Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance (60 page)

“He glared at me with those glinting, pig-like eyes, and triumph sneered in his voice. ‘It was Montvale, wasn’t it?’

“He was so proud of himself for having figured it out. ‘That self-righteous prick Montvale put you up to this, didn’t he? Taking Aunt Alva from us wasn’t enough, inheriting her shares wasn’t enough – he wants it all, every last penny, and he figured Kevin’s idiot bastard son would be the perfect pawn. Tell me the truth, you useless damn abortion – you tell me how you both planned this, you tell me what he promised you to get you to sell out your own blood, and you tell me NOW!’

“Being accused of my father’s death was one thing – but Uncle Sheridan being dragged into the matter was quite another, and I heard myself speak up, helpless and hopeless and thinking like a fool that at least I could clear the name of the only family member who had ever treated me like a human being.

“ ‘Uncle Sheridan didn’t do anything wrong, he didn’t even know that – ’

“ ‘SHUT UP!’

“The roar of his voice pounded in my ears, and I didn’t even see the whiskey tumbler he threw at me until it was inches away, light flashing off its facets as it shot through the air like a missile. I dodged to one side and it detonated against the wall next to my head, slivers of glass exploding in every direction like shrapnel. One fragment sliced into my cheek, but it was like reading about someone in a distant war torn country having their face cut by flying debris – the dripping blood and the pain seemed to have little to do with me. All I could focus on, all I dared think about, was the screaming monster behind the desk.

“ ‘He’s not even your real uncle, you witless moron!’

“Anger beyond anything I’d ever seen burned in his eyes. ‘He’s not blood to you, he’s not blood to any of us – he stole a Killane woman, now he’s trying to parlay that into taking our money too, and he’s nothing but a holier-than-thou snob who thinks he’s so much BETTER than the rest of us!’”

“Yeah, but Uncle Sheridan
was
way better than any of those asshole clowns, on his worst day – with a broken arm and a hangover and wearing a pink tutu with bells on, he’d be better than that bunch.”

“You will get no argument from me on that. But I fumbled on, trying to answer him while searching for the magical combination of words that would defuse his anger – a useless enterprise, but it was the only course I saw before me.

“ ‘Please, I don’t know anything about any of this, Uncle Kennan, I swear – and I don’t care about my father’s money and his stuff, you can have it, I just want to –’

“ ‘Dear God, you brat, do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I’m as righteously stupid as YOU are? Do I look that stupid to YOU?’

“I didn’t dare say what he looked like to me, so I just watched as his piggy glare bore into me, and I didn’t say anything.

“He stared at me, breathing in ragged gulps, clenching and unclenching his fists, and then his attention wandered for a few seconds. He spotted his nearly empty bottle of Kentucky bourbon, reached for it, and then slowly realized the only glass he could have poured it into now lay shattered on the floor.

“He looked around like someone with only a vague memory of having once owned a glass, and then he turned back to the bottle, picked it up … and then set it back down with an echoing thump. He stared at it like it was some extraordinary alien visitor to his desk, and then he turned that stare on me.

“ ‘I know you did it.’

“His words fell into the silence. It was strange to hear that apish bellowing voice dialed down to a whisper, and quite terrifying to see him drift out from behind his desk like a wavering shadow.

“He stopped by the corner of the desk.

“ ‘I know you did it, and maybe it was that cocksucker Montvale’s idea and maybe it wasn’t – but it really doesn’t matter. Either way, Kevin got your gangling pale whore of a mother pregnant, and it came back to bite him in spades.

“ ‘You dragged him out to that racetrack, you tricked him somehow into climbing onto one of those crazy animals he wasted his money on, you spooked the stupid flighty thing into running into a tree, and you did it on purpose. Didn’t you?’

“The hell of it was that for all I knew, I had done it on purpose. I replayed that moment when I moved into the horse’s path over and over in my mind, on that night and on so many nights since, and I still don’t know why I took a single step in that one fatal direction. Like so many moments in life, it was something that just happened.”

“But you didn’t tell him the part where you moved, did you? Even though it was
so
not your fault, that would have been all the proof his rage-brain needed to convict you, right there.”

