“Special Forces?” Kolya asks with a raised brow.
“If that’s what the boss wants.”
“Even if that’s not what he wants, you will go.” I step forward. “You’re supposed to be the first line of defense for my son, and if I can’t trust you to protect him, I can and will eliminate you.”
He swallows, but he doesn’t cut eye contact. “Yes, sir.”
“You seem like a good kid, Ilya, but I’ll watch you until the day you die.” I grab him by the nape and stare straight into his eyes. “If I smell a hint of betrayal, incompetence, or even misjudgment, Kolya and I will see you again under less pleasant circumstances. And mark my words, death will be everything you wish for. Be loyal, and you’ll be compensated. Anything else will be punished.”
“I am loyal, but not to you, sir. My loyalty lies with Jeremy.” He doesn’t miss a beat as he says the words.
“How dare you.” Kolya reaches for him, but I raise a hand, stopping him in his tracks.
After a moment of staring at the kid, I casually release him.
He doesn’t take a step back, doesn’t flinch, or even release a breath of relief.
I still don’t entirely trust this kid, but I like him. He might be able to broaden Jeremy’s tunnel vision.
“Where is he?” I stroll inside with both Ilya and Kolya in tow.
“Control room. Let me take you there.”
“No need. You can stay here with Kolya.” I smile when my guard gives me a ‘really?’ look. “The kid needs to learn some hard facts. Think of him as Yan.”
“Can’t. At least Yan was in Special Forces.”
“Don’t be a snob, Kolya.” I smile to myself and head to the control room on the second story.
I’ve paid Jeremy a few visits through the years he’s been here, mainly because my wife misses him and doesn’t want to bug him about coming home often. For that reason, I learned the ins and outs of this mansion by heart. In fact, I knew everything about this place before Jeremy even set foot here.
After all, I couldn’t send him here without ensuring it was well-secured.
I push the door to the room open and stop at the threshold.
Jeremy sits in front of the countless monitors, alone, elbows on the table, chin leaning on his hand as he watches a sequence in a loop.
On the screen, a girl runs from the property while removing a wig and revealing her hair before she disappears out of the camera’s range.
On and on, the sequence repeats as if it’s a broken record.
I stride to behind Jeremy and cast a glance at what’s in front of him. A half-empty bottle of vodka, his phone flipped upside down on the table, and…a comic book? He never even read those when he was young.
Kids look up to superheroes; he looked up to me.
And clowns. He loved those fuckers for reasons unknown, and since Lia had a slight phobia of them, I often took him out to see those things.
Even from this view, he looks so much like me. My wife often hated that, especially when he was born. She was sad that he didn’t look like her in the slightest, but she eventually came to accept it.
I grab the back of his chair. “Is that the girl who helped that motherfucker Creighton kidnap your sister?”
My son finally notices I’m there, his slightly droopy eyes focused on me, his reaction delayed, probably due to being drunk—or getting there.
“Dad? What are you doing here?”
“Seriously? I take an eight-hour flight to this godforsaken island, and that’s the first thing you ask?”
“I…didn’t mean it like that. I’m surprised is all. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“Last-minute business meeting.”
“Are you sure it’s not so you can turn Creighton’s life into a living hell for daring to be with Anoushka?”
“There’s also that. I like multitasking.” I smile, then narrow my eyes on him. “You’re supposed to be helping me on that mission.”
“Sorry, Dad. I’m not in the mood to make her hate me.”
“Then what are you in the mood for?” I motion at the girl on the screen. “Revenge?”
His eyes, a replica of mine, to my wife’s chagrin, slide to the repeating video. He watches it for a silent beat, takes a sip from the bottle of vodka, then says, “She thought Creighton only wanted to talk to Annika and was completely unaware of the kidnapping plot.”
“Is that so?”
He nods.
“I assume you didn’t need to get the location out of her by torture as I initially thought?”
He shakes his head. “She freely offered it because she felt guilty about how you and Mom must have felt. She also helped Creighton because she felt guilty about how she and everyone else cut Annika off.” A humorless smile paints his lips. “She does a lot of things out of guilt, Cecily.”
“Cecily Knight. An only child. Her parents are Xander and Kimberly Knight. A businessman and a higher-up social worker, respectively. She has a grandfather who’s an ex-minister and an ex-prime minister. Another one is a retired diplomat. Her maternal uncle is taking after his diplomat father and has become an activist. She’s close with all of the above and belongs to the posh, rich British people’s inner circle, thanks to her parents. This means they’re close to many influential figures, including but not exclusive to Creighton’s parents, namely his fucker of a father.”
My son stares at me for a silent beat. “How do you know all that?”
I raise a brow but remain silent.
“I know you can get any information you want, but why did you do a background check on her?”
“She’s friends with Anoushka. I did a background check on all of them, but maybe I need to expand my intel since you’re so awfully interested in her.”
“There’s no need.” He takes another swig of his drink and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I let her go.”
“You sure? The repeating footage you’ve been watching for who knows how long suggests otherwise.”
He clicks a few buttons, letting the live feed of the cameras fill the screen, and then he goes silent.
Typical Jeremy.
Sometimes, I hate how much he’s like me. Unless we’re poked and provoked, we’ll never act. Unless we’re pushed to the limit, we’ll never talk. Usually, I’d give him time to recuperate on his own since that’s what I would need.
However, Jeremy isn’t on his own. Unlike my useless father, he has me, and I can tell when my son needs a father.
After a few moments of silence, I pull up a chair and sit beside him. “What’s going on?”
He throws a dismissive hand in the air. “Nothing you need to worry about. I just need tonight, and I’ll pull myself together and get on with it.”
“Bullshit.” I tap my finger in front of him. “Not everything can be brushed over and forgotten. Some things rot in your mind with every intention of destroying you from the inside out unless you do something about it.”
He pauses drinking and tilts his head in my direction. He looks at me like I’m still his hero. No. His father. And I couldn’t be more grateful.
“And…how do I do that?”