Chapter 100
Hunter
I look down at my phone, at the surveillance feeds from the cameras I have throughout the house.
Even in my bedroom.
I know what some might say.
I don’t give a bloody fuck.
I watch as she sleeps.
When I left the house, it felt as if my own body fought me every step of the way. Since she was injured, this is the first time I’ve left her side, and fuck, I have no desire to ever do so again.
Toxic?
No shits to give.
I need eyes on her at all times. To know she’s safe. So while we were at the hospital, I had Harry install a camera in the master bedroom too.
She took a shower, ate, took her medication, and now she’s asleep.
So peaceful that every part of me aches to be there with her.
But now that she’s safe in my house, it’s finally time to pay him a visit.
It wasn’t fucking easy to discover my father murdered my mother and, somewhere between the trauma and the blows, my mind buried the truth so deep I forgot it ever happened.
And all the while, I played happy family with the bastard.
That does something to a person.
But I didn’t dwell on it, and I’m not going to.
Right now, my focus is elsewhere.
I need to make sure my woman is okay, and I need to make sure he pays.
For what he did to my mother, and for what he did to my woman.
I was blind to it for years.
He’s apparently a devil in disguise. Much like me, perhaps.
The difference is that I would never fucking hurt a woman.
Especially not one I claim to love.
Fuck that.
He always made himself look like the good guy.
Then again, so do I.
I put on a front. Beneath it lurks a man who craves blood.
But the fucking difference is that I make bad people pay, I don’t go after innocents.
Very few people know that side of me.
The Ferrum Syndicate men do. Though even they don’t know the full extent of it.
Only she does.
And she still stayed.
For now.
Because I know I don’t really have her.
Not yet.
But I will.
By force if necessary.
She wasn’t leaving before, and she’s certainly not leaving now.
She’s just not leaving.
I never spoke about my mother because, somewhere along the way, I swallowed the lies he fed me, that she cheated on my father, ran off with her lover, built a new family, and simply forgot we ever existed.
That’s why I lost my fucking mind when I thought Piper had made me her bloody lover.
And yet, even then, I couldn’t let her go.
I couldn’t walk away.
“Sir, we’re here,” Harry says, and I realise I’ve been staring at my phone so long I never noticed the car had come to a stop.
I look out of the window and stare at the derelict house waiting for us.
I explicitly told Ido not to mention this to anyone, but the motorcycle parked beside his vehicle confirms that he did, in fact, tell someone.
Namely, Isaak bloody Markev.
Rain lashes the windows as Harry steps out first. He opens an umbrella before coming around to my side and pulling the door open.
I step out, fasten my suit jacket, and take the umbrella from him. He inclines his head, and I make my way towards the house.
The moment I step inside, I close the umbrella and leave it by the entrance.
I spot two men stationed by a door that undoubtedly leads to the basement.
They nod the moment they see me.
“Mr Wardgrave.”
I don’t acknowledge them. They open the door, and I head down the stairs.
The air down here is so bloody humid I can practically taste it. And the stench is disgusting.
I’d wager father dearest has been pissing where he sleeps.
Wonderful.
The level of suffering still falls well short of what he deserves.
See, it’s not going to be easy to kill the fucker.
For one, he holds too much influence in the UK and beyond. The media practically worships the ground he walks on, and his position within Wardgrave Dynamics only adds to that influence.
Then add the fact that the Wardgraves are part of the Ferrum Syndicate.
That complicates matters even further.
But I’ll manage. The parents will hear the same version of events as the press.
I make my presence known as I take the final step down.
“I was under the impression I had given very clear instructions that no one was to know about this.”
I say it calmly, my eyes fixed on the man chained to the wall.
My father.
My dear old father.
His wrists are bound in iron, his ankles no different. His head hangs forward at an unnatural angle, chin nearly touching his chest. At first glance, he looks asleep. He’s unconscious.
“I don’t take instructions from you,” Ido replies in a flat tone, without so much as sparing me a glance.
“Why keep this from us?” Isaak asks. “Your father is part of the Ferrum Syndicate. The moment he disappears, our fathers will hear about it. And when they do, they’ll start asking questions.”
“It’ll be ruled an accident,” I reply coolly. “A most unfortunate accident.”
Isaak’s eyes move between me and the man bound before us.
“What is really going on here?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
He falls silent for a moment.
“I find that difficult to believe,” Isaak says. “A week ago, you would have torn apart anyone who laid a hand on him. Now you’ve got him chained to a wall.”
I turn my head slightly, my eyes narrowing, but offer no response.
“So what’s the reason?” he presses.
“Since when have you become so invested in other people’s business?”
“I haven’t.” Isaak shrugs. “I’m simply trying to make sense of the situation. If the Bratva needs certain doors opened by the Secretary of State for Defence and instead finds his cadaver, I’d like to know how much damage control I’ll be forced to do to keep you out of a grave beside him.”
“You really do make it sound as though you care about me. I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be.”
My eyes return to the man chained to the wall.
His chest is bare, covered in bruises and patches of dried blood.
I raise a brow.
“You couldn’t help yourself, I see.”