Devon turned his head, staring at me like a clockwork doll meeting a human for the first time. “Ashley, you are the only person I have ever told about that one deadly step I took that day. We are the only two people on earth who know I killed my father.”

“Devon, I don’t know how I’m supposed to plug this knowledge into your general weirdness, but what I do know for a fact is that you did NOT kill your dad. You didn’t kill the horse. You didn’t kill anybody, Devon.”

“Your gentle heart believes in my innocence, but I do not deserve your belief and your loyalty, sweet Ashley. I may or may not have moved on purpose, but I am as guilty of my father’s death as if I’d plunged a knife into his heart.”

And he turned away from me like an automated man, cutting off my protest before I even knew I’d decided to shut up.

Why the hell was he so set on taking the blame for something he didn’t do?

“Uncle Kennan took a step of his own just then – a single step out from the desk, though he kept his left hand on it to steady himself.

“He spoke again, and his voice dropped lower than ever.

“ ‘You did it, you stupid witless thing, and now we’re ruined. Ruined, all of us, and all because of you.’

“Another step closer, and then his voice fell so low, I strained to hear it.

“ ‘You don’t even know what you’ve done to us, do you? You’re truly that stupid.’

“He slid a step nearer.”

Devon shifted in his chair, edgy and restless.

“My uncle eased closer still, and when he spoke, his words came out in a spiteful hiss.

“ ‘How did Kevin find your mother? How did my brother find such a stupid woman to bear his stupid son?’

“My heart thundered in my chest. This was worse than the yelling – this shockingly quiet voice, and the way he was coming closer to me, step by inching step. Another stride or two, and he’d be within hitting range.

“Then an idea leapt up for attention in my mind, and I grabbed at it like a drowning man.

“ ‘Can I go back to Mama?’

“My thoughts gibbered in frantic circles, seized by joy and celebration and the desperate, fevered conviction that this was the perfect solution. I gabbled on, adding word upon word to my plea, and barely noticed as my uncle took two more steps towards me.

“ ‘My father’s dead and you don’t want me, so can I please go back to Mama? I know she’s in that hospital, but I can stay with her and help take care of her, and you’d never have to see me again. You and all my other uncles can have my father’s money; I’m not sure how all that works, but I’ll sign papers or whatever you need me to do – so can I go back to Mama?’

“My uncle’s voice rose, just a little, and his words were like a razor-sharp knife dripping with honey. He stood less than an arm’s length away.

“ ‘You want your mommy, little boy? Is that all you can think about, you worthless, murderous fuck?’

“His next words ended the world.

“ ‘Well, think again, because you killed her too.’ ”

Silence.

Devon’s eyes sank shut and he said nothing.

I said nothing, because what can you say when the bottom drops out of somebody’s life?

So I held him. Sometimes, that’s all you can do for someone you love.

The big guy’s eyes opened, and they were blank. He recited the rest of what happened that long-ago night as if the events were milk, bread, and eggs on a grocery list.

“Uncle Kennan’s trembling voice edged higher, and I didn’t move when he grabbed a fistful of my shirt and leaned into my face. The whiskey stink of his breath almost choked me.

“ ‘You know she’s in that hospital? You don’t know jackshit – she killed herself three days ago. The incompetent doctors in that shitty hole told her Kevin was dead, she wandered around whining about it all day – never said a word about you, by the way – and that night she broke into the medication room, gulped down every pill she could get her hands on, and slashed her wrists with the broken glass from one of the cabinets for good measure. She was dead and stiff and cold by the time they found her, and good fucking riddance – one less one whore in the world, and one less bill we have to pay.’

“He tightened his grip on my shirt and boosted me off the ground, sliding me up the door a few inches. I stared at him, I heard the truth in his voice, and then I heard him tell me about the note she left behind.

“ ‘She left a suicide note like a good little girl, though, told them all about why she was going to do it: ‘Kevin’s gone, and nothing’s left. I should go now.’ That was it – short, sweet, to the point, and didn’t mention one word about her forgotten, useless little killer of a son.’

