Her eyes widened in shock, but then her lips twisted into a smirk and her eyes glistened with mischief. The small giggle then burst into a full-on laugh and she shook her head. “Oh dear. I think you might have quite a bit to learn about me, Rik.”
I nodded, not doubting her one bit, but then I didn’t doubt myself either. Esther was going to learn, and if that was by the hard way, then bring it on.
Training Esther was going to be so much fun. In more ways than one.
Twenty-four
Esther
My mother looked even paler since I’d last seen her. I could never have imagined that possible in such a short space of time, but it seemed I had a lot to learn that day.
She sipped her coffee, her eyes finding mine across the small width of the table we’d sat down at in a local café. “I only have days now, Esther.”
Her words made my heart clench, but it was obvious she hadn’t finished talking, so I nodded and bit my lip to stop the grief in me from pouring out.
She sighed heavily, a sparkle of worry and sadness reflected in the paleness of her grey, tired eyes. “It’s time.”
I shook my head and frowned. “Time?”
I watched her throat bob when she gulped and then blew out a breath. “William Dean is not your real father.”
She was so blunt, so frank, that for a long moment I ran her words over and over in my head, trying to process what she’d just said.
“Sorry, what?”
Nothing made sense, like her words had had a magical effect on my brain and anaesthetised the part that deciphered all communication.
Tears welled in her eyes and she leaned across the table to gently place her hand on my cheek. Her touch was icy cold but so very soft, and all I wanted to do was place my hand over hers to warm it through. Yet I couldn’t move, the shock influencing every single bodily function and rendering me still. “Your real father loved you very much, Esther. He took over looking after you when I couldn’t, when it was impossible for me to be with you.”
My head shook harder. She wasn’t making sense and I had to wonder if the medication she was taking was playing havoc with her mental state. “Mum, I don’t understand.”
Clicking her tongue, she sat back in her chair and picked up her coffee cup, cradling it in her hands to try and grant her a bit of warmth. “I met your father when I was already married to William. Our affair wasn’t anything romantic, nothing like what all the love stories are written from. I was drunk, very drunk, and he was my boss at the time. It was a work’s do and I’d had a huge argument with William.” She twisted her lips and laughed dryly. “So, to put it bluntly, I fucked my boss at the office Christmas party and got pregnant. Rather cliché really,” she added with a small smile.
My mouth fell open, the only physical reaction to her revelation. I hadn’t ever met my mother’s old boss, so how the hell could he have looked after me when I’d never known him? However, something tiny started to sizzle in my head, building at a rapid rate, until my mind was flashing with images and thoughts of everyone I had known since I had left my family home. A minute mocking voice in my head started to get louder and louder when she just stared at me, waiting for the penny to drop.
My skin crawled and the beat of my heart sped up. The room swam as I sank back in my chair and gawped at my mother in horror. “No. What? No. He can’t have…”
Closing her eyes for a moment, she nodded and then looked back at me with a depth of sorrow that took my soul and crushed it. “Geoffrey Sparrow was your real father, Esther.”
Horror, grief, anger and disbelief rushed through me, each emotion clashing with the other. My lungs cried out at the pressure when I couldn’t seem to release the breath I was holding in. Vomit curled in my belly and I clamped my teeth together in a stupid bid to keep it contained.
“No.”
She nodded again. She didn’t seem to be able to do much else other than fucking nod. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
“NO!” I shouted, the rage inside finally breaking free. “You shouldn’t have told me! Not now. Not now it’s too late!”
Then the penny finally dropped. An icy cold shiver made its way through my body, freezing every single thought in my head until all I could focus on was the one blatant fact that seemed to slap me in the face.
“My father killed Geoffrey!”
Again, she nodded.
“Stop fucking nodding!” I screamed. “Just stop fucking nodding and talk to me. God damn it. Tell me. Tell me!”
All heads in the small café turned to stare at us. But I didn’t care. I didn’t give a flying fuck that everyone was joining in on our private conversation. I wasn’t concerned that I was shouting about murder, and deceit and betrayal. All I cared about was that Geoffrey had known I was his daughter, and not once had he ever told me, or even hinted at it.
Pain speared my heart and I buried my face in my hands and cried.
“Yes, William ordered the hit on Geoffrey,” she divulged quietly, aware that we were putting on a show. “He was also blackmailing him. He found out where you were, Esther. And he used that against Geoffrey. If Geoffrey provided him with government plans, names, addresses, even bank accounts of each undercover agent, then he would stay out of your life.” Her voice was muffled, a humming in my head that slowly morphed into a squealing hell inside my skull.
A random customer screamed when I shot upright and flung the small table to the side. My mother’s eyes fixed on me when I trapped her on the floor beneath me, but she didn’t show one ounce of fear. Only sorrow. Only regret.
“I’m sorry, Esther. Geoffrey and me, we thought we were doing what was best for you. William never knew that you weren’t his, not until a few months back. I found out about the cancer and I had to tell him.”
