Chapter Thirty-Four
Leo
After all the shouting moments ago, the room now felt deathly quiet.
I’d woken up to an empty bed again, which was bad enough, but then I heard their voices, quiet at first, the way people tended to speak early in the morning. However, their voices swiftly grew louder as their conversation had gotten heated, and when the argument had begun, I sprang out of bed to find out what on earth was going on.
I hadn’t expected such a heavy atmosphere emanating from the kitchen nor to encounter a very pissed off Mitch nearly knocking me on my butt in his haste to get out of the house. When I’d rounded on Gabe, annoyed he’d aggravated Mitch when the three of us had finally gotten to a good place, he’d handed my ass back to me on a silver platter with a huge side order of humble pie.
I kept running over the argument we’d subsequently had, his words cutting deep. Did I continually take Mitch’s side over his? I didn’t think I had, but from Gabe’s furious reaction, he certainly seemed to think so.
I analyzed his accusation further, going over what I recalled regarding any disagreements between them to see if he’d been right. Okay, there may have been instances in the beginning where I might have possibly taken Mitch’s side more by default. After spending some time with him when I first arrived, I figured underneath his prickly and serious exterior he was lost and wounded and had needed someone to confide in.
But I hadn’t thought a pattern had formed because of it. Gabe came across so self-assured and comfortable in his own skin I just assumed he didn’t require any help standing up for himself. If he wanted to say something, he just went for it. Perhaps that was part of the reason I’d been so quick to come to Mitch’s defense. Mitch was vulnerable and needed me, whereas I didn’t think Gabe did, nowhere near as much, anyway.
Until the other night when he’d finally let his guard down and told us about his ex-partners, and I got to see a side of him he’d hardly ever revealed. He needed us as much as we needed him, but by coming to Mitch’s defense, he must have reasoned I continually worked to undermine him.
I’d been so blind to his view of our situation and had completely missed how I’d treated him in the exact same way as his exes. In my rush to protect Mitch, I finally saw how I’d been acting just like them, and so yes, I had taken sides, even if I didn't realize I had at the time. He must have been so hurt and upset to see history repeating itself.
The sound of the bedroom door being wrenched open made me jump. Gabe emerged from the room dressed once more in his white silk shirt, minus the lavender tie, and his expensive designer suit. Even with the remnants of mud stains he’d failed to remove after being thrown into the snow the first day we arrived, he remained every inch the sophisticated and savvy businessman.
It took a second for his clothing to register, I was so lost in drinking him in. He’d showered and slicked his damp hair off his face, the severity of the style highlighting his sharp cheekbones and strong jaw. It didn’t take much to imagine him in a conference room overseeing high-powered meetings and closing multibillion-dollar deals. But why was he dressed… My stomach dropped when it dawned on me, but I forced the question past my lips anyway.
“Why are you in your suit?”
He flicked his head my way, disdain clear. “Mitch left his phone in the bedroom. He got a message. The bridge is open.”
I gaped at him. “So, what? You’re simply gonna leave?” My brain refused to grasp the idea he’d up and go, so easily able to abandon us.
“Damn right, I am.” He stalked to the front door and grabbed my car keys from the side where they’d sat in the tray alongside Mitch’s. “I’m taking your Jeep.”
“The hell you are.”
Not bothering to respond, he instead yanked on the door and, leaving it wide open, headed for my car. The icy air blasted into the warm house, but ice already filled my veins as I watched my dreams fall apart right in front of me.
I darted over to the cabin entrance in my bare feet and out on to the porch. “Gabe. Wait.”
He’d already reached the car and ripped off the tarpaulin Mitch had placed over the windshield to stop the glass freezing over. Unlocking the doors he climbed in. The noise when he started the engine drowned out my continued shouts, my throat hurting as I pleaded with him to stop, to wait.
Mitch came out of the stables in time to see Gabe drive off, careening down the road in his hurry to get away before he eased off the gas and straightened up halfway down the snow-clogged track.
“No,” I whispered as he disappeared around the bend. “No.”
