaze stays locked on me, waiting for me to acknowledge what he just said. Any hints of softness or cracks in his armor I thought I’ve seen over the last few days are invisible now.
I won’t get anything out of The Beast today.
No appeasements.
No gifts.
Nothing to make this easier on me.
Just a man I know can follow through on anything he promises.
I finally give him a sharp nod, conceding defeat in a way that makes my gut tighten. “Understood.”
The Beast takes a deep breath, his chest rising and falling under my hands, his arm still tight around me, holding me aligned along his hard body. He tears his eyes away from mine and looks to Dad. “Now, get the fuck off my property and don’t come back. The next time, I shoot.” He holds up the axe. “Or I use this.”
I wince at the threat, squeezing my eyes closed so I won’t have to see the fear in Dad’s eyes or how he’s reacting to The Beast holding me so closely.
My first night here is nothing more than fragments of memories. Brief flashes. Feelings more than anything. Fear. Self-preservation. Then something else I haven’t been able to place.
This.
The Beast took me into his arms that night. He cared for me. He ensured I was mended and somewhere secure. Regardless of my purpose here or his anger over my arrival, the man known for ending lives protected mine. Just as he is now, ensuring I won’t fall on the uneven rocks under my bare feet.
It’s safe.
That’s what this feeling is—and I certainly shouldn’t have it with this man.
Footsteps shuffle across gravel, and I open my eyes and peek over my shoulder toward the car parked near mine, which has sat unmoved for days.
Dad opens his door, offering me a worried, hard smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I love you, Cal.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
His jaw hardens, and I can see the defiance bubbling up in his gaze. “I’ll be back for you.”
The Beast offers a warning growl, and I watch Dad’s car pull away and disappear into the trees. My body quakes as I fight tears that I won’t let fall in front of this man.
He grips my chin, forcing me to look up at him. “Don’t misconstrue anything that’s happened in the last few days for a weakness you can exploit.”
I never saw any of it that way.
At first, it was confusing. Unusual and unexpected from a man with such a violent and bloody reputation. But this morning, when I woke to find the pretty sundresses hanging in the closet that hadn’t been there before, I began to recognize it for what it is.
Kindness.
There is something human underneath all this anger and volatility. Someone other than The Beast.
He may not want to see it, but I do.
Of all the things I worried about happening when I came up Barker Mountain, actually, maybe, possibly actually finding things to like about The Beast was not one of them.
Now, we’re at an impasse.
He wants something from me, or I wouldn’t be here, but he has yet to reveal his purpose. All I know is that the way he’s looking at me now, the feel of his arm around my back and his body pressed to mine, all seem to be suggesting one direction.
I swallow my nerves, repeating the question I asked when Dad was still here, hoping The Beast will answer me truthfully now that we’re alone. “We will come to some arrangement, won’t we?”
He knows what I’m asking.
He’d have to be an idiot not to.
And the implication makes a low growl rumble through his chest and hurt flash for a split-second across his gaze. He unlocks his arm from around me and uses his free hand to tug mine off his chest so he can step back.
His intention is clear.
The Beast won’t touch me.
Not now, not ever.
I shouldn’t have said it.
Somehow, I knew it the moment the words left my mouth, but seeing his disgust, the way he physically distanced himself from me immediately at the simple suggestion proves the point I’ve been trying to wrap my head around since I arrived.
Something very strange is going on here.
The Beast clearly doesn’t want me on his mountain, in his house, or in his life, but that note was pretty damn clear. He had his opportunity to send me home with Dad and didn’t take it.
Why keep me here if he doesn’t want something from me?
It doesn’t seem as simple as just threatening me and holding me captive as leverage against Dad—not when he’s lavishing me with food and gifts and trying to make sure I’m comfortable here.
He retreats another step, putting more and more distance between us, but I move with him, still hobbling unsteadily, the uneven rocks biting into my soles because I was in such a rush to see Dad that I didn’t even grab my shoes.
“Tell me what just happened with my father. What did he do? What does he need to do to fix it so that I can go home? Since you clearly don’t want me here.”
He scowls at me, the move somehow making him even more uncertain and perhaps approachable rather than the stern, get-the-fuck-away-from-me look I’m sure he’s going for.
Has this man ever smiled in his life?
It doesn’t seem like it.
The Beast seems to only have one mood—angry.
