I stare at the front door waiting for Paul Ryan’s arrival. This has been such a long time coming and I am ready for it. For him.
It’s a sound from the back of the house that startles me. Of course he wouldn’t walk through the front door like a man. Sneaking in where he won’t be seen is entirely fitting for him. I walk through the hallway to the kitchen and see the basement door is ajar and the light is on. It bathes the kitchen in a soft amber glow that makes the old farmhouse look almost homely.
“Are you hiding from me?” I call. “Surely you’re not afraid?”
His laugh echoes up the basement steps and it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“Afraid of you, little bird. Never,” he hisses.
I walk closer to the steps and peer into the basement. He stands out of sight but I see his shadow on the wall. “After all these years, you’re still hiding in the dark. Why don’t you come up here and face me?”
“I’m standing in the light, Jessica. Come down here and see for yourself.”
I take a deep breath. I know this must be a trap, but I want answers and he is the only man left to give me any. I can’t go on living half a life.
I walk down the stairs, with my gun pointed straight at his head. He places his hand over his heart as though he is deeply wounded by the fact I’d love nothing more than to shoot him in the face. “Is this what we have come to, Jessica?”
“You must know I want you dead?” I arch an eyebrow at him. “This time I’ll make sure to finish the job.”
He rubs a hand over his throat, his fingers curling through his thick beard as he glares at me. “Hmm. That was a nasty scratch.”
“How did you survive?”
He starts to laugh as he takes a step toward me. “I have survived far worse than that before. You think that you have the power to kill me? I am the Wolf!”
“You are Paul Ryan. A man who pretends to be something more is still just a man.”
I point the gun as he takes another step and he looks above my head. I look up too and see the red spot on the door above me. That’s when I notice the small black box in his hand. “I have them all over this room, Jessica.” He holds up the box and shows me his finger over a silver button. “You’ll be dead before you can squeeze off a round. As soon as your rescuers come for you, they will walk straight in here and meet their deaths. It seems everyone around you meets a similar fate, doesn’t it? Perhaps you are cursed?”
“Fuck you!” I hiss.
“Hmm. We’ll get to that later,” he leers at me and the bile rushes up from my stomach and burns my throat.
“Why did you take me?” I ask as I walk further down the steps. I’d take my chances with dropping him before he has a chance to press that button, but I still want answers before I kill him.
“What?”
“Why? Why didn’t you kill me like you were supposed to?”
He frowns at me. “I saved your life.”
“No. You chose not to kill me but kidnapped and tortured me instead. Risking everything you had built. Why?”
“I risked nothing,” he spits. “Money and houses and things are not everything.”
“I know. But your reputation. Your livelihood. Why did you give all that up?”
“For you, Jessica.”
“No,” I shake my head. “You didn’t even know me. Tell me why.”
“I didn’t have to know you to see that you were special. Alexei didn’t deserve you. Your parents could not protect you. I could. I did.” He beats his own chest with pride as though he actually believes that. “My nephews think they are powerful men, but they couldn’t protect you either.”
At the mention of his nephews my heart breaks a little inside. I wonder if they’ve noticed I’m gone yet.
“I wasn’t yours to take,” I say, my voice cracking.
“But you have always been mine. As soon as I saw you I knew that you were made for me. We are bound together. Why do you think it was my nephews who found you? So that they could bring you back to me.” He looks at me with such a strange look of anguish on his face that I think he actually believes some of that bullshit.
“You’re crazy. One hundred percent deluded.”
“You know that we belong together. I was your first love. Your first everything. That has connected us beyond anything else ever could. I taught you how to experience true pleasure.”
I feel anger bubbling beneath my skin, threatening to burst out of me at any moment. It took me a long time to deal with the shame of what he did to me. Of how he could manipulate my body into climaxing, which he used as justification for his sick and twisted torture. “You raped me, you fucking maniac!” I spit at him. “I enjoyed nothing of what we did. Nothing.”
