Page 120 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
No, he wouldn’t.
He couldn’t.
Once upon a time, perhaps, but he had changed. He wasn’t a monster anymore. He wasn’t that man. Sure, he drank and did a few lines every now and then, but not like before. Never like before.
Racking his brain, Charlie tried to think back to the last thing he could remember. The bar. He had been drinking at the bar when Bryan appeared with his goons in tow and sat uninvited to discuss the kids and the villa. The asshole had thought he could talk him out of getting his brothers involved.
He had held firm and wasn’t about to let Bryan strong-arm him. Not again. What could he do? Kill him? Bryan was ballsy, but not that ballsy. Everyone on the damn island knew him and knew he and Charlie had a tenuous relationship.
So, with one parting smartass comment, Charlie had left Bryan at the bar to take a piss, and the bastard was gone by the time he returned, having ordered a fresh round for him to finish on his own.
After that…
Charlie frowned at his kids cowering on the bed. After that, things got confusing. He didn’t even finish his drink before the liquor hit like a tidal wave. One of the goons Bryan had brought must have stayed behind because when he’d nearly fallen off his stool, it had been that ugly motherfucker who helped him leave. Charlie knew the guy’s face but not his name, and he didn’t think it mattered. He was a lackey there to serve, and that’s what he did when he dropped him off at his sailboat docked at Crown Bay.
There was a vague recollection of Tobias being onboard when he arrived, claiming he was leaving to meet Brandy for dinner at her place. They were going to discuss plans to visit Florida, with Brandy wanting to see Haven House and meet the family. For whatever reason, an unnatural rush of anger had struck at the idea, but beyond that, Charlie had nothing. There was no memory, only darkness.
While Toby consoled his sister, Charlie glared at Brandy—Taylor—sneering down at him. “What did he do?”
Brandy batted her eyes. “What do you mean?”
Bryan had given him something. At the bar, he must have slipped something into his drink. Charlie broke eye contact with Brandy to stare in bewilderment at his hands. “What did he do to me?”
CeCe gagged, completely overtaken by her hysterical tears, and with Toby distracted as he whispered to her, Brandy bent down to speak directly in Charlie’s face. “If you would’ve just fallen off the boat and drowned, this would have been easier.”
Charlie’s head snapped so he could speak to this evil bitch face-to-face. “What did you say?”
“Daddy always gives me what I want, and I want them.”
This level of anger hadn’t filled him in years, if ever. The entire world always wanted him to give up everything he had. It wanted to rob and steal away what was rightfully his. Toby wasn’t lost. He believed in his boy. Those odd behaviors took life experience and age to iron out, and while Charlie would admit he might be kidding himself, he had to hold on to the fact that a change might be possible.
But Brandy didn’t want that. She was always single-minded in her actions, never taking no for an answer. If she had an idea in her head,she wouldn’t let it go, and she wanted Tobias to be dark and twisted, a sadistically sick bastard to do her bidding.
“Both of them.”
What she was saying finally penetrated his brain.
CeCe.
The bitch wanted CeCe, too.
The cabin was cramped, but Charlie needed only a heartbeat to gauge the distance. He clamped a hand around Brandy’s ankle and yanked—hard.
She came crashing to the ground with a scream, her head cracking on the floor as she hit. The sound only fueled his anger, and he craved to hear her cry out in pain again.
“They’re my kids. My family.” He hauled her beneath him, trapping her. One hand crushed her jaw so tightly he half-expected it to snap. “You and your father can’t have them. They’re mi—”
It was over when CeCe’s scream pierced the air. Charlie would readily admit he didn’t know a whole lot of things, but he knew that sound. His little girl’s scream wasn’t over what he was doing to Brandy, but because she was scared.
Her brother. His demon. It was here.
And it wanted Charlie’s blood.
He laid there and took it. Every hit. Every strike. Charlie took on his son’s demon and its wrath. Ripped off Brandy, he was tossed onto his back while Tobias pummeled him. Hit after hit, he waited it out, knowing it would end soon. This was something Toby needed, and Charlie had been the punching bag plenty of times before.
“He tried to kill me!” Brandy screeched as she scrambled out of the way. “He wants me dead because he doesn’t want us to be together.”
One feeding the darkness in the other. That’s all Brandy and Tobias were to each other. Like called to like, and the pair were twin flames in their depravity.
