“You shouldn’t be so smug. It was far too easy to get through your front door and Cecelia’s been such a good hostess—well aside from those first few minutes,” he glances down at the dead man at her feet. “For you to go to such lengths to keep her from me all this time tells me all I need to know.” He clicks his tongue. “The daughter of your sworn enemy. You went against everything you believed.”
“Worth it,” I swallow. “And you can end me right now. You can end me right now by taking her away. I’m not denying it.”
“A punishment that seems fitting of the crime.”
“What crime? You’ve always been so fucking delusional, and that’s why you never got my allegiance. I’ve broken no arrangement. I owe no debt to you. Why is she such an insult to you?”
“Because my nephew and men died while you indulged in her all those years ago. I had wondered what kept you. Now it makes sense.”
“A nephew and men you cared nothing about. I’ve never crossed you. You’ve lived a long life, and your safety was never my priority. But here you are, alive and breathing because of me. That should tell you enough.”
“You’re so quick to point out how you educated me and my men, yet you let your dick make your decisions, which is fucking pathetic, according to you.”
“And what would I have to live for if I would have taken my own advice? I realized the error of my ways. And my number one goal was never to become a clone of you. No one to remember me. No one to take over my legacy. No reason to fucking live other than for the game, and later, to exist alone only to reflect on my evil deeds. I chose a different way. You take this from me, and then what? Who will you go after? Is this what you truly want?”
“Don’t insult me with your bleeding heart, Tobias. You know I can’t be persuaded.”
“Do you want me to beg for her? Because I’m not above it.”
“Tobias, don’t,” Cecelia whispers softly, as Greg’s lips curl into a fucking feline smile.
I pull Greg’s gun from the back of my jeans—a gun they didn’t bother to check for after securing my Glocks—and know that there are at least six others trained on us. Four in the kitchen, and the two I passed in the entry. Even if we get a few shots off, we’re going to lose this fight. Rage thrums through me at the idea that this is how it all ends. I’ve been bested by a man I detest, an unworthy man, and he’s about to take the one thing I can’t live without.
“For her, I’ll give you every cent I’ve earned. I’ll hand it all over. Take my money, take my life, but let her go.”
He scoffs, “There’s that nobility. I’m afraid it’s going to cost you a lot more this time.”
I keep my ready insult to myself, hoping at the least I can somehow negotiate her to safety. If I can just get her away from this house, there’s a chance she can make it to my birds, but I see no option, no chance of that.
Antoine has always been merciless when doling out his punishments, and that’s one thing he’ll always have over me.
Hope disappears as resolution covers me. I’ve got nothing, absolutely fucking nothing. There’s no scenario here where one or both of us doesn’t die.
“If you take her, my wrath would be welcome, wouldn’t it? One last thrill, old man, before you go?” I lift the Glock to my temple and Cecelia gasps my name. “I won’t let you have the fucking satisfaction, and if you even so much as look at her again, I die, and you won’t get what you came for. Care to fucking test me?”
His eyes light with surprise. This was always going to happen. Always. No matter how much space I put between my past and present, Antoine was always the thread between them.