I needed more. So much fucking more.
More depth to my battle with Drake.
More weight to my punches.
Enough weight to fucking bury him in the ground.
To do that, I’d need to dig seriously fucking deeper and come out swinging. But where to start?
There was only one place to start. A place I’d been avoiding for years.
“I’m coming,” I whispered to the screen like a man fucking possessed, speaking to the girl I was praying was speaking to me and no other fucker on this planet. “I promise, I’m coming.”
I wondered what she felt. What she thought. What the holy living fuck some cunt like Drake had told Paige was happening to explain her new fucking location.
I wondered whether Eric was going to do a good enough job to worm his way in alongside her. A good enough job to get close enough to whisper my truth into her ear and tell her I was heading her way.
That I cared.
That I wanted her. Needed her. Hell, fucking adored her.
That I loved her.
The feed on screen was beautiful. She was beautiful.
Her breaths were quick and quiet as she touched that ripe little clit of hers and pushed herself to orgasm. Her shudders were real. Her needs were real.
Her tears were real.
The whole world of viewers would have been cursing like hell when the broadcast cut to black before she was done. I knew what the words on screen said before even needing to fucking read them.
Bookings available. Contact D only. First come, first served. Make the bids count or lose out.
Cunt.
An epic cunt of all proportions. There was no way he wouldn’t get maximum bids from the biggest pricks on the books in light of that little wonder.
My notification was dead and useless. His temptation was beyond any fucking thing I could mail out to the user base.
The night stretched out, loud and long in the silence. I found myself pacing the gardens in the dark. Alone. So fucking alone.
Solitude didn’t usually bother me. I usually took any company as standard, unwanted, for granted. Security staff. Eric. Clients. Girls. I didn’t think I cared for any of it.
It seemed that once again, I’d been wrong.
Now there was only me and the silence. A gawping maw of a deserted manor in the middle of nowhere, craving her back in there as much as I did.
Fuck this shit.
I didn’t even wait until the morning before diving into action. I locked up on a whim, throwing a selection of clothes into a suitcase along with my laptop and hard drives. I sped from the driveway with no serious idea where I was headed until I came to the main junction and indicated left for north.
Home.
I was going home. The only place I’d ever truly considered as home.
The family manor, up in Chepstow, the place I’d grown up in, relatively happily until it all went to shit at nineteen. The place where my earliest involvement with Drake would come back to life in my memory. Where our documents were still stored hidden deep — my father’s secrets still stored tight and bound.
My father’s contacts were still waiting to be sifted through by my fingers. My father’s hidden treasures waiting for my hungry eyes.
Ammunition.
So much ammunition.
I’d usually avoid stepping back into the tragic part of my life and the surrounding misery with a fucking bargepole, but not that night. It was paramount to take advantage. It was all about twisted gut on top of twisted gut, the painful memories barely making any more of an impact as I sped across country.
Instinct. I guess it was instinct. The knowing that my father and Drake had too much of a handshake history for there to be nothing of value to find. I’d find enough to take the piece of shit down, whatever the cost.
It was pitch black when I pulled up on my childhood driveway, eyes still wide having driven a few hours up the coast. I flinched at the torchlight as I slipped my front door key into the lock, holding up a hand as the owner took a breath and cursed in recognition.
“Sorry, Mr Grant, sir. I thought you were a burglar.”
I had to squint against the glare to recognise the old man in front of me.
“Fred,” I said. “Long time no see.”
“Long time no visit, sir,” he responded, and stepped forward to help me with the stiff lock.
The door made the same creak as it swung inwards. It crept up my spine like fingernails.
I didn’t even want to calculate just how long it had been since I’d set foot over the threshold. My heart was in my throat as I stepped into the hallway and good old Frederick flicked the chandelier on overhead.
Timeless.
The place was timeless. No changes made whatsoever to the furnishings or décor.
I heard Eric’s childhood shouts as he chased me down the staircase in front of me. I felt the plush carpet under bare feet with tiny toes, even though it may as well have been a thousand years ago.