“I heard my voice, and it was as if it belonged to some other boy, in some distant world that hadn’t collapsed into roaring chaos.

“ ‘Mama’s dead?’

“My uncle answered me by lifting me away from the door a few inches – I was still thin and small in those days, and he had the strength of an alcohol-soaked madman – and then he slammed my head back into the door with a sharp crack that echoed in the silence.

“Pain exploded in my skull, and I screamed in a long, whooping howl. Here it was, what I’d known was coming, the beating, but with Mama dead, did it even matter what happened now? Some distant part of me heard running footsteps in some part of the house that might have nearby, or far away – but that hardly mattered either.

“He grinned like a lord of devils, and he cracked my head against the door again. My eyes watered, I gasped, and something told me I should be crying, but I couldn’t find the breath.

“He eased me back down until my feet touched the floor again, but his left fist remained clamped in my shirt, just below my throat.

“Uncle Kennan bent down, leaned in close again, and spit and alcohol drooled from his mouth as he repeated the news of the world’s end.

“ ‘She’s dead, and you killed her – you killed your father, and that killed her when she found out. If she remembered you at all, she didn’t think you were worth sticking around for, and I don’t blame her – what kind of ungodly monster kills his own parents, anyway?

“He saw fit to answer his own question by lifting me up again with his left fist, pinning me hard against the door, and then hammering his right fist into my ribs, again and again, punching and splintering bone until I couldn’t so much as remember what it felt like to breathe.

“It was like … Ashley, I must confess, my memory of that day starts to fade a bit at that point, because in between punches, he bounced my head off the door so many times, I started to see the strangest halos and flickering lights everywhere I looked, and the rest … well, I’m not entirely sure what the rest of it was like. I can only remember spots here and there.

“There was more screaming, I guess that came from me … I remember he clamped his fingers around my throat somewhere in there, then dropped me to the floor and laughed as I lay shuddering at his feet. I watched him stagger back toward his desk, and I thought in some vague way that maybe it was all over, that now I could die and be safe – I heard footsteps again, maybe in the hall, but it was like listening to a news report from some forgotten corner of the world that didn’t really exist … and things turned grey for a while.”

How long had I been crying? I didn’t know, but tears streamed down my face, soaking into Devon’s shirt as I clung to his side.

“Baby, please, you don’t have to remember. Let’s just forget about this, you don’t have to tell me anything more, just stop and we’ll –”

He ignored me and rambled on.

“There’s a not a great deal more that I do remember about that night. About the only thing I recall with any clarity was that after I spent some foggy amount of time on the floor, my uncle reappeared.

“I saw his legs looming over me. Then he grabbed my shirt with his left fist and lifted me up against the door once again, until he was staring at me eye to eye as I hung pinned against the mahogany panels of the door like a rag doll dangling from a hook. His right hand was concealed behind his back, but that seemed like a trivial detail.

“Voices came to me from some foreign part of reality – they seemed close, but the only voice that truly registered was my uncle’s.

“His face filled the world. Our noses touched, he was so close, and when his voice rumbled like the first faint tremors of an earthquake, I felt the spray of his spit on my skin.

“ ‘Your father is gone. Your simpering slut of a mother is gone. I’m here now. And do you know who I am?’

“I barely knew who I was at that point. My throat was swollen and raw from screaming and being choked, a hollow roaring pounded through my ears, and my vision was blurring, doubling and tripling my uncle’s image. I could just make out his bringing his hidden right arm out from behind his back, and he was holding … something in his right hand.

“It was the nameplate from his desk. I couldn’t see very well just then, but I knew it from previous visits to his home; I knew it was perhaps eighteen inches long and made of veined Italian marble, with a gleaming gold plate inscribed with his name, ‘Kennan Alistair Killane,’ bolted to the front. Velvet lined the base so it wouldn’t scratch his desk. Between the marble and the gold, it was very heavy.

“ ‘DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?’

“His voice exploded in my face, loud as a freight train, and he shook me like a rat.

“Then he dove back into a whisper, and the change was so confusing and I was so close to losing everything that I didn’t think much at all about how he bent his right elbow and raised the nameplate like a club.