Chapter 27
Chapter twenty-seven
E
With my cheek still stinging from my father’s hand, I start to pack. I only have a few generic things at the Hamptons house, but I double check what I brought from the city. There’s nothing of importance there, despite how much the items symbolizing status and wealth used to mean to me.
One bespoke suit in a garment bag, four pairs of expensive shoes in their own section, a handful of designer shirts and jeans, a couple cashmere sweaters, and a Piaget Polo watch my father gave me when I graduated High School.
Not because he was proud of me, he made that clear, but because it is what his business associates give their sons.
I have always been a status symbol for him, until I didn’t live up to his standards.
He wasn’t happy when I mumbled a reply and didn’t add ‘sir’ to the end. But my heart still only wants one man to be my Sir. A sharp pang of longing to rival the slap shoots through me and I rub at my chest.
Mac doesn’t want me, so I need to get over him and move on with my life.
Lifting my suitcase from the bed, I start rolling it to the hall when the lights go out, leaving me in darkness. Yells and curses come from nearby and downstairs, and footsteps reach me as my eyes start to adjust.
“Move,” my dad barks, grabbing my arm and pulling me back towards his office.
I leave my suitcase and stumble over it.
“Lazy, awkward, no good…” my dad grumbles as we make it inside.
Booker is there, so I’m not sure if he means me, his guard, or both of us.
Probably me. “Get out there and see what’s going on! Call for backup.”
Booker nods, closing the door, and my dad immediately locks it. There’s a deadbolt, and the door looks thicker than the others in the house. “This is your safe room?” I guess, but he doesn’t reply. “How will we get out?”
There’s windows, but we’re on the second story with ten-foot ceilings downstairs over a raised foundation. A jump from there would break our ankles or worse. I hate feeling trapped, and it’s even worse when I don’t know why.
Dad gets out his phone, before cursing again. “The cameras are down.”
“So we don’t know who or what caused the power outage?" I ask, and a thought occurs to me. Hope flutters in my chest right as my dad has the same realization.
“You know exactly who caused this,” he replies with anger, gripping me by the collar and dragging me close enough to feel his spit hit my face. “I thought you were nothing but a piece of ass to him. But then maybe this is revenge for the assistant.”
The hope I felt over the idea that Mac has come to rescue me dims at my father’s suggestion. Plus, I don’t want my dad’s anger directed at me. “Probably. He cares about her a lot.”
The sound of a door banging open downstairs reaches us, followed by a shout. Shoes pound up the hard-wood stairs before a scuffle is evident on the landing down the hall.
“Brought a knife to a gun fight,” Booker says, but I don’t hear a reply. “Fuck!” Booker shouts before a heavy weight hits the floor. I secretly hope it’s the asshole guard, even if that means a killer is coming for me.
A few seconds pass before the footsteps approach the door, and a shiver of fear races down my spine. There’s one killer I want to burst in here, but it could also be someone else who wants my father dead. Someone who might kill me on sight.
The door handle jiggles before the frame shakes on its reinforced hinges, but the deadbolt holds. Silence follows, and I look at my father. He’s standing, hunched over his desk, and I see fear in his eyes for the first time in my life.
Whoever has broken in, my dad is worried.
Silence follows retreating footsteps, and I wonder if they gave up. Or maybe they’re biding time until we come out. We don’t have food here, since my dad thinks minifridges are gauche, but there is an attached bathroom.
“Do you think they’re gone?” I whisper, but Dad ignores me.
Pulling out his phone, he calls someone and starts barking orders about sending reinforcements to the Hamptons house and arranging a helicopter. We have a pad on site, but I don’t see how we’ll get to it if there’s still a killer on the loose.
Dad hangs up and starts stuffing things into a briefcase. I watch as he closes it and puts in the code to lock the contents inside. It’s his own birthday. What an idiot.
Shattering glass explodes into the room and I crouch down, covering my head.
The curtains sway inward, and from my low position, I see Dad grab a gun from under his desk.
Jumping through the window, the man I’ve been dying to see is standing on the other side of the large wooden furniture my dad and I are barricaded behind.
Wearing black cargo pants and a dark, long-sleeved henley, a plain black hat and his black leather gloves, Owen MacKenzie looks every bit the murderer I know him to be. Even if he’s here to kill me, I can’t help the rush of happiness I feel to see his face.
His cold, calculating face is pinned solely on my father. “Did you think you could hide from me?”
“I don’t know how you found us, but you won’t get away with this!”
Standing up slowly, I take in a shuddery breath. “Are you here to kill us?”
Mac’s eyes finally move to me, narrowing in something like confusion. “Do you think I could kill you, pet?”
Before I can formulate a response, my dad moves to stand behind me, and I feel the hard tip of a handgun against the side of my head. Swallowing hard, I try not to move. “Dad, what are you doing?”
“If he wants you alive, then he’ll let me go,” Dad bargains. “Let me go and you can have my whore offspring.”
Mac doesn’t even twitch at my father’s words, but he does pull a bloody knife from his pocket. “Maybe I should tell your son what your crimes are, even if you’ve never really been a father to him?”
“My crimes?” Dad scoffs. “You’re the one here to kill me.”
“Oh, I’m definitely a killer,” Mac shrugs, and moves closer.
My dad pushes the barrel into my temple, making me wince, and Mac stops moving.
“I’ve killed all of your men here tonight, the two men you had guarding Di.
” I breathe a sigh of relief that Mac got to Di.
“And I killed your men who took her last time. I also killed the man you had set up to look like he was in charge.”
My father tenses behind me. “You killed Larry? But that was years ago.”
Mac raises a brow under his ball cap, and I realize he’s been after my father for a long time. That it was never about me. And that my father is responsible for Di being kidnapped both times.
“You’re a monster,” I whisper.
Mac looks at me sharply and my dad chuckles behind me. “See, he doesn’t want you. I’ll still trade him for my life. You can kill him or keep him. I don’t care, son or not. Though I’ll be sad to lose the money I would have gotten from his sale.”
“No,” I say louder. “You’ve never been a father to me, because you’re a monster.”
“You never understood. I’m a business man,” he grumbles, lifting the gun to gesture with his hands, and I take his momentary distraction to duck.
Reaching up, I grab the gun so that he can’t shoot me.
The barrel turns towards Mac and I shove upward, aiming the weapon away right as he pulls the trigger.
The shot reverberates in my head and echoes in the small space.
I watch as if in slow motion as my dad's skull explodes across the bookshelf behind his desk.
His face goes slack and he drops to the floor in a crumpled heap.
My father is dead. He can never hurt me or anyone else ever again. But most importantly, he can’t hurt Mac.
Turning to the only man I want to see right now—who I still don't know whether he will kill me or take me home—I feel my knees collapse from under me.