Gerard’s frown intensified for a moment before he had the sense to look distressed, “Who are you to question me, boy?” He attempted to puff out his chest but he was no threat now.
I growled, “I’m the man you raised to protect the weaker sex, not prey on them like a fucking dirty old letch,” I snarled, pushing back to my feet.
Gerard recoiled and started to shake his head, spit running from his mouth to his chin, “For fucks’ sake, it’s not like I fucked the little tart. It was a bit of fun and she loved it. Henry, get Sally, I need my pills,” he gasped.
A wave of fury encompassed me as I thought about the little fucker whom I had employed trying it on, “Henry, you move. You die.” I saw Cillian, like lightning, unholster his gun and point it at my father’s bodyguard.
Henry had the sense to remain where he was with his hands raised.
Through the haze of madness, I managed to keep my cool. Straightening, I glared down my nose, “I’ll ask you again, one more time. Did you fucking touch her?”
Watching him cower gave me my answer, but I needed to hear him say it.
“She was a reckless flirt. I was only playing with her. She wanted to be so grown up all the time. You saw it yourself, how she’d behave. I just wanted to show her there are consequences of being a prick tease. She even threw herself at that fag friend of yours even though that wasn’t going to get her anywhere,” he blustered, drawing back, and looking up at me with a misplaced, angry expression.
The man was delusional and living in the dark ages, calling Nico a fag. My blood was at boiling point.
“So, you did it to teach her a lesson. That’sbullshit. She was a kid, a child. You were fucking her mother for Christ’s sake. Who does that?”
And then he started to panic.
“The girl has always been a trouble-causer and is probably making it out to be something it’s not.”
“You broke her trust.Andmine.”
“It doesn’t matter now, it’s in the past,” he blustered.
“Not to Ava,” I snarled. “Andnotto me.” I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.
Taking a deep breath, my eyes met Cillian’s. As I said, he was a man that rarely showed his thoughts but I could see from his body language that he was also upset.
“You disgust me,” I growled down, it was a deep rumble that I felt at the back of my throat. Anger raged inside me like a fucking inferno and I knew I needed to leave. I no longer needed the gory details. Any more information was bound to push me over the fucking edge.
“I suppose my bitch of an ex-wife has been blabbing too,” Gerard stuttered, pushing up from his seat.
I took a step back. Did that mean Suki knew that her husband had touched her daughter? No, no fucking way. Suki had doted on Ava. Yes, the woman could be a ditz but what mother would allow that?
“About what? You and Ava?” I questioned.
My father then started choking and I had no alternative but to call the nurse in.
Turning to Henry, I barked out my warning, “I employ you to keep my father safe, but not from me. You ever stand against me again and I’ll have your family killed. Once the nurse finishes giving my father his medication, I wanted her escorted safely back to London. Gerard is letting her go and is to pay her the two hundred grand left on her contract. Understood?”
“Yes sir,” Henry said. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the nurse as she tended to my father. I then knewexactlywhat she’d been forced to endure.
When she had settled him and added a shot of morphine into the cannula attached to the back of his hand, I walked away, turning back when I reached the doorway with Cill by my side.
“I will allow you to live here until the illness takes you. Luckily, you are already dying.”
I felt a moment of guilt as I watched my father shatter, his expression changing from shock to defeat.
As I left the house, Cillian flanked me as we approached the car. Sean and Lester were sharing a smoke with two other men I had assigned as security detail for my Da.
“What are you going to do?” Cillian said, taking in my hard expression.
“I don’t know. I fucked up. And I don’t know how to put it right.”
Sean flicked the butt of his cigarette on the floor as Lester opened the back door of the SUV for me.