Page 38 of Heart of Stone (Dark Billionaires)

Brax’s fancy watch flashed under the fluorescent lighting. “We’ll need to get a move on if you’re to get back before his meeting finishes.”

“Okay,” she replied, letting her shoulders fall in what she figured was a dejected manner.

“And I apologise for shouting at or grabbing you in advance.”

“I forgive you,” Kate smirked, sharply dropping it when Brax wrenched the lever to the side. The door squeaked open. Cold air, so at odds with the pleasant summer day, rushed over her as she walked in.

Her father sat in the middle of the room, his arms and legs zip-tied to the chair in which he sat. Kate wrinkled her nose at the smell of human excrement, whilst her eyes watered at the overwhelming scent of piss-tinged ammonia. Paul Charlton himself looked worse than Kate had ever seen him, even on the days after his benders. Brax had told her in advance of the frostbite sinking its teeth into her father’s fingers and toes, but seeing it in person was another matter.

Had she really been laughing and joking in the other room whilst her father rotted away in here?

“Sit,” Brax commanded. His loved-up expression was gone, replaced with the Brax that had first visited Kate that night she’d been taken from her family home with a bag over her head. “Paul.”

Paul’s sunken cheeks had aged him twenty years since Kate had last seen him—and he had never looked young for his age. Alcohol and hard drugs had robbed him of whatever good looks he’d once had. Finally, he met Kate’s eyes, letting her see the exhaustion he felt.

“Dad,” Kate whispered shakily, genuinely unsettled by his appearance.

“Hello, Katie.”

She flinched. The last time he’d called her that had been just after he’d told her he’d lost everything they’d both been working for.Let it fall, she thought. “They’ve been hurting me, Dad.” The tears that came to her eyes were genuine. Genuine upset at what he’d been doing all these years. The photographs that Warren had shown her came rushing back. The photographs of her father with a terrified girl who definitely didn’t want to be beneath him.

“I can see that, Katie.” Her father’s throat bobbed.

“I don’t know what they want.”

Paul’s cracked lips pressed together, but he said nothing.

“You know exactly what we want. The security footage from the accident.” Kate cried out in shock as Brax’s rough hand suddenly found purchase in her hair, tugging at her skull. “And Graves’s home address. Multiple sources have placed you there on multiple occasions.”

“Then perhaps you should ask one of your sources,” Paul rasped sarcastically, pain lining his face.

“Dad, please!” she whimpered. “Just tell him, just tell him, just tell him.”

“This is the last time I’ll ask, Charlton,” Brax snarled from behind her. “Your daughter could still get out alive. If not, I’ll let my team have their fun with her and then start cutting her into pieces. Those fingers look like they hurt. I’m sure she’ll be glad to get rid of them.”

“Stop,” Kate gasped. “Just please stop.”

The expression on her father’s face chilled her to the bone. “Then I guess you’ll have to send me the pieces.”

His words sent a visible shudder through her. “The day you brought me back from the hospital,” Kate let the tears stream down her cheeks, “newly widowed, swaddling your motherless daughter… Is this where you thought my life would end?” She shivered, wishing she had warmer clothes on. “Is this what Mum would have wanted for me?”

“I’m sorry, Katie,” Paul shook his head. If she looked hard enough, perhaps she could find a bit of sorrow hidden somewhere. “But they were never going to let you go.”

“Did you ever love me?” she sobbed.

Paul shrugged, wincing like the movement caused him pain. “My ability to love died with your brother.”

Braxton’s enormous hand suddenly vanished from her hair. He crossed the room, whipping a backhand across Paul’s face that would have laid out an ox. The force was such that Paul’s chair teetered back, falling to the floor with a crash.

Brax grabbed her upper arm, lifting her from the chair.

Kate stood, looking at the blackened feet hanging uselessly in the air, the gruesome black nails. The man attached to them groaned on the floor, and a stream of bright red blood was already visible against the icy floor. “Goodbye, Paul,” she said dully, before letting Brax escort her from the room.

The heavy white door had barely closed before Kate was sliding down it in a cascade of torment. No longer caring for the make-up on her nails, she wrapped them around her middle, trying to hold herself together. Sobs wracked her frame, but Brax knelt down next to her.

“He doesn’t deserve to call himself a father,” he said quietly.

Brit was there too, muttering something about body oil before she attempted to scuttle down the corridor towards her heavy case of supplies.

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