I nod, since my throat is close to closing up completely.
“What happened? How did ye get here?”
“How do you think? The same way I got anywhere back then. Samuel drugged me, and put me on a plane, where I spent the entire flight strung up, suspended by my wrists while he fucked and whipped me. Or burned me. It all depended on what sick, evil, depraved thing he came up with.”
“And Simon.”
“Once we were in Scotland, not that I really knew where we were at the time since they drugged me. Samuel loaded us, and those with us, into a car, and we went directly to the estate. On the way, Samuel gave me a laptop, mine. He took it from my room. He told me to send a message to this person…”
“To Simon, ye mean?”
Swallowing around the lump in my throat, I nod.
“Well, go on. Tell me how ye and Samuel robbed me o’ my husband.”
Tears spring to my eyes, and I say, “He had me send a message saying I had information about who killed your family. Samuel told me to ask him to meet me in private. Then, when he agreed, Samuel said to tell him I’d pick him up and take him there. I did as I was told.”
“And…”
Pain wreaths his face, and I don’t want to tell him anymore, but I know he will not settle for anything less than the whole of it.
“Tell me,” he growls.
“Samuel put me in the front seat of the car with our driver, and we picked Simon up. Samuel had the others who came over with us head to a warehouse. The… umm… the same one you blew up, and they beat him. When I tried to get them to stop, Samuel hit me so hard, I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was in the car. I came to as we were pulling away from the castle.”
Draven stalks out of the bedroom, his fist punching the fridge he bought for my room so I would eat something other than junk.
I close the door to the bedroom, hoping Dillon doesn’t wake up while his uncle is in this mood. Draven tears through the room, destroying everything in his path. My computer equipment takes the blunt of the damage. When everything that’s not nailed down has been upended and ripped to shreds, he stops.
His hands land on his hips, his head tilted back onto his shoulders as he gasps, trying to catch his breath. He looks at me and says, “How could ye not tell me this? Ye ken what Simon meant to me.”
“At first, I wanted you to help me. I knew I couldn’t kill Samuel myself, and I thought if you knew, you’d tell me to go fuck myself. Then, as I got to know you, I didn’t want to hurt you. When we got together, I didn’t want it to end because you and our dynamic, our sexual relationship, were everything I’d ever wanted.”
He stares at me. No blinking, not even an eye twitch. His eyes locked on mine without wavering. It goes on so long I start to think he’s gone catatonic. But then he says, “I ken it’s nae yer fault. I’m nae angry at ye for what happened to Simon. Simon took matters into his own hands. He kenned I wouldnae want him to do it, because I’d been asking him to stop searching forleads, but he was determined to get to the bottom o’ it. And he took risks.”
I nod, looking around at the devastation surrounding us.
He does the same. “Fuck. I’m sorry, lilla du.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
“It isnae okay. But thank ye. Since we’re baring our souls, I need ye to know…”
“You killed my dad.”
He stops dead. His eyes are as round as saucers. His mouth too. “What… umm… how?”
“Did I know?”
He nods.
“Draven, Owen Black had every room in the Order wired for sound and video. I stumbled across it after my dad’s funeral. Cato hid the footage, replacing it with a snowy loop, but I found it. He hoped that with my dad being dead, he could free me from under the Order’s control, but then I got dragged to that lawyer’s office, and we realized I would never escape unless we took down the Order.”
“I’m so sorry, Tavish. I should’ve taken ye with me that night. Ye walked past me as I sneaked through the house. I remember wondering why there was a child here. Never did I believe I was leaving a child to be used and abused the way ye were.”
“I know. I don’t blame you. You are not at fault at all for what happened to me. We, our lives, the hell we’ve both lived through, and the people we’ve lost are my father’s fault.”
“Yes, they are, and I’m nae o’ the belief that we should pass the sins o’ the father onto the son. I dinnae blame ye, either. I ken I already said it, but it needs repeating. You may have witnessed Simon being beaten, but ye werenae anymore to blame than a hammer. We wouldnae blame the hammer forbreaking a window it hit. Ye’d blame the person holding the hammer.”