I turned to Mitch, but he remained on the edge of the yard, his blank expression revealing nothing, before he returned to whatever he was doing, leaving me feeling more alone and more useless than ever.
I stood on the porch in only a pair of underwear and a light T-shirt, not even noticing the icy cold air on my skin. I was numb inside, anyway, so what difference did it make?
Mitch’s eventual return jolted me out of my stupor.
“Get inside. You’ll freeze to death.”
I let him usher me into the living area, absently noting he made sure to keep a couple of feet away to avoid touching me.
“Get dressed and pack your things,” he ordered, his hard voice devoid of emotion, exactly the same way he’d been when we first arrived. I tried hard to understand what had gone so horribly wrong so quickly but numbly did as I was told, got dressed, packed my stuff, and returned to the living area within ten minutes.
“I’m guessing the bridge has been repaired. I’ll drive you to your office.” Nothing else. No are you okay? Why did Gabe leave? Nothing.
I didn’t speak as, in his current state, Mitch wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say anyway. Not wanting to antagonize him further, I silently pulled on my coat and picked up my duffel in readiness to leave and tried to ignore the fear twisting my gut into painful knots.
The drive into town took forever. Mitch stopped briefly to talk to the people still working on the bridge like he didn’t have a care in the world. I glanced at the repairs while I waited. A crude and makeshift track crossed the expanse, consisting of a couple of steel girders with thick plastic slats laid on top. Mitch and the guy mentioned something about insurance, but I tuned them out, not interested in what they had to say.
We made the rest of the journey in a tense and uncomfortable silence. I had no clue where to start or what to say to begin unraveling what had gone so terribly wrong. When Mitch pulled up outside my office, my vehicle was neatly parked out front. Hope bloomed for a fleeting moment that Gabe had hung around, but a glance on the other side of the road gave me my answer. An empty space replaced where his SUV had been parked, the rectangle clear of snow, the only reminder he’d been there at all.
“Mitch,” I began but stopped when his jaw clenched. “Please.” I tried, but he sat stock still, refusing to look at me. Unbuckling, I grabbed my bag off the floor in front of me, opened the door, and got out of his truck. He pulled away almost as soon as my feet landed in the snow, leaving me standing on the sidewalk staring after him the same way I’d stared after Gabe as he’d driven away.
So lost in my head at losing both men after so recently finding them, I hadn’t registered the grating sound of my office door opening behind me until my stepfather’s hard voice cut through the air. “Get in here,” he ordered. “Now.”
Christ, this was all I damn well needed. And what the hell was he doing at my office anyway? He’d have had no idea when I’d be arriving back from Mitch’s, so how? My brain was too fried to work out the answer, and of course, Malcolm didn’t wait to see if I followed his command. Instead, he turned and went inside the building, assuming whenever he spoke, I complied.
Dejected, I trailed after him.
“Well?” he demanded as soon as I entered the office. “Did he sell? Do you have the signed papers?”
I shook my head in defeat and watched his face darken. “I knew you’d fuck it up,” he sneered. “That you wouldn’t have the balls to see the plan through. I should have known better. Should have expected you to let me down… again .” He shook his head in disgust as I listened to him drone on for the next few minutes or so.
It took a while to seep in, but I gradually worked out that, for the first time in my life, his anger didn’t cower me in the slightest, and the revelation nearly blew me away. The knowledge also allowed me to really study my stepfather as he continued to rant, my presence detached and unencumbered by my previous fears. With thinning hair combed over his shiny bald head, pinched face, and bloodshot eyes, he’d always given the impression of being so much bigger than me, drowning me out with his commanding voice and constant anger. Perhaps I’d tried to make myself look smaller. I decided to test my theory and, standing tall, forced him to look up to continue directing his wrath to my face.
It felt good.
Why had I feared him for so long? Why had I let him break me? Correction, almost break me. Watching him as he vented his ire fascinated me. The way his eyes bulged, along with the vein in his neck, the angrier he got no longer had me quaking or fearful or needing to appease him. In fact, I felt absolutely nothing at all.
