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“Good. Because I wasn’t going to provide one. Do you have Devlin now?”

“I do,” he replies with a nod as he studies me with amused eyes.

“Then ask him.”

He sighs, crossing his arms over his chest. “He’s being annoyingly tight-lipped about his reasons for acting so crazy. It doesn’t make sense. He’s always been such a good soldier.”

“Claire,” I reply, watching his response. His eyes widen and I watch as the truth slowly dawns on him.

“Oh… All this over a girl? What a grave mistake on his part.”

Anger surges forward in me seeing his total lack of compassion or remorse. “Really? That’s all you have to say? He only did to me what you did to her.”

“He knew what he was doing by going after you and now he’ll pay the price.”

“How did you know where I was?”

He shrugs. “Devlin never intended to survive this so he didn’t bother to cover his tracks. It took me no time at all to find him.”

“You’re going to kill him?” I ask, unsure how I feel about it. A part of me really felt for Devlin but after what he did to me, I’d feel so much safer knowing he was no longer walking this earth.

“Unless you want to, my dear.”

I shake my head. “I’m not you.”

“Yes,” he muses, his gaze flicking all over my face. “I can see that now, although I do hear that you have a bit of my temper. You know, you could always come home with me.”

Lincoln stands up as his grip on my hand tightens. “I don’t fucking think so.”

“I am home,” I answer, meeting my father’s gaze. “And from now on, I don’t want to see or hear from you again.”

He nods, standing from the bed as he straightens his suit. “I understand, Tate. I will never claim to be a good man because I’m not but for you, my darling daughter, I would go to fucking war and don’t you ever forget it.”

“The difference is, I would never ask you. Get out of my life and don’t come back.”

He sighs. “Children never appreciate their parents until it’s too late. If you ever need me, all you have to do is call.”

He tosses a card down on the bed and walks out without another word as Lincoln scoops it up.

“Want me to rip it up?”

Sighing, I hold my hand out for the card and he gives it to me. There’s a huge part of me that wants to rip it into a million pieces but something stops me.

“Are you okay, babe?”

I shake my head. “I don’t even know how to answer that question.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

I meet his gaze and hold my hand out for his. “No. I don’t want to give Devlin’s pain or anger any more life – especially when I have such a fantastic future to look forward to with you.”

“Sounds like a pretty good plan to me.”

“I’m glad that you’ve finally learned to just give me what I want,” I shoot back with a smirk and he laughs.

“Fuck, I love you, baby. The next seventy years with you are going to be interesting as hell.”

I shrug, lying back in the bed as I squeeze his hand. “Would you want it any other way?”

“Darlin’, as long as I get you, I’ll take it however I can get it.”