13. Stefan
STEFAN
By Friday morning I had come to accept what Bruce had tried to tell me: that wherever Tori was, she was safe—but that she didn’t want to be found.
Not by me and apparently not by anyone else, either.
Taking into account that the last time Tori’s friend Audrey had seen Tori she’d been in Gavin’s arms, and the fact that Gavin wasn’t answering or returning any of my calls, it seemed almost certain that my wife had moved in with her conniving, back-stabbing little study buddy.
It didn’t mean I accepted her leaving me, though.
I had to try to get her back. Take a final stand. I had no idea how to do that, but I’d find a way. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for Tori. She had to know that.
In the meantime, I had to take the situation day by day. The Tori I knew had integrity above all else, so I convinced myself she’d reach out when she was ready, come clean about her betrayal, give me a chance to talk to her…but until then, I was losing my mind.
Focusing at work all week had been an exercise in futility.
Most of my days had been spent pacing the halls of the KZM offices, staring blankly at the paperwork piling up on my desk, or canceling the meetings and lunches on my calendar.
My father was livid. I didn’t give a damn.
I knew I needed to do my job, knew I was moping, but it was impossible to force myself to push paper when I was caught between my missing wife and my father’s criminal empire.
Regardless of the turmoil in my personal life, I needed to get my shit together.
Get back to figuring out how to bring KZM down.
I couldn’t count on my Gavin Chase connection anymore.
It still infuriated me that he was too cowardly to pick up his phone when I called, didn’t even have the decency to text me and let me know Tori was safe.
I had thought we’d reached an understanding—a place of mutual respect and cooperation, if not friendliness.
But now he was ghosting me, when he had to know that all I wanted was to talk to Tori one last time.
Even showering was like a waking nightmare now.
Standing under the scalding water, all I could think about was the first time I’d watched my wife come, while fingering herself in a hotel shower during our honeymoon in Vienna.
Her head tilted back, her mouth open as she gasped and moaned.
Or the time I’d eaten her out right here, sucking on her sweet clit while my hand fucked her to an explosive orgasm, drops of water rolling down her full, perfect breasts.
The images were too vivid, impossible to ignore, my arousal almost physically painful.
I handled it quickly, joylessly, the memory of her body in my hands torturing me the whole time.
After getting dressed, frying an egg for breakfast, and trying to convince myself to go to work, I gave up and dialed my private car. Desperate for a distraction, I told my driver to take me to my father’s penthouse. The only other person I wanted to see right now was Max.
If there was one thing that could take my mind off of things, help me step away from the emptiness and heartache, push me to at least go through the motions of being okay, it was my son.
Just seeing Max’s face made me light up.
The kid could talk about dinosaurs like nobody’s business, and he was at just the right age to be full of questions about absolutely everything.
Maybe I could take him to a movie or the aquarium downtown.
Hell, we could even order in a pizza and sit around playing videogames if that’s what he wanted. I’d let him decide.
I hated that I had to go to my father’s place to see Max, and I wasn’t looking forward to being in such close quarters with Anja again, but I’d grit my teeth and bear it for my kid’s sake.
Arriving at the penthouse, a member of the house staff let me in.
“Good morning, Mr. Zoric,” he said.
“Is Max here?” I asked. “I was hoping to take the kid out for the day.”
He frowned. “The boy and his mother aren’t in at the moment.”
My stomach dropped. “Do you have any idea what time they’ll be back?”
“No. I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. “I can make a call if you like—”
“That’s okay,” I interrupted. “I’ll call myself. Don’t worry about it. Thanks anyway.”
I turned to leave, but heard my father calling out from his study. I should have left, just pretended I didn’t hear him, but against my better judgement I went down the hall.
“Max and Anja aren’t here,” he told me as I leaned against the doorway.
“I gathered,” I said. “Where are they?”
“Downtown,” he said, not elaborating.
He was seated in a tufted leather chair in the dark room, looking like a Bond villain in a sharp, well-cut charcoal suit with a glass of something reddish orange and thick—probably a bloody Mary, from the looks of it—in his hand.
It was just after ten in the morning. Hard not to believe he’d been lying in wait for me to come and visit Max and Anja.
“A little early for a drink,” I commented. “Not going into work today?”
“I could ask you the same,” he said with a smug grin, taking a long sip from his glass.
Annoyingly, my father didn’t become addled or distracted when he drank. Just more focused. More cruel.
“What are they doing downtown?” I prodded. “And when will they be back?”
Maybe my best bet was to just call Anja and arrange to meet them wherever they were.
He shrugged. “No idea. I sent them out with my AmEx, to get some things for the little one’s room. I told Anja to buy whatever he wants. Money is no object where Max is concerned.”
I got a chill hearing my father call Max “the little one.” It was too intimate.
Too personal. It also reminded me that he’d been aware of Max all these years and had purposely kept him from me.
That hurt far worse than the knowledge that he had essentially paid off Anja to stay in hiding the whole time.
“How long are they planning to stay with you?” I asked, growing uneasy.
