“Relax, princess,” I order softly, willing her to actually take a command for once. “I’ll be back soon, but I need to focus. If you need me urgently, call me, but make sure it’s urgent. I’ll answer.”
“Just—hurry.””
“I will.” I disconnect and consider the new information Harper has given me, but it changes nothing. In fact, it solidifies my plan.
I rejoin Savage and motion to the elevator. Once we’re inside, I eye him, aware that I don’t have the room number or a key to get upstairs, but he does. Or he better. I pay his team too damn much to have them be anything but prepared.
“Eleven,” Savage says, handing me a keycard. I accept it, put it to use, and pocket it, facing forward.
Savage doesn’t ask any further questions. I don’t offer any answers or commentary. We arrive at our destination and I cut him a look. “Stay by the elevator.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.” I motion to his cup. “I need that coffee.”
He takes another drink and hands it to me. The doors open and I exit the car, and start walking. The hallway is long and my mind counts out the steps without my permission. Ten. Twenty. Fifty-two and I’m at the door. My hands are full. It’s a good reason to pause. I haven’t seen my father in years. I could do without seeing him now.
I use my foot and knock on the door.
My father answers in a minute. Sixty-one seconds to be exact. “About time,” he grumbles appearing in the doorway, his gaze downward turned. “I ordered an hour—”
He looks up and stops speaking, shock sliding over his face. “Eric.”
We stare at each other, two bulls in a stand-off over the same red flag and that flag is power. In some way, shape, or form, a play for power has always been between us. Not love. Not friendship. Not father and son. Power. It’s always been about power.
Today that power is mine and we both know it.
It was mine the minute I decided to change my routine. The minute I showed up here and faced him instead of walking away.
“You wanted my attention,” I say. “You have it and I even brought coffee.” I offer him the heavier cup, the one Savage hasn’t been drinking from, his cup.
He says nothing, but he accepts the coffee and steps back, offering me entry into his suite. I move forward into an elegant living area, with a desk to the right and a television to the left. He motions to a door at the back of the room to the left. I’ve been in enough Ritz Carlton hotels to know that will be an office where he wants to sit behind a desk and play the power card.
I sit down in a chair, letting him know this is how we’re doing this: my way, not his.
He grimaces. “Okay, son. Have it your way.” He sits down on the couch, his spine stiff, his tone formal, but he’s dressed in his casual gear which for him is a crisp white button-down shirt and dress pants, with his thick head of hair neatly styled.
He glances at the cup in his hand, smirks as if this is a peace offering and he’s won a war, before he takes a drink. “Now what?” he challenges and then he’s grabbing his throat, gasping. He’s starting to choke.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Eric
The coffee cup falls from my father’s hand and crashes to the floor, splattering with impact, liquid droplets hitting my face and arms. Choking sounds come from his throat, fear etched in the eyes of a man that feels no emotion. A desperate plea for help swims in the depths of that fear, directed at me. I wait to feel remorse. I wait to feel panic over the potential loss of my last living parent. I feel none of those things. In fact, I have several seconds in which I contemplate letting the bastard die and burn in hell. In which I want to tell him: Everyone dies. Get over it. Then an image of Harper flashes in my mind, Harper looking up at me with love in her eyes, with expectations that I be better than the man whose blood runs through my veins.
My father falls to his side and starts to jerk, his vomiting a sure sign that he’s been poisoned. Aware that there isn’t much I can do for him right here and now, besides get him help and make sure his throat remains clear, my jaw clenches and I set my cup down on the table, standing up, and charging to the door. I yank it open to find Savage exactly where I expect him to be, by the door, despite me telling him to stay at the elevator. “Get an ambulance here now,” I order, knowing that his team will bypass the millions of questions I don’t want to answer right now.
Savage curses and I’m already turning away when I hear him directing his team to order emergency services. I race back inside the room and Savage catches the door as my father rolls off the couch onto the floor, crashing between the couch and the coffee table. I walk to the table, move it and flatten him on his back, kneeling by him to rotate him to his side, pressing his shoulders to the couch and pulling his leg forward. “An ambulance is on the way,” I tell him, not so much to comfort him, but out of obligation. He damn sure didn’t comfort my mother through her cancer.
I’ve done what I can do for the man. He’s now in a recovery position, a position that prevents him from choking to death, despite all his groaning and panting. Savage kneels beside me and eyes the coffee cup on the floor. “Do I need to get rid of that?” he says, obviously as aware as I am that poison is the culprit in my father’s ailment.
“Genius doesn’t mean stupid,” I snap. “No, you don’t fucking need to get rid of the coffee cup.”
“Fill me in here, man, and do it like I’m stupid. I’m in this room with you trying to cover your ass.”
I settle back on my haunches, my hand on my knee. “He took a drink. He started choking.”
“Like I said. Do I need to get rid of the fucking coffee cup?”