“Obviously not,” Grandpa says in his signature hard voice. I learned early on that it only ever softens around Grandma and me.
“Then call me back in the morning. And next time you’re having late evening episodes, call that fucker Aiden.”
“There’s an emergency about your daughter.”
My eyes widen and Dad pauses before he sobers up. “What happened? She was texting me just fine yesterday.”
“Someone broke her heart and we need to break his legs.”
“Grandpa!” I try to hang up, but he keeps the phone out of reach.
“I see.” Dad sounds contemplative.
“Be here in twenty minutes.”
“On my way. Let me scold the hell out of my boys first for failing to protect their sister.”
“Dad, don’t!”
“We’ll talk in a few, Glyn.”Beep. Beep. Beep.
I groan. “Grandpa, why did you do that?”
“You said you can’t hit this tool yourself, so we’ll happily do you the favor.”
It dawns on me then. Grandpa was trying to teach me a lesson, to tell me that I had to do this for it to work.
“If you hit him for me, I’ll always feel helpless.”
He raises a brow. “Maybe.”
“But if I do it myself, I’ll get closure.”
“Who knows?”
I reach out and kiss him. “Thanks, Grandpa! Can you have Moses drive me back to campus?”
“I’ll do you one better and send you on my private jet. That is, if you can handle flying?”
“No, no flying three times in two days. And can you please call Dad and tell him the plan is off?”
“Who said it’s off?” He smirks. “We can always hit him after you’re done with him. No one messes with a King and lives to talk about it.”
* * *
By the timeI get to campus, I’m boiling with the destructive energy Grandpa has fueled me with.
Because he’s right.
Why should I be heartbroken, crying, and feeling miserable when the bastard doesn’t feel any of those emotions and never will?
The least I can do is hit him where it hurts to prove he has no hold on me.
And where it hurts is his mountain-sized ego. At first, I think of rubbing another man in his face, because I know how much he hates the mere thought of any man breathing near me.
But then I recall that he could and would kill them and I’m not ready to have that on my conscience. So the best way is to make him believe that without putting a specific person at risk.
After Moses, Grandpa’s trusted driver and bodyguard, drives me, I ask him if I can have a picture of me holding his hand on the armrest of the car and he says, “Whatever you need to get back at the loser.”