After taking a leisurely slug of the bloody Mary, my father said, “As long as they want.”
Fuck. The fact that he was trying to make Max’s room here more comfortable—likely in an effort to entice the kid and Anja to stick around more permanently—was sending up a million red flags in my mind.
I hated that my son was under my father’s roof at all, even temporarily.
It was a miracle I hadn’t ended up as twisted as he was after growing up under his influence, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk letting Max go through the same hell that I had.
I couldn’t let Max get tangled in his web, or allow him to be influenced by my father.
But what could I do? I would have been happy to remodel the spare room at my condo for the kid, but I didn’t want to live with Anja. Plus, Max still had no clue I was his dad. As far as he knew, I was just a friend of his mom’s. Offering to take Max in would have to wait.
I just didn’t understand why my father was suddenly so devoted to Anja and my son.
The man could easily have put them up in a hotel nearby, so why had he arranged to keep them here at his place?
He’d known about Max for eight years and then out of nowhere he decides he needs to get involved in the boy’s life?
It made no sense. There was no reason for Anja and Max to still be here unless my father wanted something from them. Wanted to use them.
That my father was playing happy grandfather with Max was deeply suspicious.
It also made my anger boil up inside of me. I had been so angry at Anja for keeping Max a secret from me, but it was as much my father’s fault as hers. Because of his secrets and manipulations, I’d never gotten a chance to know my son until now.
“He’s a good kid,” my father mused, looking thoughtfully at his drink. “Smart, resilient, personable. No doubt he’ll be Zoric royalty someday. A nice addition to the family.”
His words were enough to put me over the edge.
“A nice addition?” I snapped. “This isn’t like adding a fucking room onto a house! He’s my son. And the reason I never had a chance to be a part of his life until now is because you took Anja away from me in the first place.”
I couldn’t stop myself from pacing the room, the rage rolling off of me. My father just watched me and laughed.
“Do you still believe that’s what happened?” he said. “It was her decision! I never coerced her. In fact, I tried to talk her out of it.”
“Bullshit,” I cut in.
“Don’t pin this on me.” He slammed his glass down.
“You think it wasn’t obvious to me that the child would do better being raised by both parents?
That’s what I told her! But Anja wanted out.
So I helped her do that, in exchange for being able to keep tabs on my grandson.
She was more than happy to take the money and run, trust me. It’s what she wanted all along.”
I didn’t believe him, didn’t know what to believe anymore, but it was hard to ignore the pain that came along with his words. After all, I seemed to be a man who women had consistently chosen to run away from.
“You almost sound like you buy into your own lies,” I told him bitterly. “I guess that happens when you never tell the truth.”
“The truth is always relative.” He got up to pour himself another drink.
“But you need to let go of the past, Stefan. It doesn’t matter what happened all those years ago!
What matters is that Anja is here now, with Max.
” He smiled, lifting his glass in a toast. “Can’t we just take a moment and agree this is tremendous? ”
“My son is seven years old,” I said, grinding out the words. “And the first time I saw his face, or even knew of his existence, was six days ago.”
“I told Anja not to buy any new furniture,” my father said breezily, putting the cap back on the bottle of vodka and heading back to his chair. “Since I’m sure you’re going to set up something at your house for both of them soon enough.”
That stopped me in my tracks.
“Both of them? I’m not bringing Anja into our home.” I still thought of the condo as Tori’s, too, even though she’d been gone for days now.
“You will,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time, now that you have a son to raise.”
I felt my fury rise even higher. There was no way I’d be inviting Anja to live in the home I shared with my wife, even if my wife had left me for someone else.
“Anja and I are not getting back together,” I told my father, my words firm. “Regardless of what you—or she—might be thinking otherwise.”
He just shrugged. “You’ll come around,” he said. “As soon as you’re over that bitch wife of yours.”
I was standing over him before I even realized I’d crossed the room. “Don’t ever talk about her that way again,” I said, my voice steely, my rage barely contained.
My father gave me a look that was both patronizing and pitying.
“How can you stand there and defend her?” he asked, putting his feet up. “She left you. Walked right out the door without a second thought. The sooner you move on, the better.”
It was all too familiar. The ache in my chest, the sour feeling in my gut, my father’s nonchalance, the fury I was battling in his presence.
This was exactly like the last time he had chased a woman away from me, and all at once I felt like I was seventeen again.
Helpless and trapped. Even though I knew that Tori had left me for Gavin, and had probably been thinking about it for a while, I couldn’t help blaming my father.
If he hadn’t brought Anja back, Tori wouldn’t have needed to seek comfort in Gavin’s arms. She’d have had no reason to doubt my commitment to her and to our marriage. My wife would still be with me.
As I stormed out of the penthouse and took the long elevator ride back down to the lobby, I seethed over the way this whole thing had been playing out.
Every step of the way, my father had been pulling all the strings.
Holding all the cards. Regardless of his deflection and his lies, it was obvious that he’d planned his every move. After all, it was the Zoric way.
But two could play this game.
It was time to do something about my father, once and for all.