Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56591 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56591 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
“Let’s skip the part where you monologue at me,” I snap.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to suffer through this.” Tap-tap-tap on that gleaming, grinning cane’s pommel. “I want your business. You don’t deserve to live and flourish while my own…”
He trails off, clearing his throat, looking genuinely devastated for a moment. Looking human.
“The world will know who your father really is if you don’t do what we command.”
Ah, right. So he knows about Jennifer, about Liam.
“I have tried to keep my brother a secret,” I snap. “But I won’t sacrifice my business for him. You’re overplaying your hand.”
“The whore? The bastard?” He laughs humorlessly, shaking his head. “This has nothing to do with them. Not yet, anyway. I suppose we’ll have to see what Liam makes of himself, if I live that long. No, Dominic, this is about you and your father and the promise I made all those years ago.”
“How fucking mysterious,” I grunt.
He scowls. “You need to learn some respect.”
“I’ve already learned everything from you I possibly can.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong,” he says, leaning forward, aiming a trembling finger at me. “You see me as a monster, as some beast who’s doing this out of sheer… what? Greed? Sadism? Perhaps I get a thrill from hurting people, and you just happen to be in the way?”
“What did I say about monologues,” I snarl, making it a statement.
“I promised my dying son that I’d make this right,” Sebastian says, his eyes welling up.
“What?” I exclaim. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Of course you don’t,” Sebastian says. “Your father, the sick, depraved fuck, wouldn’t have wanted to shatter your image of him. The truth, plain and simple? Your father drunkenly crashed into my car one night. My wife and my son were sitting on the same side. My wife died instantly. My son? He lingered. Just long enough for me to promise I’d make him pay. And I did. I bled him dry. I forced him into an early grave. I did that for my son.”
This almost sounds like a sick joke. My mouth falls open, but no words come out.
“Bullshit,” I say finally.
“Your father, Mr. Money Bags, was able to get the charge dropped. We even saw each other, briefly, but he didn’t recognize me when I reappeared in his life, didn’t think twice about it. I remember making friends with him, how he’d drink and drink, wink at me when he got behind the wheel. He hadn’t learned his lesson.”
“You’re a liar,” I whisper, voice breaking.
“If only that were the case,” Sebastian says. “Do you think I’ve wanted to carry around this heartache, this curse? I’ve tried to forget, tried to console myself with your father’s death. But it’s just not fair, as prosaic as that might sound. My son had his whole life ahead of him, fifteen years old and full of hope. He was in agony at the end. He begged me, my own boy. Begged.”
“My dad…”
You can’t trust anyone, he whispers in my mind.
“My own father…”
Not even me.
“Was a monster,” Sebastian spits. “The worst kind. Without remorse. And, if you don’t dance to our tune, the whole world will know. I’ve got the police reports. I’ve got the proof. He was able to wriggle off the hook, legally, but do you think the public will care?”
I jump to my feet, laying my fists on the desk and glaring at Sebastian. He doesn’t look like a politician hatching a scheme, he just looks like a grief-stricken old man.
“If this is true, people deserve to know who he really was,” I snarl. “You haven’t got any leverage here. I won’t sacrifice my business, my employees’ livelihoods, to save the image of a dead man.”
Even if I loved him more than anything.
“Then I’ll find another way to ruin you,” Sebastian grits out.
I slam my hand on the table. “I was sixteen when you came into our lives, twenty-one when you took my father’s business and ruined our lives, and twenty-eight when he died. All this time, you were holding that grudge. Nurturing it? And even now, you can’t let it go?”
Sebastian snorts. “If you’re ever unfortunate enough to have a child die in your arms, you’ll know how insulting that question is.”
I search his face for any sign of a lie. He seems so genuine, tears clinging to his eyelashes.
“Send me the information,” I snarl. “If it’s true, I’ll release it myself. Otherwise, put the past where it belongs.”
“I tried to forget,” he calls after me when I storm from the office. “But I can’t. So, neither will you.”
CHAPTER 21
IZZY
“Idon’t understand,” I tell the doctor. “You want her to see another specialist?”
The doctor is acting shifty, glancing one way then the other. Grandma is half asleep.
“Your new insurance provider has requested an outside specialist, for reference,” the doctor tells us. “It’s nothing to worry about.”