by Alexis Anne
“Putting Father in a cage with a wild animal is the same thing. He has the survival instinct of a starved lion.”
“And he only cares about himself. Trust me, Nik. That’s his weakness. He’s always thought it was his strength, but it’s not. It’s exactly what’s going to get him killed today.”
I shook my head, confused, scared, and more than a little bit panicked. This could all go wrong.
“Hey,” he cupped my cheek and leaned forward to catch my gaze. “Get out of that head of yours. Be here with me right now.”
“I can’t help it,” I whispered.
“I know.”
The pain in his voice cut me deep. “Darcy…”
He cocked his head off to the side. “He’s haunted you since the day you were born. Whether you’re in the same room or miles apart, he messes with your head and keeps you from ever being happy. You deserve a life filled with nothing but joy. I never want to see pain in your eyes ever again. So today I’m going to do the impossible. I don’t have a choice.”
27
Higgins
I left Nicki with Tad at my office where they could monitor what we were doing remotely. Theo and I met up near his father’s house in Kensington, deep inside Duncan Boys territory. We were out in the open. There was no way we’d go unseen.
I placed a cigarette in my mouth and lit it. Years of watching and waiting had finally led to this moment. I felt alive.
“Thank you,” Theo murmured, scanning the streets.
“For what?”
He glanced at me over his shoulder. “For everything. You’ve stood beside me through everything.”
“I’m not missing this for anything.” I was going to personally watch the life leave Donald’s body. He’d tortured the woman I loved. Locked her up. Tried to sell her off. There was a spirit hidden inside her that she’d never been allowed to let out and it killed me to know she’d been living half a life because her father enjoyed the power he got from hurting her.
I wondered who’d she be once he was gone. I bet it was going to be spectacular.
“I know. Thank you for understanding.” He reached out and patted my arm.
“I can’t deny a son the privilege of murdering his father—no matter how I feel.”
“It could be me…” Theo mused. “I could have become him. It would have been so easy to give in to that kind of power.”
“It takes a special kind of evil to do what Donald has done.”
Theo spit into the roots of the large tree we stood beside, then cracked his neck. “You know I can’t count how many men I’ve seen murdered? Fuck, I’ve seen Father personally strangle three men with his bare hands.”
My stomach turned. In our years with Dan we did our fair share of things we regretted—but never murder. “Would he really have killed Michael if your mother hadn’t stepped in?” I knew from experience that Donald would have, but it was still hard to comprehend.
“I took the knife from his hand myself. Did you know Father was known as Smiley when he was younger. Before he took over?”
“Smiley?”
“Yeah,” Theo nodded. “He liked to slit throats.” He ran his index finger from one side of his throat to the other with a dip in the middle—like a smile.
“That’s fucked up.”
He nodded. “No shit. Did you know that was what he did the first time Nicki watched him murder someone?”
I swore under my breath. The things these kids witnessed growing up in that house…
“No. I didn’t.” It made me want to scoop her up and run far, far away from all of this.
“They’re coming.” He nodded up the street to the men jumping in a black Mercedes. “We should go.”
The plan was to get Donald out of the house by having Theo ever so boldly appear on the street. We’d lead him back toward the construction site Theo owned and let nature take its course.
“Allison is still sightseeing with her friends?”
Theo nodded, checking his phone. “Joe just checked in.”
“Good.”
“And Nicki is with Tad at the office?”
“Just left her there myself.”
He made a sharp turn down a side street. “I still can’t believe you told her everything.”
I shrugged. “She hates being in the dark.” And this way there was someone on the outside paying attention. I had an uneasy feeling all day that went way beyond the crazy shit we were doing. Which brought me to the one thing I hadn’t been able to say to her. “If something happens today…tell her I always loved her.”
“Fuck, Higgins.”
“Take care of her?”
He clenched his jaw. “You know I will. But this is pointless because—”
“If it comes down to it—and you know with your father it’s a possibility—then I’ll do what I have to do to make sure he doesn’t walk out alive. Just promise me.”
“I promise.” He shot me a glance. “And I know you’ll do the same.”
“I will.”
We drove in silence all the way up to the new iON building owned by Theo. It wasn’t until then that we got the bad news: Donald hadn’t followed us after all. He’d gone somewhere else entirely.
28
Nicki
“We need to go and we need to go now,” I hissed at Joe, Allison’s bodyguard. It had taken me too long to find them sightseeing near Big Ben.
Luckily Joe took one look at me and double-timed us into the car. He peeled away from the curb while I explained. “There. Two cars back. That dark Mercedes.” I was running on an insane amount of adrenaline.
“What’s going on?” Allison asked, sounding utterly confused. I didn’t blame her. The last thing she probably expected after a morning of sightseeing with her friends was to have me come screaming up to her on the curb out in public.
And it had taken entirely too long. We were out of time. “You are hella hard to find, you know that right?”
“That’s kind of the idea…” she said, blissfully unaware of what was happening.