And with no one else on the mountain, he has nowhere to direct that but at me.
His hands bunch and flex at his sides. “I told you when you got here, don’t ask about my business.”
“I’m not asking you about your business. I’m asking you about my father’s.”
Gray eyes widen slightly, almost like he’s surprised by and appreciates my response. “Do you know what your father does?”
“Of course, I do. He’s my father.”
He raises a brow, waiting for me to elaborate.
I release an annoyed huff. “He’s an importer—all sorts of different things. He’s had his shop in Helena since before I was even born.”
“And you believe everything your father does is on the up and up?”
My lips part to say, “Of course,” but certain memories trickle in.
Hushed conversations with people when I was a child and he had me with him. Phone calls he left the room to take. Doors closed in my face. Meetings he said I couldn’t come in for. His constant need for privacy.
What could he possibly have been doing?
I don’t have an answer for that, but my need to defend the only parent I’ve had since I was five—the man who tucked me in at night, fed and clothed me, and ensured I had everything he never did growing up—flares through me in a heated rush. “My father’s a good man.”
He raises that silver brow again. “You know my position on that argument. I think it’s time you took a long, hard look at the man you put up on that fucking pedestal. He might not be who you think he is, and he might not deserve the way you’re defending him.”
The Beast turns to walk away from me, but before he can, I somehow close the distance and grab his forearm.
Hard, thickly roped muscles tense under my palm, his warm, smooth skin gliding against it, and a spark of electricity shoots through me. A snarl ripples from his lips at the contact, and he freezes, his gaze dipping to where my hand rests on him.
“Do you think you’re any better than him? That what you and your family do is somehow righteous?” I shake my head, trying to choose my words carefully so I don’t set off The Beast while still making my point. “I don’t know what my father did in the past, and I don’t care. I know who he is at his heart. It’s you I question.”
He’s an enigma wrapped in a riddle hidden in a puzzle. All designed to drive me mad while forced into this house with him.
His gaze darkens.
Rightfully so.
The words are meant as a threat, a warning that I’ve seen the cracks in his well-constructed fa?ade and intend to utilize them to my advantage.
But something else lies in his eyes besides his trepidation, maybe the tiniest hint of compassion, like he feels bad for me and for the situation I’m in, even though he’s the one putting me in it.
“I’m sure you’re well aware of my reputation, Ms. Fox. It was earned for a reason. I don’t suggest you test me to see if it’s true.”
Taking a chance, hoping I’m right, I step closer to him, ensuring my gaze stays locked with his. “You’re not going to hurt me.”
He’s had ample opportunity already.
Hell, he could’ve done anything to me that first night when I was unconscious, and I wouldn’t have known. But he didn’t. I know that not just because he told me, but because I feel it deep in my gut that he wouldn’t, that despite all the evidence that suggests otherwise, he’s not the type of man who’s going to hurt a woman who’s already in pain and needs help. He’s not the type of man who would hurt a woman at all.
His threat to my father might be very real, but any one he makes to me screams hollow.
His nostrils flare. He doesn’t like me calling him out on his bluff. “Watch yourself, Beauty, or you are going to know why they call me The Beast.”
There it is—that nickname.
“Why do you call me that?”
His gaze dips down to my mouth for a mere flash, almost too fast to notice, but my body heats in that millisecond before his gaze meets mine again. “Do you know what your name means, Callista?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“It’s Greek for ‘most beautiful.’ Your parents named you well.”
With that, he jerks out of my hold easily and storms off around the corner of the house, disappearing before I even have a chance to process his words.
He knows Greek?
The Beast is not at all what I expected when I came up here, based upon the warnings I’ve received, not at all who or what I thought he would be, and the longer I’m here, the deeper the mystery becomes.
I stare up at the house, towering three stories above me.
Maybe there are answers in there because I sure as hell am not finding them out here, and I’m not getting anywhere trying to talk to him.
More like talk at him.
I pause and listen for his retreating footsteps, but the only sounds that reach me are the breeze blowing through the trees and the occasional chirp of birds.
He vanished into the forest like a wraith, a ghost.
No one was ever supposed to unravel the mystery of The Beast, but I don’t have anything else to do here, so I might as well try to figure out what the fuck is going on with Weston Barker.
It might be the only way I survive this, the only way I survive him and the tense push and pull that only seems to grow between us.