It was entirely possible my lack of any emotion regarding Malcom could be attributed to Gabe and Mitch boosting my confidence during our time together. They’d frequently shown how much they respected me and valued my opinion. Plus, they actually appeared to enjoy my company, something very few people ever had. Add in their continued belief in my self-worth, and maybe I’d become immune to Malcolm’s psychological attacks without realizing.
Honestly, I think losing the two men I loved so fast and so brutally had numbed my mind and body to the point I didn’t give a crap about my stepfather anymore, or losing my shitty job as his stooge. As long as Gabe kept his promise to take care of Caitlin, I didn’t give a fuck about anything else, especially a man who’d never shown one shred of decency toward me or my sister.
His voice seeped into my awareness again when he began discussing the potential layoffs at his construction company.
“No,” I rebuked him firmly, cutting him off midtirade. He sputtered at my interruption, but I was past the point of caring. I jabbed a finger at his chest. “You are the reason the staff are being laid off, not me.”
“Did you get the deal done?” he retorted. “No, of course you didn’t.”
“It’s one deal,” I ground out, my voice dropping low. “What about all the rest?”
“I don’t know—”
“Oh, I think you do.” And his reason for being in my office suddenly fell into place. He must have found out I’d been gathering data on his backstabbing deals, and he’d tried to find the evidence. I almost laughed at his naivety. Did he actually think I’d keep the damning facts laying around in my office for him to get his filthy hands on them? How na?ve did he think I was?
Seeing his worried expression at my response gave me a small ray of hope, and I had to slip on my best poker face and bluff him out or he’d win. “What about the dodgy casino you tried to push through the council to be built? Or the other hotel investment scam you tried to pull off? Or all the money those people lost on the non-existent housing development you sold them?” I got up in his face. “Didn’t think I’d find out about your dirty deals, did you?” His face got redder and redder the more I revealed. “Here’s how it’s gonna go,” I stated calmly. “There’ll be no layoffs for any staff. If there’s a shortfall in wages, they can come out of your private offshore account.” His eyes bugged wide, and his jaw dropped. “Didn’t think I knew about that either, huh?” I moved in close, knowing how much it would gall him to have to look up to me, so I made sure to take full advantage. “You try and weasel your way out of this and I will go straight to the authorities. I have documented proof of every single one of your scams and won’t think twice about using it.” Well, I didn’t have all the information yet. I’d been bluffing about the offshore account, but now he’d given himself away, I’d find a way to get access to the details, illegally if necessary, and drag his name through the mud from the East to West Coast and back again.
“How…how?”
One advantage, probably the only advantage, of working for Malcolm as his lawyer, meant I got access to a lot of sensitive information. Every time he negotiated a deal, he inevitably screwed someone over. I talked to as many of those people as I dared without alerting Malcolm to what I was up to. It took a while, and I hit a ton of brick walls where people refused to speak to me, likely assuming because I worked for my stepfather, I was acting on his behalf. But with dogged determination and in-depth research, over time I’d built quite the dossier on Malcom Taylor.
Up until now, I’d never had the nerve to use the information I’d accumulated, too scared of him cutting off Caitlin’s care when he retaliated. Provided Gabe kept his promise, and please God, let him, his threat no longer concerned me.
“I’m a lawyer, Dad , able to sniff out the truth. To sort through the shit until I find what I’m looking for. You’ve pissed off way too many people in this town who are now only too willing to help me take you down.” I spread my hands wide. “I may be worthless to you, a big disappointment, but your lame excuse for a stepson has you by the balls, and I’ll happily rip them off in a heartbeat.”
His gaze flicked around the room as his brain tried to figure a way out. When they rested on my face once more, the smug smile tugging at his lips had me fighting down the sliver of fear crawling beneath my skin.