I snorted. “Well, my brother is doing an excellent job. Luckily I know how to manipulate Tad.”
Her eyebrows rose in question.
Tad and I had seen the problem of my father in very different ways. “Tad’s my bodyguard. Always has been.” I kept glancing out windows trying to keep Father in my sight. “He’s a sucker for chocolate and big watery eyes. That and I palmed his phone when he went to the bathroom.”
“You can find me on a phone?” she gasped.
“No…I refused to give him back his phone until he told me where you were. Duh.” I rolled my eyes, trying like hell to diffuse the anxiety I had building up inside me like an out of control volcano.
“And the reason you needed to see me?”
Yeah, I should probably get to that part. “Right. So we’re being followed.”
“By whom?”
“Oh, it’s Father.” I glanced back out the window again. Sure enough, the same Mercedes was still there. When I’d realized that Father had changed course and was going after Allison instead of Darcy and Theo, I knew we had to do something. Unfortunately Tad refused to let me help. He said that we were better off staying out of the way, but I wasn’t about to let Allison be a sitting duck for the most evil man I knew. There was no telling what Father was planning to do with her.
If anyone understood the depths of his depravity, it was me.
“And why is Donald following me?” she asked as Joe swore from the front seat, making a sudden turn.
“Why didn’t you start with that information, Nicki?” he hissed.
“Someone tell me what’s going on!” Allison yelled over everything.
“Father knows about Dan and Toni. He’s here to make sure he doesn’t lose his leverage over Theo.” I stupidly thought that would explain everything. I was wrong.
“Leverage?”
It was only then, when I heard the complete confusion in her voice that I realized the er
ror of my ways. I’d assumed when Theo and Allison got back together he’d told her everything about our father and our family history. Clearly he hadn’t and in my stunned silence Joe filled in the blanks.
“Where do you think Theo learned all this, Allison? He didn’t just ‘fall in’ with a bad crowd—he was born into the bad crowd.”
“Stop it,” I hissed, reaching over the seat to put a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “If Theo didn’t want her to know—”
“No. I’m not going to stop it. Allison deserves to know what’s going on and I’m sick of the games. It’s hard enough keeping her safe without all the lies and secrets, too.”
Her wide eyes swung back and forth between Joe and me and I realized it was now my responsibility to tell her everything. “Dan and Toni are the least of Theo’s problems. Always have been. Our father makes them look like amateurs.” And if we weren’t careful, she was going to find out exactly what Father was like in person.
I didn’t want to scare her but she needed to know. So I explained the Sutherland legacy as quickly as I could, including our ties to the Duncan Boys.
“Wait…” Allison held up her hand. “Theo wanted Donald to follow him?”
Joe’s eyes flicked to the mirror before refocusing on the car behind us. “Yes. Unfortunately there’s no time to lose him. If you don’t want to be part of this I need you to tell me now because we’ll need to call everything off.”
“No. Do what you have to do,” she said without hesitation, which of course only made me appreciate her more.
She kept asking questions and I quietly answered as best I could, all while blocking out the realization that I was now in the one place I never wanted to be. We had no choice but to lead Father to Theo’s building so that the plan they’d spent so much time putting into action could take place. Which meant I was going to be there when Father died. I didn’t know if I could do this.
Joe took us down and around a few more turns before he came to a sudden stop in front of my brother’s renovation project—the one he’d hired Allison to design.
And the very same building where I overdosed on heroin all those years ago in Darcy’s arms.
I was not happy to be back and it still eluded me as to why Theo purchased it in the first place. Oh sure, Darcy explained that it was poetic justice and all that crap, but I knew deep down inside it was more. It was penance and an attempt to set things right.
Scaffolding covered the front of the building and had at least five men working on the façade. Dust clouds bloomed from the back where the new construction was being done on a newer, taller structure. It would be a perfect cover for whatever was about to happen. The construction was so loud, dusty, and chaotic that we were just another blip on the radar.
“Inside,” Joe commanded. Just as we stepped inside I heard the Mercedes come to a screeching halt. I followed blindly as they led us through the building—past the very spot they revived me and gave me a second chance at life—and out into the new construction, down the stairs.
Joe led us into a dark room where Toni and Dan sat loosely bound in chairs. Everything Darcy had explained was in play with the exception of Father not following along as planned. My stomach churned with anticipation until my eyes fell on Darcy. He grabbed me the minute I walked into the room.
“I’m so sorry you’re here,” he murmured against my lips. Then he shoved me behind his back, acting as a shield.
Theo stood nearby with Allison, and aside from the four of us there was Joe, Martin, and three other bodyguards. Knowing Father we’d still be outnumbered.
Theo and Darcy had just pushed us back several feet when the sounds of heavy boot steps echoed off the concrete walls.
And then my father stood in the doorway. I swear the man never changed. It was like he slept in a coffin everyday and only came out to terrorize people at night. His eyes swept the room as if he owned it.
I threw out my hand, desperate to hold onto something and mercifully, Allison took it, then pulled me closer so we could link elbows. Maybe she knew how much help I was going to need to stay upright.