Parts of my mind started to disintegrate, the truth breaking me apart from the inside out. Pain seared through me, turning the air in my lungs to acid, each breath scorching me on its way out.
“Why? Why are you telling me this now?”
She was so calm with the next words that left her that I froze with the severity of them.
“Because he will never set you free, baby. I’m giving you the courage to pull the trigger, the food to feed your hunger. There’s only one way that you can remove William Dean from your life. And that will only ever be with the death of one of you.”
She was giving her daughter permission to murder her own husband. How fucked up were we all? My family was fucking insane, every single one of us.
“Jesus Christ,” I uttered. “How did we ever get to this?”
Sighing, she sat up when sadness suddenly overwhelmed the anger and I eventually climbed off her. “We got to this because we were forced to.”
Shaking my head, I looked at her with disgust. “No, you had a choice, Mum. I had a choice, and I chose to do the right thing and leave…”
“And now?” she spat. “What the hell are you doing now? You’ve sank back into it with so much ease I have to wonder if you ever left it behind. Don’t kid yourself, Esther, violence and the lust for spilling blood is as much in your bloodstream as William’s. He may not be your blood relative, but he’s very much in your soul.”
“And tell me, Mother, just how Geoffrey knew where to find me after I left.”
For the first time, fear danced in her eyes and she looked away.
“You knew, didn’t you? You knew where I was when I left.”
She nodded, admitting what I suspected. “Just because I didn’t involve myself in the physical side of William’s business it doesn’t mean I didn’t learn a thing or two from him. I knew how to track you down, and then I went to Geoffrey. It was too much of a risk for me to contact you.”
“And he came to me.”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t untangle the web of thoughts and feelings riding me. Geoffrey had found me, took me under his wing and helped me. Yet I was his flesh and blood, and although he had treated me as such, it still
didn’t change the fact he never admitted it to me.
“And what if he’d told you, Esther?” Mum asked as if she could read my thoughts. “What would you have done?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.” She slid forward on her backside towards me and took my hands in hers. “It would have changed everything. You were safe with Geoffrey. He looked after you, made sure you had the right life and money in the bank. You were on the streets, Esther. Yes, you could take care of yourself, but you deserved so much more. And Geoffrey gave you that. He made you feel loved, proud of yourself, and he taught you right from wrong. He came through when we both needed him. Don’t ever think bad of him for this. He even protected you when William found you. Geoffrey went against every moral fibre of his being to protect you, you shouldn’t hate him for that.”
“I don’t hate him,” I whispered, the sting of tears wetting my cheeks. “I couldn’t ever hate him, but things could have been so different if I’d known.”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “You’d probably have come looking for William and never left again.” She swallowed and shook her head slowly. “I should never have told him. I should have taken the secret to the grave with me.”
I squeezed her hand. “No, I understand why you told him. And I understand why you’re now telling me, but Geoffrey didn’t deserve any of this.”
“No, he didn’t. He was a good man, but you did deserve him.”
Although my mother had verified Rik’s suspicions, I was also relieved to know that Geoffrey had had no other choice. He wasn’t a bad person, far from it. He destroyed himself to protect me, and that meant even more to me.
Blowing out a breath I lifted my eyes back to my mother’s. “You do know what happens now?”
“Yes. As I said, there’s only one way you will ever be free. Although I will always love William in my own way, I owe you the truth. What you do with that truth is up to you now, but I can leave with a clear conscience. Well, as much as I can. I’ve not been a good woman, Esther, far from it, and if this gives me a little peace when I’m gone, then I have to take what I can.”
She leaned forward and softly kissed my cheek. “Be happy, my beautiful girl. Do what makes your heart beat harder and embrace every bit of life you can.”
“You need to be with me, Mum.”
She smiled sadly but shook her head. “No. I’m leaving this afternoon.”
“What?” My heart crumbled in my chest and I grabbed hold of her when panic took my breath. “No. You…”
“I want to be alone, baby. I need to do this alone.” Her smile turned tender as a single tear fell from her and she wiped at my many ones with her thumbs. “I love you so very much. You gave my life meaning, my heart fulfilment. You’re my baby, the only one that will ever love me unconditionally.”
“But…”
“Please, Esther. Please let me do this how I want to. I’ve never asked for anything from you, but I am now. Please.”
I nodded, unable to go against her wishes. It tore pain into every fibre of me, but it was her decision.
“Thank you,” she whispered when she wrapped me in her arms and pulled me to her tightly. “Now go do what you have to.”
I pulled back, trying to focus on her face through the river of my grief. “I love you.”
“I love you, Esther. Now learn to love yourself, because you are the most amazing woman. You kick ass and you have the biggest heart, it will lead you right in the end, just learn to listen to it.”
Grief was threatening to tear me apart, and I wouldn’t allow her to see that. Understanding, she nodded, her smile both full of desolation and tenderness. “Go,” she whispered, “Go now.”
“Momma…”
“Shush, baby. I’m ready, I am so ready now. Please let me be free.”
I had to allow her that, I didn’t have a choice. So, blowing out a breath, I softly kissed her cheek, stood up and walked away.
