Chapter 54
JEREMIAH
Loud bangs rang out into the cold night air as I pounded on the front door of my father’s house. The sprawling estate probably didn’t really classify as a house. It was more of a compound or a fortress. But it was where I grew up and where my father still lived.
Alone, in a nine-bedroom, twelve-bathroom house. He didn’t even keep a full contingent of staff anymore. It was him, the groundskeeper, and Macey the housekeeper.
I wasn’t worried about waking either of them. Both the workers stayed in quarters around the back of the house and would be asleep by now. When Jack and I still lived here, there was a round-the-clock chef and housekeeper who would’ve opened the door for me tonight. But after we moved out and more particularly, after Jack’s death, Dad fired them all.
I never understood why two children and one adult needed so many people to tend to them anyway, or why we needed such a big house for that matter. It never felt like a home. It was a house inhabited by a few people. There were no warm and fuzzy memories for me here.
It was too dark to see right now, but next to the brick and stone mansion was a swimming pool the size of a hotel pool and a squash court. Further down the estate was a pond, a boathouse, and finally the riverfront. Dad kept a sixteen-foot boat, but he never took it out anymore.
I wondered if I made a mistake coming here tonight, but no. I left Stephanie’s house like a bat out of hell for a reason. I took some time to clear my head and try to figure out what the right thing was to do, and now I had to get it done.
There were no sounds coming from the inside of the house. Not surprising since it was around eleven at night. My father usually went to bed by nine thirty. No give, no take. If he wasn’t out, he was in bed by then.
He was going to be livid about this disruption, but I forgot to bring any fucks to give back from that hotel Jannie took me to. The long, terrible day behind me just didn’t seem to want to end. After I left Stephanie’s, I drove around for hours until finally winding up here. At my father’s door.
Parked in the circular driveway behind me was my Jaguar. I loved the thing, but it wasn’t the Chiron. The mere fact that I was driving it was a reminder of everything that happened today.
Which was why I had to come here. Why no amount of driving calmed me down. It had been a hell of a day and finding out my father didn’t really even believe I was in danger irked me.
I couldn’t let it go. The man lost one son, and he didn’t give a damn when his other got kidnapped. It was hard to believe. Harder to believe he actually thought I might’ve gotten drunk and blew everything off.
Had I proven nothing to him over the last three years? Was he totally blind to the hours I put in at his company? I took full responsibility for being an immature jackass when I was younger, but I hadn’t been that guy for years.
I didn’t need his approval. I didn’t give a damn about what he thought, but I was tired of having to hear about it. I was fucking sick of having him badmouth me to my face and behind my back and worse, of him digging into Stephanie when she had nothing to do with any of it. My father’s issue was with me. God only knew why he kept taking it out on her. He never used to act that way to anyone else, not that I could remember. Whatever it was, it was time for him to stop doing it.
Maybe it was being kidnapped, or maybe it would’ve happened today anyway, but I needed to look into his eyes and tell him what I needed to tell him. The doors we blew open after our argument in my office last week opened a floodgate of memories for me, times over the years I kept quiet when I shouldn’t have.
I kept pounding on the door. Eventually, he was going to have to get out of bed and answer it. I banged harder, with both fists now. “Dad! It’s me. Open up.”
A couple of minutes later, I heard him yelling. “I’m coming. Hold your horses.”
The heavy wooden double doors opened with a deep creak, and my father’s pissed-off face appeared from behind them. “Do you have any idea what the time is, Jeremiah?”
“Yeah Dad, I do. It’s about time we talked,” I said, pushing past him through the door. I didn’t go any deeper into the house, coming to a stop in the entrance hall. It was a cavernous space with high ceilings and an actual stained-glass window.
A rich red wine-colored rug was under my feet, the same one Dad had installed when I was in elementary school. Macey kept it spotless, just like the gleaming dark wood furniture and the polished parquet floors. Too bad she couldn’t clean my father’s soul.
“What do we need to talk about at this hour?” he asked, leaving the doors open behind him. A breeze swept inside, making my dad’s navy blue robe twist around his ankles. He whipped it away angrily. “This better be good, son.”
“I was kidnapped today,” I said, feeling the burn from the anger slowly make its way up to my heart.
My father scowled, shrugging. “Yes, I’m aware. What about it?”
“I’ve had phone calls and messages from half the city,” I continued, folding my arms in front of me. “You know whose was missing?”
“The mayor?” he guessed dryly, his face becoming redder and redder. Rage swirled in his eyes, still bloodshot with sleep.
I shook my head. “I got a message from his office, actually. They wished me a speedy recovery and hoped we were satisfied with the service we received from the police department. You, on the other hand, I haven’t heard a word from.”
My father scoffed, muttering angrily. He ignored my comment about him not having called. “Service? Those people didn’t give us any service. They listened like their ears were glued to their asses.”
“Could it be because they were listening to Stephanie until you came along, insisting I hadn’t been taken? Maybe they didn’t think looking for a drunken driver who so happened to be a reckless idiot sleeping it off was worth wasting their time on.”
Widening his eyes, he let his lids droop again. “You can blame me all you want. Based on your history, it was the right assumption to have made at that point in time. Believing you were kidnapped by a woman right off the bat was ridiculous.”