“Good to see you, son,” Father said. He didn’t mention me—he didn’t even look at me even though I knew he saw me.
Invisible to the end.
Fucker.
“What can I do for you?” Theo said.
Darcy stood tall in front of us like an impenetrable wall. The anger pulsing off of him palpable.
“I just wanted to see it for myself,” Father said. “What the fuck are you thinking, son? All my hard work will be down the drain. For what? A woman?”
Allison tensed beside me, her eyes bright with fury.
“I’m doing this for me and Nicki,” Theo said calmly. “And in doing so it will finally free me of all the things I never wanted so that I can pursue the things that I do want.”
“Pussy,” Father said. “You want pussy. You can have all the pussy you want, any time you want. You’re a Sutherland. You don’t need to go throwing away your life for something you can get anywhere.”
The walls around me suddenly felt like they were caving in. The vile hate this man directed at women—no wonder I was so confused when I was with Darcy. I was raised by a man who thought women were nothing more than pussy.
“While I do understand that you believe your entitlement is an asset, Father, I do not.”
“That was always the problem with you. You don’t have that fire in your belly or that desire to take simply because you can.”
Take, take, take. That’s all he’d ever done. He was a black hole of misery.
I watched through Darcy and Theo’s hands as Father walked over to Toni and kicked his feet, startling him awake. After a moment it seemed to register how much danger he was in and Toni kicked Dan, too.
Donald turned back to look at Theo. “I was so proud when you ran off with these fuckers. Sure you picked fucking amateurs considering what your legacy was, but you did it. You earned your way, you worked your way up. I watched you the whole time. I was excited to finally get you back and put you at my side once and for all. I still don’t think I’ve recovered from the betrayal of your refusal.”
As if Theo would have ever worked for Father. He was delusional.
Theo’s voice was menacing when he replied. “They were more family to me than you ever were.”
Father’s eyes flashed. “How dare you insult me or your sister by calling these cock-sucking, bottom-feeding, pathetic excuses for men, your family?” he hissed, but I was proud of Theo. “They had the potential to make names for themselves, and instead they lost it all…because they trusted you.”
His words were so evil that even though they were directed at Theo, they hurt me, too. Darcy’s fist clenched and unclenched as it hung at his side. Father had effectively insulted us all and for a brief moment in time I wished I had the ability to make him hurt as deeply as he’d hurt us.
But then I remembered that my father didn’t have the capacity to feel anything at all, so there was no point in wasting my energy on something that would never happen.
“If only I’d known that was your plan all along,” Theo said. “You used me to get to them. Dan was getting too big, too fast. He had encroached on your technology territory one too many times and you saw an opportunity. You practically arranged our marriage, but you did it so quietly none of us knew. All you needed was time and information, which I stupidly gave you when Nicki almost died. You used my love for my sister against me. It wasn’t my fault we went down and it never was. You took care of everything from beginning to end.”
I closed my eyes and refused to open them. I needed to block out what was about to happen. I could feel the tension in the room. All it would take was one more insult. One comment.
I should have known it would be my father who lit the match.
“Two birds, one stone,” he said. “I vetted my son to ascend my throne while simultaneously eliminating my biggest threat—”
A chair clattered to the
floor and shouts filled the room. I forced my eyes open in time to see Dan wrap his restraints around my father’s throat. Chaos erupted in the room, just as Darcy and Theo wished. I didn’t watch any of it. I stood fixated on one thing: my father slowly choking to death. The rest of the world melted away in a sea of black and it was as if a spotlight were trained on Dan Christie. I understood vaguely in the back of my mind that shots had been fired and people were dying all around me, but I knew Darcy was still standing in front of me, so the only thing that really mattered was making sure the one man who had ruined my life no longer had the ability to hurt me.
And then suddenly the room was eerily quiet—except for the final gasps of air that came out of my father. The world could have ended and I wouldn’t have noticed. I was stuck in a single moment.
My father was dead.
My father…was dead.
A tremble started in my hands and lips. Like the first tremors of a coming earthquake, it signaled what was to come.
My father is dead. I kept saying it inside my head on repeat, but it wasn’t making any sense.
Not until Theo stepped in front of his dead body and put a bullet into the skulls of Dan and Toni. The room rang with a high-pitched scream.
It took a me a minute to realize that scream was me.
And even worse? I couldn’t stop it. I had zero control over the sound that was coming out of my mouth. It took both Darcy and Tad to get me out of the room so they could deal with the bodies.
“Darlin’? Babe. I need you to take a deep breath,” Darcy got right in my face and said everything firmly and clearly.
I stopped screaming, but then I started to hyperventilate.
“Nicki. Please? You’re scaring me.” He wrapped me up tight and held me close. “I need to get her home.”
“I’ll pull the car around the side,” I heard Tad say somewhere in the distance.
“I’ve got you, babe. It’s over. It’s really and truly over.” He scooped me up in his arms and carried me out of that hell.