“You told me to keep him alive,” Ido replies. “No other parameters were provided.”
I make my way towards the wall where an assortment of weapons hangs in rows. I study the selection before choosing a blade.
I pick it up, and without hesitation, I throw it.
It sinks cleanly into his thigh.
He jerks awake with a strangled, bloodied scream.
His eyes remain unfocused at first, dazed, as if he can’t quite make sense of where he is, or who stands before him. Then recognition appears, and with it, hope. The most idiotic emotions a man can have.
I cross the distance between us in a few steps.
“Hunter—” he croaks.
I grip the knife and wrench it free from my father’s leg.
Blood pours from the wound, and he screams again.
I don’t even blink.
“I’m here for answers,” I tell him. “And you’re going to give them to me.”
His eyes clear.
“Is this about that girl?” he spits. “That little—”
My fist connects with his jaw before he can finish. His head snaps to the side, as blood spills from his nose.
I have to admit, it’s rather satisfying.
“Do not ever mention her again.”
I hit him a second time. Blood spills from his split lip.
“Because if you do, you won’t survive the next time you open your damn mouth.”
He laughs weakly, blood staining his teeth.
“Surely you’re joking.”
“I’m entirely serious.”
I turn back towards the wall and select another blade.
“You’re going to tell me everything,” I say idly. “Your dealings with Jonathan Ashthorne. The war operations. The cover ups. And then you’re going to explain Piper’s place in all of this.”
His jaw tightens.
“You’re going to explain how you came to be married to her,” I continue. “Why I didn’t know. I was under the impression we weren’t keeping secrets from one another.”
The last part drips with mockery.
He says nothing.
So I throw again. The blade buries itself in his other thigh, and his scream ricochets off the walls.
“I don’t repeat myself,” I say calmly as I walk over and wrench the blade free once more.
“Start talking.”
He glares at me, his breathing ragged.
“You want to kill me?” he spits. “Then do it.”
I lean closer.
“Don’t worry. I fully intend to.”
A long silence follows. I begin to think he’ll require a little more persuasion, but then he finally opens his mouth.
“Ashthorne and I had an understanding. We belonged to different factions, which meant we weren’t supposed to be seen together, let alone do business together. But the arrangement benefited us both, so neither of us saw much reason to stop.”
“For years, it was profitable. Defence contracts, political favours, operations neither side wanted traced back to them. Jonathan opened doors for me, and I opened doors for him.”
“What went wrong?”
A muscle jumps in his jaw.
“An operation. One that would be labelled a war crime if the truth ever came out.”
Silence fills the space.
“If the truth had come out, it would have buried both of us. We needed guarantees. I didn’t trust the fucker not to save his own skin at my expense, and I doubt he trusted me any more than I did him. A marriage contract ensured that if one of us fell, the other wouldn’t be far behind.”
My grip tightens around the knife.
“So he offered his daughter.”
“And why keep it secret?”
“Because I couldn’t suddenly appear with a wife half my age whose father happened to be the very man I had spent years pretending not to know. People would have started asking questions.”
“So you married her in secret.”
“The plan was to introduce it gradually,” he says. “Her father and I would begin appearing together publicly first. Then Piper would be brought into the picture. A few months later, we’d announce an engagement. After that, a wedding.”
I clench my jaw, barely holding myself together.
“All this time, it was you. You were the one who fucking hurt her.”
I drive my fist into his stomach.
Then his ribs.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I can’t stop.
“You killed my mother,” I snarl. “You’re the worst kind of monster, and you’ve outlived your place on this planet.”
His eyes widen.
Perhaps he’s wondering how I remember any of it when he personally spent months down in that damned basement beating my head against the floor until I could barely remember my own name.
“And now—” I grab him by the throat and haul him upright despite the chains. “—you’re going to die.”
His breath catches.
I lean closer.
“But not before you write your farewell letter.”
I release him and take a step back.
“You’re going to confess to everything. The war crime.”
My mouth twists.
“Just leave the deals with the Bratva out of it. Your confession concerns you and Jonathan. No one else.”
Harry steps forward without a word. He removes the chains, and my father collapses to the floor. A moment later, he places the papers in front of him along with a pen.
“And then,” I add, “you will sign the divorce papers. This marriage will be as though it never existed.”
The room falls silent apart from his uneven breathing.
The next thing I know, both the divorce papers and the letter bear his signature.
His hand shook throughout it. At first, he refused outright.
Then Isaak put a bullet through his shoulder.
That finally convinced him to cooperate.
In the end, he wrote every word I required of him.
I take the rope and secure it around his neck myself while Isaak and Ido force him onto a chair.
He looks at me.
“You’re a fucking monster,” he says.
“I know. The difference is that I never pretended to be anything else.”
I take a step back.
This isn’t one of our properties. Harry made sure the house was purchased under his name.
So when I call the police and report that my dear father took his own life, no one will question it.
Well, they will.
His body bears too many signs of violence for that.
Then again, what’s the point of an alliance with the Bratva if it can’t make a problem like this disappear?
I look at Isaak.
He gives a nod. “The officers who’ll handle the investigation are on my payroll.”
I kick the chair out from beneath him.