But all throughout, he didn’t look at me. Not even once. I pretended to keep reading, and he tapped the table with a chewed pen. My hands tightened on the book when I recognized the name printed on the pen’s side. I realized that it was my pen. The pen I’d used when he came to McCoy’s.

Then he lifted his eyes and sent me another relaxed smile. “By the way, I took it upon myself to tell your little friend Rachelle that you won’t be returning to the bar for any more shifts. I trust you girls can live off your current salary. You’re all mine now, LeBlanc. And you’re welcome.”

IT HAPPENED. I FELL UNDER.

After staying awake for eighty-four hours straight, my body finally gave in and completely shut down. It happened in my old bedroom, and I barely made it into bed, but I did. I was still shirtless—mainly because I liked how she looked at me when I was working and she was reading. But it was morning, and I knew that I was going to sleep for a long time and that sooner or later, she’d realize that something was wrong. That people don’t just disappear for so many hours in the middle of the day.

I woke up thirteen hours later and it was evening again. There was noise coming from the broad hallway outside my room, and I hoped it was Help, even though I knew it wasn’t. I was right, of course. It was my father’s nurses, Josh and Slade. They were arguing among themselves about the Raiders and the Patriots, and I was not impressed. The two fuckers had woken me up.

I passed by the beefy men and walked straight into my father’s bedroom. He must’ve been discharged from the hospital and returned while I was asleep. And surprise, surprise, Jo was still nowhere to be found. Guess Cabo was more important than standing by your man in his final weeks. Or days.

The gravity of the situation weighed heavy on my shoulders, but this was what I’d waited for, for so long. Ever since I was twelve.

Now, it was time.

Daryl was dead.

Dad was dying.

And soon, Josephine’s life would be over too.

I kept the door open. The nurses glanced my way but continued bickering in the hall, flinging their arms around as they talked football.

“Hey, Dad.” I smiled, leaning a shoulder against his wall with my hands tucked inside my pockets. I rested my head beside a Charles-Edouard Dubois painting—it was good, but I liked Emilia’s shit better—and enjoyed the view.

The man who’d ruined my life looked like a cheap carbon copy of the man he used to be. Completely bald, pallid in color, with a neck like a lizard’s, his veins sticking out from his saggy, thin skin. I looked nothing like him and exactly like my mother, which I guessed was part of the reason why Jo hated my guts.

“Don’t lie, son. Jo and Daryl would never do such a thing,” he told me when I showed him my scars. My wounds. My pain.

“She locks me in there with him,” I argued for the millionth time.

“Jo says you do it to yourself. Is this about attention, Baron? Is that what you want?”

I didn’t need attention. I’d needed a different fucking father.

“You hanging in there?” I smirked at Baron Senior now, painfully aware of the men behind me.

He blinked his eyes but said nothing, because he couldn’t. I, on the other hand, had plenty to say. I knew my words could possibly kill him. I didn’t care.

“Sorry I dropped in unannounced. I needed to see Eli Cole about your will.”

As far as Dad knew, he and I were on good terms. Last time I’d seen him, I still even feigned interest in his business and his health, but it was show time. Revenge time. I ambled into his room and took a seat at the edge of his bed. The bastard wasn’t going to spill a word about it.

Was I the primary beneficiary?

Was Jo?

There were a lot of fucking millions on the line here. Dad’s power was in his money. That’s how he’d controlled his wives and that’s how he thought he’d gained my respect. He was wrong. As usual.

“You know, it’s going to be interesting to see how much you left Jo. You always kept your cards close to your chest. Used your wealth for power. I bet you made her agree to that draconian prenup before you even sucked her tits, huh?” I winked playfully, my lips curving into a slight smirk.

He didn’t respond, but breathed hard. Yeah, the Spencer men were lawyers by training, and they liked women…but they fucking loved money.

“Na. I bet you did the right thing by her. From your point of view, at least. Not from mine. The fact that you killed Mom kind of changes everything.” I jutted my lower lip out, gauging him for a reaction.

Until then, he didn’t know I knew. Didn’t know that I’d overheard him and Jo talking in the library before it happened.

Dad’s eyes grew big and perplexed, then darted to the hallway helplessly, but it was futile. From where the nurses were positioned, the situation looked innocent. A son softly speaking to his ailing father.

“Are you sure your brother will keep his mouth shut? I can’t risk anyone knowing. Even a whiff of suspicion could destroy my business dealings.”

“Baby, it won’t. I promise you.”

“I’m not a bad man, Josephine. But I don’t want this burden for the rest of my life.”

It was a year after my mother got seriously injured in a car accident that left her a quadriplegic. I was nine. Way too young to understand what it meant.

I didn’t know what to make of it then, so I’d collected every word said behind the library door where I’d eavesdropped, until the puzzle was complete. By the age of ten, I knew that conversation by heart.

By the age of twelve, I also knew exactly what it meant.

“Trust me, Daryl will help you. I’m telling you, darlin’, no one will ever know. Anyway, people have no right to judge. You may as well be married to a garden vegetable.”