“I saved your life, asshole.”
With that icy-cold countenance, he looked at me like I was dirt on the bottom of his shoe. “My life means nothing without Ramon. You better hope he didn’t get away. Otherwise, I’ll step on your arm until I break it.”
At six in the morning, we returned to my estate and drove to the barn that was out of sight from all the roads. To any onlooker, it seemed like an ordinary barn, something the cows used to get out of the rain. Little did they know, it would double as a prison.
I didn’t make a complaint about my arm. I wrapped gauze around it and applied pressure to stop the bleeding, but now that the adrenaline had passed, all I was left with was the pain. I rode in the front seat with my father, Ramon knocked out in the rear.
This was a fucking nightmare.
We parked the Hummer then proceeded to drag Ramon’s unconscious body into the barn. I helped even though a bullet was still lodged in my flesh.
My father didn’t bat an eye over it, didn’t even care.
We dragged Ramon into the cell designed to hold his body. It had a bucket of fresh water, a bucket for shitting, and hay on the ground for sleeping. We dropped him in the center of the concrete stable, watching the bastard lie there unconscious. He had one window at the very top, but it was too small for anyone to climb through.
My father spat on him before he shut the door and locked it.
I studied my father as he secured the padlock, wondering if he was feeling victorious now that his enemy had been captured.
But he seemed like the same bitter man as before.
“What now?” My workers would steer clear of his cell. One of my men would make sure he had food and water every day, plus a fresh bucket to shit in every day. But it would be pointless to keep him for long when he was of no use alive.
“Nothing.” He walked away from the door and headed back to the car.
“You aren’t going to torture him right away?” I caught up with my father, my heart beating so hard because of the pain in my arm. I broke out in an intense sweat because it was getting more difficult to keep going when I was getting weaker by the second.
“No.” We got into the car. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”
After all this work, he was just going to let him sit in a cell? I’d assumed my father would start to torture him immediately, even if he was unconscious.
My father turned down the dirt road and approached my estate, ready to drop me off. When he pulled up to the house, he hit the brakes instead of turning off the car. He clearly expected me to jump out and walk inside without another word.
How did my father turn into this? “I’m fine, by the way.”
He stared straight ahead, ignoring my sarcasm. “You’ve been shot before. You’ll be shot again someday. It’ll be fine.”
“You aren’t the least bit concerned?” I cocked an eyebrow. “I could have died.”
He sighed in annoyance. “But you didn’t. Now go inside. It’s been a long night.”
I lingered in the car, so angry, I didn’t know what to do. If my father was going to be this cold, I shouldn’t have bothered helping him in the first place. I married a stranger to get this information, but he brushed off my sacrifice. I took a bullet for him, but he didn’t give a damn. There was nothing I could do right—only wrong. “I turned thirty a couple of weeks ago…” Birthdays were an arbitrary celebration. I didn’t even like birthdays. But it stung the most that he’d forgotten it. Mom used to force us to gather around a birthday cake and exchange presents. Making me have a memorable evening with our family was her gift to me—a gift of love. Now that she was gone, the glue that held the four of together was gone. We were just three strangers now.
My father still didn’t look at me. “You want me to give you a present or something?”
The sarcasm in his voice made me wish I hadn’t taken that bullet for him. If I’d just done as he asked, he might be dead right now. I would have mourned his passing since this sad conversation never would have taken place. We finally completed the job we set out to do—to give my mother justice. But he was still the cold bastard I despised. I grabbed the handle and opened the door. “I wish I’d let you take that bullet…and I wished it had killed you.”
I sat at the counter in the kitchen with my arm extended. Abigail pulled back the gauze and revealed the damage. She had her suture kit ready to go, but she still looked disappointed when she saw the wound that destroyed my flesh. “Mr. DeVille…what happened?”