“So then she tried hiring goons to get rid of me, but by then I think she was so pissed at me, she wanted to make sure they took their time with me. Thankfully my guys were able to help me out of that one, and then we staged a little meeting with Tessa. I have her full confession on video, if you’d like to see it, in case you don’t believe anything I’m telling you.”
I believed her. I hated that I believed her, but I believed her nonetheless. Fuck. Still, I’d like to see the video, so I told her, “Yes. Not here, though.” I removed the switchblade from her hip, closed it, and got up as I slid the blade into the pocket of my jeans.
She hopped to her feet shortly after me, way too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed considering the topic of the conversation. “Where?”
“Let’s go back to my place. I need a fucking drink.”
Laina did not put up a fight, not that I thought she would. Together, we left the park. I, however, did not walk here myself; I drove, which meant I had to drive us both to the house I was renting while I was in the city. On the outskirts of town, far enough away from the skyscrapers and the mansions on the other side of the city, it had done me well enough so far.
Neither of us said a word more during the drive. For a girl who was returning to the place she was kidnapped, she wasawfully calm, but I supposed that went hand in hand with being kidnapped as many times as she had; it was nothing new to her.
I pulled us into the attached garage, and shortly after that, we were inside. Laina wandered into the living room, perhaps having a déjàvu moment, while I went for the refrigerator and grabbed a beer, which I popped open with my palm and tossed the cap into the trash. I took a deep swig before I joined her in the living room, where she’d taken up a cushion on the couch, staring at the spot where she’d woken up here not too long ago.
The chair was still on the floor, still broken.
“Thanks for that, by the way,” I said as I sat a few feet away from her, gesturing to the broken chair with my free hand. “It’s a fucking rental.”
“Well, maybe you should’ve thought about that before you kidnapped me for your crazy daughter.” I shot her a look, which made her say, “Too soon? Sorry.”
I took another sip. “Pull up the video. Let me see it.”
She dug out her phone and searched for it. After a little while, she said, “Here. Don’t get smart and think that you can delete it or anything. I have multiple videos on multiple phones from different angles, and I also have them saved to multiple external drives, so.” She offered me her phone.
I grabbed it from her and hit the screen. I had to turn her volume up. Seconds turned into minutes as I sat there and watched—more like listened. Seemed to me she had maybe taped her phone beneath the table where she and Tessa had met.
The deeper into the video I got, the more incriminating it was. I could understand how something like this had made Tessa desperate, so desperate that she’d call me for the first time in years and ask for my help. She’d lost the plot completely; everything had spiraled out of control.
When I heard Tessa admit what she’d done, what her goal had been when it came to Kieran, her own brother—her fleshand blood—I got pissed. How could I not? Family and loyalty were the two things I always preached to them. I might not have been around as much as I would’ve liked when they were growing up, but I thought that lesson, at least, stuck.
Apparently not.
I handed Laina her phone back, and she took it, her gaze never leaving mine. “So, Daddy, what are you thinking?”
I should have anticipated something like that coming out of her mouth, but still, the moment she said it, I glowered at her. “I think it’d be best for us both if you never called me that again.”
“You’re right,” she said with a smirk. “Technically, you’re my granddaddy. My step-granddaddy? You know what I mean. The divorce isn’t finalized, and I’m pretty sure her goal is to worm her way back into my dad’s life—that makes us family, you and me.”
“Keep talking. See what happens.”
Her smirk grew into a full-blown smile, one that practically twinkled, and before she said what she said next, I already knew it would cross the line. “What are you going to do? Punish me? Ooh, I’m tempted. What do you have in mind?”
“Don’t you already have three boyfriends to say all this shit to?”
“Yeah, but you’re the only one that screams daddy, so.” She shrugged, then lifted her legs and placed her feet on the coffee table. “What’s the next step, Daddy?”
Oh, she was asking for it. She was. I didn’t think I’d ever been called daddy my whole life, not even from Tessa or Kieran. I tapped my fingers on the beer bottle, mentally wrestling with all the things I could’ve said to her in response.
Let’s just say I understood it now. There was something about her that was just… different.
“The next step is for you to never call me that again.” I pulled out my phone from my back pocket. “I suppose, beyond that, weshould get Kieran over here so he can tell me his side of things.” I figured it’d only be a matter of time until we came face-to-face, I just didn’t expect it to be like this.
“Don’t trust me? You heard it for yourself.”
“I did, and I do, but I want to hear it from Kieran, too. If he can tell me the truth, then—”
“Then what? Are you going to leave the city and tell Tessa she’s on her own?”
For the first time in a long time, I didn’t know what I’d do. I was always the man with a plan, and yet a few meetings with Laina had thrown everything off kilter. For five months I’d been in the shadows, learning, watching, assuming I had the whole picture—but during that time, the suspicions in me only grew, until they bubbled over in the face of this girl.
