“Get out.”
“Listen.”
“Now, Gideon. I swear to God, if you don’t walk out of this room in the next five seconds, your men are gonna have to put me down because I’ll lose my shit.”
He didn’t say anything and he didn’t move. There was no hiding how angry he was, but I was too. Yes, okay. In hindsight, I recognized that I’d had no right to interfere, but he’d taken it to a place it’d never had to go.
“Fine.” His voice was a smoky growl. He spun on his heel, left the room, but not without slamming the door.
Asshole.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gideon
I’d immediately goneto my office and shut myself in. My temper was hot, and it was taking everything I had in me not to storm down the hallway and make Penn talk to me more. I wasn’t out of line in telling him he had no right to parent my children. He’d been here what, a few days? What gave him the right? And then he had the nerve to get mad at me? What fucking opposite world were we living in?
I had to calm my temper; I’d told Olivia and Owen I’d come to them, and I wouldn’t let them see me so upset. I fell into my chair, my head in my hands. Then I took a cigar out of the box beside me and lit it. He’d saved my children and there he was, defending my youngest…was I a dickhead?
Owen had always been quiet, but when Ella died he’d struggled more than any toddler should. Olivia was sad but Owen was detached, almost like the slivers of happiness were just torn away from him. I hated punishing him because it was like saying, “The small thing that makes you smile and rebel, I’m taking from you too.”
A knock on the door broke my maudlin train of thought. “Come in.”
Rita barely waited for me to finish inviting her in before she was in front of my desk, red-faced, her eyes murderous.
“What did you do, Gideon?”
“I’m going to need you to elaborate?” I flicked the ash from my cigar into the tray.
“Gideon, what did you do? Olivia told me you two were fighting. Apparently, she didn’t walk away from the bedroom and heard some, let’s just say colorful words coming out of both of your mouths. So, I went to find out what she was talking about only to find Penn packing his stuff back up.”
“What!” I stood abruptly, smashing the cigar into the ashtray. “We had a disagreement, Jesus fucking Christ.”
“About what?”
“He interfered in me reprimanding Owen for eating Play-Doh.”
She stood akimbo, eyes narrowed. “And?”
“It was heated but this…leaving, it’s irrational.”
“Is it?” She sighed. “He runs, Gideon. He told us he hops from place to place. Moving, running, it’s his way. Of course it’ll be his go-to when things get to be too much. What I want to know is what exactly you told him to push him there? He seems fairly rational—he wouldn’t just leave this house, risk being killed because you asked him not to parent your children.”
I played the whole argument in my head, the things he and I’d said, it was a jumble. “I don’t know that anything was bad enough to push him into leaving, but I need to stop him.” I moved around my desk, but Rita blocked my exit.
“You can’t talk to him until you know why you want him to stay. Knowing you, you’ll walk in there and tell him he has to stay. Why? To survive? Sure, valid reason…except he’s preparingto go, already knowing the dangers. Think, Gideon. What did you say to him?”
I ran my fingers through my hair, tugging on the ends.What did I…oh.I looked at her. “I…shit.”
“How bad?”
“I accused him of not being used to being involved with families, kids, rules, and structure.”
Rita’s eyes widened. “Oh, Gideon. He was put up for adoption at Olivia and Owen’s age; he was lucky that Tenny woman loved him. Why would you cut so deep?”
“I was angry, I wasn’t thinking.”
“Do you think the reason he defended Owen was because he’s the same age Penn was when he was rejected by his folks?”