I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. The grief was too unbearable and I knew if I looked back then I wouldn’t make it out of there without refusing her her very last wish.
The world was blurred, the haze of my tears distorting every one of my steps.
I should have gone back. Not for my mother’s benefit, but for mine.
As I stepped around the side of the building towards my car, the pain that shot through the back of my skull when something hard connected with it was soon overtaken by blackness.
Twenty-five
Bane
“Where the fuck was you?”
Frank grimaced, regret evident on his face but that didn’t dampen the rage I directed at him. “I’m sorry, boss.”
“Jesus! Are you all fucking incompetent?”
Lex gritted his teeth and although it didn’t go unnoticed I was too full of anger to start a fight with him. I’d have ripped him apart.
“CCTV footage?”
Grace shook her head. “Nothing, but her mother says she saw a black Merc pull out of the car park as she headed that way. We can’t be sure if it has anything to do with Ghost’s disappearance but there were only a few in the café and no one else left between Ghost and Sherry leaving.”
I nodded. “Do we know of anyone with a black Merc that is involved with Esther?”
“Looking into it,” Tack piped up. “By the way, Sherry is waiting for you in the hub.”
“Good.”
“Boss,” Frank caught up with me when I stomped down the corridor. I didn’t turn to him, I was too fucking angry. “I am genuinely sorry. I was following a lead at the time.”
Sighing, I nodded. I knew it wasn’t his fault, after all, everyone knew that Esther could take care of herself. “Anything I should know about?”
“Hmm.” The way he murmured it had unease trickling into my bloodstream and I turned to look at him, finally giving him my attention. “Seems McKayla Benson hasn’t been entirely truthful about her references, or her history come to that.”
“How do you mean?”
“I checked out the four references she gave when she applied for the job at Sparrow. Not one of the phone numbers is obtainable anymore. I went to a couple of the addresses given for the referees, and guess what?”
“No longer there?”
“Bingo. Looks like they were verified at the time of her application.”
“But that doesn’t mean they were genuine,” I mused. It didn’t sit right and a nudge on my instincts had my blood heating. “Bring her in.”
“On it,” Frank answered instantly, spinning and disappearing back down the corridor.
Sherry was sat, tapping her nails on the table when I opened the door. She looked unwell, and nothing like I remembered from when I was a kid. Her once voluptuous figure was now stick thin, the long blonde waves now grey and cut short. She had been pretty, and even though she now still had those stunning features, her face was gaunt and her cheekbones prominent.
Instantaneously, she shot upright. “Please tell me you’ve found her.”
“Not yet, but I will.”
Closing her eyes, she blew out a breath and ran her agitated fingers through her hair. “This is all my fault.”
“Is it?”
She looked affronted I didn’t disagree with her but she didn’t know me very well.
“There’s stuff you need to know, Rik.”
“Oh?”
I sat and listened as Sherry explained what she had told Esther just before some fucker had taken her. It didn’t shock me but it did surprise me. However, the only thought I could focus on was that I hadn’t been there to ease Esther’s pain when she had found out. I wanted to protect her from everything, even the ache in her soul. I knew that was impossible but it would never stop me from trying. Esther pretended she was tough, and physically she was, but she was also very soft-hearted, and that was her weakness. She had always tried to see the good in people, even when we had been kids, and it had often had me secretly beating the fuck out of someone when I had witnes
sed the hurt in Esther’s eyes after they had turned on her.
But at least now it made sense why Geoffrey had been involved in the disclosure of confidential information. I had accepted Esther’s trust for him, but that hadn’t meant he was innocent. It also now gave us a motive for all this Sparrow bullshit, and it tied in William Dean.
Now all I had to do was find Esther, and take down William Dean once and for all.
Twenty-six
Esther
I wanted to rip her face off and shove it so far up her dry, saggy cunt that I’d be able to re-attach it to her head.
“I’m gonna enjoy killing you, Christy, slowly and as painfully as possible!”
She laughed, her ugly fucking face pulling even tighter - if that was a possibility. “I seriously doubt it. You’ve lost your touch, Esther.”
Her eyes slowly swept over my naked body, the blood that trickled between my legs giving her some amusement. “Oh dear, did Scottie make a mess?”
She expected my devastation, my absolute breakdown at what had occurred over the last eight hours. Every inch of my body hurt, including my soul, yet I would never let this bitch witness one tiny piece of that. “Ahh, he was really quite gentle.” I leaned forwards a little, as much as the chains suspending me from the ceiling would allow. “Not very big, is he?”
She blinked, the anger and disappointment that flashed in her eyes giving me a pinch of satisfaction.
“Does my father know I’m here?” I knew my dad was a bastard, but surely, he wouldn’t sanction the rape and torture of his daughter. He would crucify Christy for this.
“He does,” she smirked. “Who do you think gave the order?”
I was unable to answer, the crushing feeling in my chest restricting the words that wanted to tear away from my soul. Instead, I just smiled and nodded.
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