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A loud thwack resounded along with a yelp from Esther as Harold backhanded her hard across the cheek.
‘What the fuck?’ Malcolm said, grabbing Esther by the arm and pulling her out of his reach. Her hand cradled the spot where he slapped her, tears pricking at the edges of her eyes.
I saw red.
I was almost on him, knife drawn, when hands pulled me back from behind. I struggled against them, needing to spill his blood for hurting my girl. Needing to see his skin split and his motherfucking entrails hit the floor.
‘Stand down,’ Malcolm roared at me, while Logan joined the hands holding me firm.
Harold watched me, his eyes flaring with interest. ‘What do you care? You were the one who brought her back. If anything, I should thank you for bringing my wife to me, but here you are acting like a lovesick puppy.’
He looked from Esther back to me, then grinned. ‘Oh, I see. She’s been paying you with her cunt, has she? A little slut. Just like her mother.’
I tensed against the men holding me, trying to get leverage to rip the arsehole to shreds.
‘It must have been a mighty fine cunt too, to have you ready to get yourself killed. Good to know.’
He walked out without another word, followed by his men as Esther crumpled into her sister’s arms. Tension thrummed around the room, hands releasing me after Harold’s exit, leaving me feeling exposed.
‘Dad, you need to call this off,’ Esther said, her voice trembling in a way that tore me apart.
‘I can’t. You know we need this war to end.’ Malcolm ran a hand through his greying hair, his face ashen as everyone faced him.
‘He hit me.’
‘You’re lucky that’s all he did.’
Logan interjected, ‘She’d right Dad, you can’t marry her off to him. He’ll destroy her.’
‘It is her, or all of you. I can’t lose everyone,’ Malcolm said, steeling his shoulders and avoiding Esther’s eyes.
‘Why am I worth less than them?’ The pain in Esther’s voice was raw.
‘They are my boys. They carry on the business.’
I needed to gather her up in my arms, to soothe the aches that plagued her. To keep her safe.
‘Alec, Logan, with me. Esther, go get your things packed for moving to the apartment. Maeve, go with your sister.’
We shared one last, lingering look as I followed Malcolm out of the room, my body screaming at me to stay with her. She hadn’t been out of my sight, out of my reach, since we’d given into the passion between us, and it burned to be away from her. It was all wrong.
Malcolm paced the floor of his office as Logan and I stood rigidly in the middle of the room. A vein throbbed menacingly on his forehead, and he kept stopping to talk before deciding against it and resuming his pacing.
‘I want to leave, find work somewhere else,’ I said, knowing working for them and being so close, watching Esther married to Harold, it would kill me.
‘I’m still deciding whether you need a bullet between the eyes.’ Malcolm fixed me with a hard stare. ‘I should have your bollocks off for daring to touch my daughter.’
His threats skimmed over me, too emotional to care if he followed them through. ‘You can’t force me to stay here.’
‘I bloody well can. You’re handy with a knife, but you won’t get far before my men would be in here and filling you with lead. We have spent years getting you to where you are. My boys have taken you under their wing lately, and this is how you’ll thank them? Fucking their sister and then ditching them?’
His words hurt. All I’d wanted was to be one of them. To be accepted by the tight-knit family and to feel like I belonged. Even as I tried to reject them, that little boy deep inside my soul longed to grasp onto any smidgen of attention they might give me.
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘What was it like, Alec? Did you think she loved you? Did you think you two could waltz back in here hand in hand and that Harold would just roll over and give her up? He’ll never stop trying until he has what he wants.’
Malcolm lashed out and sent an ornament flying off of his desk, the metallic object splintering a chair leg as it connected. Logan flinched and looked at his father wide-eyed. ‘Do you think I want this? I love her. She’s my daughter, and I don’t want to see her given over to him any more than you do. But I’ve lost too much. She might suffer, but no more than she might have with any man she married. At least she knows going into it. She’ll have all the wealth she could want, be able to travel the world, and buy anything she desires. There are worse positions to be in.’
