Chapter 13
Whitley
“Don’t do this,” I try to plead with Hagen.
The second I spotted him on the cameras in the panic room, I was sure my father found us and it was over.
I did the only thing I could think of and called him from the emergency phone, hoping he would pull back.
I would promise to come home with him as long as he didn’t hurt Mack.
I’d plead and swear to never run away again.
Then everything turned on its head, and my father’s words knocked the air out of my lungs.
Hagen spotted one of the cameras, demanding I come out from wherever I was hiding or he’d kill Mack slowly.
I couldn't let that happen. This wasn’t his fault.
He’d gotten pulled into my father’s world, which is mine too.
I couldn’t escape, and it was stupid to try.
Now I’m going to get the only man I ever loved killed.
My arm still throbs from where Hagen grabbed me. He almost dislocated my shoulder. That pain was nothing compared to seeing Mack lying on the floor with blood running from his head, and I cried as they tied me to the chair.
Even if I hadn’t made a call to my father, I would have known the second I stepped out of the panic room that Hagen had gone rogue. It didn’t matter how mad I made my father, he never hurt a hair on my head. If one of his men glanced at me sideways, they would be gone the next day.
“Shut up, slut,” Hagen hisses at me. A few other men linger behind him, and I don’t recognize any of them.
“Why?” I whisper.
I wasn’t close to any of my father's men except Hagen, and it was more on the surface. I didn’t know much about him, but I knew he was one of the closest to my father. We usually made small talk because he was around more than the others but nothing more.
“You were supposed to be mine,” he snarls, and his whole face turns red. “Now my sweet angel is a whore.” I bite the inside of my cheek so that I don’t say something to make him angrier. What’s wrong with being a whore? Paying a sex worker is probably the only way he can get laid.
“My father agreed to that?”
“I won’t need your father's approval now.” Hagen puffs out his chest. If he thought he had a chance at getting me, then he never knew my father at all. “When I bring his little girl home, he’ll be over the moon. “Then…” He shrugs, smirking, and my stomach drops.
“You’re going to kill him?”
“It’s for the best. He’s weak.” He shakes his head in disgust. “He forgets who he is.” I don’t think my father forgets anything. “He’s retiring. Did he think he was going to toss all of us out? There’s no retiring in this life. I paid my dues, and I want my place.”
“Retiring?” I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“He’s getting out. Did he really think I wouldn’t know what he was doing? Selling off assets and moving shit around. Then I see the documents with new identities.” He bares his teeth at me, beyond pissed.
I didn’t know about any of this, but then again, my father didn’t fill me in on a lot of things. He keeps most things close to the chest, and as predictable as he can be, he’s also not. He can sometimes throw a curveball no one sees coming.
“I was supposed to take his place.”
It’s a fight to keep my eyes on Hagen when I notice Mack’s eyes start to open. He lies on the floor between Hagen and me, and I’m not sure why he brought him in here. He has to have some kind of plan, or he would’ve already killed him. For some reason, he’s playing with Mack.
“What does that have to do with me?” I ask, and a creepy smile takes over his face.
“No one will question when I take your father’s place if I have his daughter on my arm.”
“Hardly anyone knows I exist,” I remind him.
I’ve been one of my father's best-kept secrets. Sure, there might be some whispers. A few times when my father took me to the ballet, some gossiped that I was his young girlfriend. As gross as that was, my father didn’t correct them for my own protection.
It hits me hard in the chest. That’s all he’s ever wanted to do. I know he didn’t pick this life either. It was handed to him from his own father, and Grandpa passed away long before I could remember him.
“Soon all will know.” The idea suddenly terrifies me, but isn't that what I wanted? To be seen and heard? No, I wanted to be free.
“What are you going to do to him?” I glance down at Mack.
“You’re going to watch him die.”
“No!” I scream, pulling at my binds.
“It’s your own fault. You gave yourself to him. I can smell him all over you. You caused his death.” I swallow the lump in my throat because he’s not wrong. If Mack dies, his blood will forever be on my hands.
“He’ll kill you.”
“He has no fucking idea. He’ll never see it coming.” Hagen smirks, thinking I’m talking about my father.
“I don’t think you’re as clever as you think you are,” I spit.
“You underestimate me,” Hagen sneers.
“He’ll kill you all too.” I glance at the three men behind Hagen. When I did a count on the screen in the panic room, I knew there was more. I’m guessing they’re outside.
The men glance at each other like they are debating if they made the right choice. I’m guessing they didn’t work for my father, and that’s why I’ve never seen them. Hagen must have brought them in himself.
“Shut up or I’ll gag you,” Hagen barks at me.
“You didn’t tell them, did you?”
“Tell us what?” one of the men asks.
“Shut up!” Hagen snaps again.
“Who my father is.” We’re states away from home. People around here might not know who he is, but back home, they do.
“Who’s her father?” another asks.
“I said—” Hagan begins, but I cut him off.
“Roy Baxter,” I say, and their eyes widen.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s as good as dead,” Hagen tells his men, who aren’t so sure if they want to be here anymore.
“Wrong,” I tell Hagen. “It’s you that's as good as dead.”