12
ENZO
I STEP foot onto the Raptor, the yacht of mine Mr. Miller captains, with all of my furry flowing through me with a force I haven’t felt since I screwed up and sold Kai to Milo. It is going to take everything inside me not to kill this bastard the second I see him. He’s the reason Kai was tortured for six years. He is the reason she came back to try and claim the Black empire instead of staying gone. He is the reason I ended up hurting her.
No, I take responsibility for my own actions. I hurt her. I won’t let Mr. Miller take any of the blame.
But I am going to make him pay for what he did to Kai. I will pay every day of my life with every breath. I vowed to protect her with more than my life. And I plan on living that way.
Miller will eventually pay with his life, but not before Kai orders me to kill him. She will; she’s as ruthless as I am deep down. But I’m not sure she’s ready to kill her own father. That’s the kind of thing that takes years of abuse to develop. It needs to be personal. It needs to consume your every thought and every nightmare. Only then does someone turn to something as extreme as killing your own father. I should know.
I walk slowly and deliberately to the main office on the yacht in the middle of the night. A few crew members notice me, but they know better than to ask me any questions. I take a seat in the office like I own the place, and I do. I haven’t stepped foot on this particular yacht in years—mainly because of fucking Miller. I never trusted him, not when I knew he was Kai’s father. Not when I found out he never searched for her when she went missing. Not when I discovered he lived in a trailer for a house instead of a mansion. I pay him well enough to afford much more. And the story he’s fed Kai over the years about his wife’s hospital bills taking all his money is bullshit.
And all my suspicions were proved correct when I found out he was the one who sold Kai.
I wait for Mr. Miller, but I won’t wait for long. I’m giving him five minutes to get his ass into this office before I come after him and shoot him in the leg for making me wait. Kai can’t fault me too much for shooting him. Not when she experienced worse for years.
The door opens and Mr. Miller steps inside, his head up and proud, staring down at me like I’m vermin instead of a king. He stares down at me like I am less than, instead of worthy of all his attention. I guess I should thank him for passing the trait onto his daughter, because I love that she is the only woman who has ever truly stood up to me.
“You summoned me,” he says, not taking a seat in the chair opposite me.
“Sit,” I command.
He hesitates.
“Sit, or I’ll make you sit.”
He huffs like he knows I won’t.
Try me, old man.
When he sits, I notice the wrinkles around his eyes have deepened, the gray in his hair now covers his entire head of hair, even down to his beard. He truly looks like an old man. His muscles have weakened through the years. If he were any other of my men, I would retire him or fire him depending on how loyal he’d been to me over the years. But I can’t do either without pissing off Kai and breaking the rules since I’m required to run everything by her as co-Black for now.
I shouldn’t even be having this meeting without informing her. But this conversation will stay between us. This conversation will not leave this room.
Mr. Miller folds his hands in his lap while he spreads his legs, taking up the entire chair. He seems relaxed, but I can read people easily. He’s not relaxed. He knows I could end him as easily as I snap my fingers. He’s afraid of me.
“Why?” My entire body goes into that one word. One question has never been this important.
He laughs like I asked the most ridiculous question. “That’s not the question you should be asking. You already know why I sold her.”
I growl. He’s not even going to apologize for what he did. He made the decision as easily as he decided his breakfast this morning.
“It’s the question that matters to me. You hurt her. You answer to me.”
He chuckles again. “Why? Because you love her? You don’t care about my daughter any more than I do. Rumor is you sold her to our enemies. You don’t give a fuck, so stop pretending you do. If you need to take out your vengeance on someone, fine, take it out on me. But don’t act like you are any better than me.”
I storm toward him and kick him hard to the floor; he falls off balance and slams into the floor beneath him. My boot lands on his chest, pressing hard enough I know it’s hard for him to breathe.
“You will tell me everything. Or I will kill you.”
He spits at me. “I will tell you nothing more than what you deserve. And you don’t deserve the truth. You already know why I sold her, the same reason your father tortured you night after night. To toughen you up in order to win the empire.”
My eyes grow wide with anger. “And you know how I felt about my own father.”
He snickers using too much of his air as he does. “You fucking slaughtered him.”
“What makes you think I won’t do the same thing to you?”