Page 37 of Scandalously Yours

She smirked. “I don’t need a club. I need you, Kris.”

“Too bad,” I responded. “You need to leave.” I let her go, then went to retrieve her coat once again.

She rushed me at that point, and jumped on the back of me. Her small fists were flying as she beat on my back, and I wanted to retaliate but I wouldn’t. One thing I had learned at a very young age was never to hit a woman in anger. Hayley tested me time and time again, and I think her knowing about my past only encouraged her to try her best to crack me. I dropped her onto the couch, and she popped right back up like one of those fucking moles in a carnival game. My parents had a very contentious marriage themselves which was why it had taken me longer to realize exactly how toxic mine had been.

I don’t know the number of the times that I had witnessed my parents fighting, but it gradually grew worse over the years. I wanted to pin it all on my father, but my mother would sometimes start the fights, usually with violence like Hayley liked to do. She wasn’t always that way, but knowing how much I hated my father for the things he would do, it was as if she wanted to see if she could push me to that point. And she tried. I’d always been able to control myself, but it was growing harder to do.

“Get out,” I told her as she stood toe to toe with me.

She slapped me in that moment, and I must’ve surprised her when I advanced forward. I still felt the sting from her blow, and the end of my rope had been reached. This had to end, and tonight. Someone could only be pushed so far and when fear registered in her eyes at my feral expression, maybe she would finally understand that.

Hayley eventually backed all the way up to the wall. She went to strike again, but I managed to get both of her hands pinned above her head, and I held them there. “You want me,” she remarked. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“I wouldn’t want you if you were the last woman on Earth,” I replied.

Her breathing had grown heavier, and I knew all of this was arousing her. “But you want that little whore?”

“Don’t you ever speak about her like that again,” I ground out behind gritted teeth. I snarled at her mocking smirk. “I’m going to let you go, then you’re going to get your fucking coat and get the hell out of here or else I’ll have the cops escort you off the premises.”

I was the one with the marks because I had done little more than restrain her wrists, meanwhile the right side of my face still stung. My mother had often swung on my father, but unlike me, he would return the blows. He was almost twice her size, and I remembered having to get the live-in Nanny some gauze and alcohol for my mother’s wounds. It was one of the reasons I had wanted so badly to become a doctor. I thought there might come a time in my life when she would need more than a few aspirin and band-aids, and I wanted to be able to assist instead of sitting idly by, helpless and afraid.

Over time, the shock of it all faded, and I accepted it as the way things were. The consequences for violence like that in my world were minimal. Another thing I had learned early on was that there were no consequences that money couldn’t cover up if you had enough of it. Just as my father, his father, and all the other men down our bloodline, the Simons had more money than they knew what to do with. My father had gotten away with everything he’d done because the lawyers, politicians, and other influential people on his payroll just turned a blind eye to everything.

I had just as much wealth, if not more than he did, from years of investing and various inheritances I had acquired over the years. I was a Titan, and as such, I could make the woman in front of me disappear by any means necessary. If I did, I would be free to live my life with my children, and the woman I loved. I’d never be blindsided by this deceitful bitch again. As quickly as that thought entered my head, I wiped it away. I was not the same type of man that my father was, even if I married a woman very much like my own mother. It was no wonder that neither of them understood what it was like after Kenzie Broderick almost jumped to her death. The girl’s father, a local preacher in town, was up in arms and at the mayor’s office demanding changes. We were never charged with anything, even though I could’ve been sent up the river for cyber bullying.

That whole experience had affected me in more ways than one. It made me really look at myself in the mirror and decide what type of man I wanted to be. As I looked down into Hayley’s eyes, I couldn’t let her venom seep into my veins, and make me as toxic as the very man I tried my entire life to be nothing like.

“You want to hit me, Kris. Don’t you?” I shook my head, and she laughed. “You’re never going to be with her. I’m going to make sure of—”

I dropped one hand, then wrapped it around her neck, being careful not to tighten it around her throat. “The only thing you’re going to do is get the hell out of here before I have the cops remove you.”

“They can remove me, but it won’t change anything. If you ever want to see your children again, or the little whore, give me what I want and I’ll—” My hand tightened, cutting off her words, until I realized what I was doing and quickly released the pressure. “You truly are your father’s son after all, Kris.”

I didn’t know what angered me more. Her threats about my children and Alessia, or her pointing out the truth which was that I was no better in this moment than the man who sired me. Everything had come full circle, and maybe, just maybe, I was a monster like he was after all. I let her go, then grabbed my phone off of the table. Hayley smirked as she gathered up her coat and put it on.

“This isn’t over, Kris. Not by a long shot.” She threw her purse over her shoulder and exited my penthouse.

I locked the door, then leaned heavily against it. I closed my eyes and scenes from my childhood came rushing back like slides in a demented slideshow. The sounds of glass shattering... piercing screams.... raised voices.... and the names... They all filled my head and echoed. The remembered anguish and pain encompassing me like a blanket. I tried to open my eyes to ward off the memories, but it was of no use. My lids were clamped shut, and the more I tried to ignore those visions, the louder they became.

And it wasn’t just those of my parents, but ones of myself as well. The many nights that Hayley would strike me as she tried to get a reaction from me... the things we broke in the heat of anger... My growls and her laughter.... It all mocked me now in this moment. I could hear my own voice as I would sink to her level and engage in verbal warfare with her over the years. She was right about something after all.

“I am my father’s son,” I said out loud before my eyes finally opened.

I looked at my living room and noticed the half empty bottle of whiskey and single glass on the thick oak bar. A shattered vase lay in pieces near it, and the walls were damp from the water that came from it. Throw pillows lay on the floor. Everything was just as it had been back when I was younger, except now I was the perpetrator and not an innocent bystander. The living hell that used to be one of my parents’ making was now mine.

I moved over to the whiskey and didn’t even worry about the glass when I picked it up. I twisted the cap off and drank straight from the bottle. My son. I don’t know how much he had seen of me over the years, but I couldn’t let this continue. I needed to put an end to this, and now. I took a final swig before grabbing my phone and wallet, then headed downstairs.

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