“Your little speech is all well and good,” he reasoned, “but you’ll never follow through on your threats, because if you do—” He spread his hands in an uncharacteristically apologetic gesture. “—I’ll regrettably be forced to stop all payments for Caitlin’s hugely expensive medical treatment.” He shrugged, as if he had no other option. “You report me to the authorities when all I’ve tried to do is provide for my dead wife’s family and give my stepdaughter the much-needed care she requires, and it’s on your head if Caitlin’s condition worsens, and well—” He shook his head. “—I wouldn’t really like to say what might happen.”
Rage, fierce and savage, blasted through my soul at how heartless, how casual he was being about my sister’s life. I had him by the throat in an instant and shoved him against the office wall, the cheap paneling rattling from the force.
“You lowlife piece of scum,” I screamed at him. “You’d let your daughter die to save your own ass.”
He struggled to breathe, but his gaze remained defiant and superior. “Stepdaughter. Never my daughter. And you’ll be the one killing her, not me,” he gasped. I tightened my fingers around his neck, abstractly watching as his face turned an unhealthy shade of purple.
I smiled darkly. “Caitlin no longer needs your help,” I stated with total calm, relishing when he frowned and a confused expression appeared on his face. “I’ve got new funding for her treatment, so she no longer needs you anymore.” I released him, his hands immediately going to his throat to rub where I’d held him.
“What are you talking about,” he whispered hoarsely. “What new funding? You’re lying, trying to force me into doing what you want. Well, it won’t work. I’m her legal guardian, and I’ll cut your sister off without a second thought if you don’t back off.”
“The court order is already in process to challenge the guardianship.” It wasn't but would be first thing tomorrow morning.
He scoffed, “That will take months, and what will happen to poor Caitlin in the meantime?”
“I may not be a hotshot Boston lawyer anymore, but I still have friends where it counts.” I kept my voice even, not wanting to betray my fear. “I’ll have a restraining order against you within the hour, ensuring you’re kept well out of her way.
“Or you can make things easy on yourself and sign everything regarding Caitlin over to me. You’ll also ensure there are no staff layoffs at your company. Unless, of course, you want the authorities involved in an investigation into your life, your business?” I shrugged. “It’s your choice.”
Malcolm’s eyes narrowed in response, and I fought to remain calm, even as my heart pounded like crazy behind my breastbone. He swallowed a couple of times but didn’t react, and I knew I had him. More to the point, so did he.
Now I’d played my hand, I worried about having to contact Gabe. He’d made his offer to fund Caitlin’s healthcare prior to this morning’s fiasco. I was counting on him to follow through, but what if he didn’t? What if he decided he wanted absolutely nothing at all to do with either me or my sister? No connections, no ties? I had to believe he wouldn’t renege on his promise, prayed he wouldn’t, as it offered me the only chance to be free of my chains, the only way Caitlin would get the help she needed because, without a shadow of a doubt, my stepfather would stop paying her bills in a second to keep me in the filth at his feet, exactly where he wanted me, and I wouldn’t allow that any longer.
Releasing Malcolm from my grip, I headed for the door. The tight noose hanging around my neck since I was a child loosened its grip.
“You have twenty-four hours, or you’ll be hearing from the authorities.” I watched him standing by the desk, clutching at the edge to keep himself upright, the utter disbelief at losing etched on his face as the reality I wasn't fucking around, and would no longer kowtow to his demands, became abundantly clear. “Oh, and if you haven’t realized already, I quit.”
Not interested in his response, I unceremoniously booted Malcolm out of the office, the satisfying sound of the door closing behind him the best thing I’d heard all day. I stood in front of the picture window and watched him stalk across the street, get in his car, and drive off. The tension eased from my body the further away he went, until he disappeared out of the square. Once he’d gone, I exited the building and locked the door. Taking a deep cleansing breath to rid my lungs of Malcolm’s stench, I headed over to my Jeep. Thankfully, Gabe had left it unlocked, so I climbed in, located the keys in the cup holder, and gunned the engine. Still too wired to head straight home, I pointed my car at the gym, needing an hour or so at the punching bag to work out my aggression and calm down before I contacted Gabe.