I stare at him and feel so much venom that it seeps from every pore in my body. The sound of the door breaking down and footsteps can be heard above us and my heart sinks. I can’t believe I have lured the men I love to their deaths. I can’t believe I thought I could beat him after all this time.
“Oh, here are my boys now,” he says with a cruel smile. “Call to them, Jessica. Tell them where you are.”
“Fuck you!” I spit and he laughs. I could tell them to go away, but nothing I say is going to stop them coming in here.
A moment later, Liam comes running into the room with his three brothers close behind him.
“Stop!” I shout, my voice cracking with fear. “He has the whole place rigged.”
Shane grabs hold of Liam’s collar to stop him walking toward me and the four of them freeze as they stare at me.
“He’s got sniper rifles set up all around the room. He has the controller in his hand,” I nod to Paul and he holds up the small black box in his hand.
“That’s right,” he says with a grin.
“He’s bluffing,” Mikey snaps.
“He’s not,” I shake my head. “They are trained on the door there where you are. He showed me.”
Shane turns to his uncle. “You knew she’d come here. You set this up?”
“Yep.”
“What the fuck do you want?” he snarls.
“What I’ve always wanted. My Jessica back,” he smiles.
“She is not your Jessica!” Shane hisses.
“Oh, but she is!” Paul snarls. “You think there isn’t a single inch of her body that I didn’t claim long before you lot got your filthy hands on her? Who do you think it was who taught her what she really likes?” He licks his lips and I feel the bile rise in my stomach again as they have to listen to this. “I know the many ways to make her scream. In pain and pleasure!”
I press my lips together as I try to drown out his sick ramblings and think of a way out of this.
“You think telling us how you raped and tortured our girl will end well for you?” Conor growls.
“Your girl!” Paul laughs loudly. “Did she tell you that she didn’t enjoy it? Did she tell you how hard I can make her come for me. She has the sweetest cream,” he croons and the bile burns the back of my throat now but I swallow it down.
I keep my gun trained on him as I look between him and the brothers.
“You will never touch her again!” Conor snarls.
“Volk!” Wolf! I shout, using the name his ego will respond to. “Just let them go,” I plead with him.
He looks at me and shakes his head. “You know I can’t do that. I can’t risk them telling anyone who I really am. I can’t be worrying about them coming looking for us.”
“They won’t,” I insist.
“The fuck we won’t!” Mikey snaps and I suck in a breath. How the hell are we all going to get out of this alive?
Shane raises his gun and points it at his uncle too.
“Careful now,” Paul chuckles. “There’s a gun trained on Jessica too.”
“You’re lying,” Shane snaps.
“Nope,” he shakes his head. “If I can’t have her, then I’m certainly not letting you have her.”
“You are a fucking psychopath,” Shane snarls at him.
“Me?” Paul shakes his head. “You are the one who has been lying to her. Manipulating her into believing that you loved her, when you were working for me all along. Isn’t that right, Shane?”
Shane’s frown deepens. “What the fuck?”
“Come on, now. You know it’s true. Do your brothers know too?”
“You’re lying!” Shane snaps.
“But we both know you’re the liar in here, Shane. Do your brothers know about the other little secret you’ve been keeping from them?” he cackles.
Conor, Liam and Mikey look to Shane now and suddenly I see the way out. I have no idea what Paul is on about, but he is a deluded maniac, and I can work with that.
“I will put a bullet in your head if you speak another word,” Shane hisses.
“Try it. And at least two of your brothers will die along with her if you do. Because I can push this button quicker than you can fire off a single round.”
“What secret?” Liam asks and I see the color drain from Shane’s face. Damn! He really does have a secret.
“He’s lying,” Shane repeats.
“You know that I’m not,” Paul glares at him. “Tell them, Shane. Tell them what you’ve been hiding from them all these years. Or shall I tell them the real reason their daddy hated their guts?”
“Fuck you!” Shane spits but his brothers look between him and Paul.
I look between them too, wondering what the hell is going on here.
“Why did he hate us, Shane?” Mikey asks.
“It’s not the time!”
“It fucking is,” Liam barks and Shane shakes his head in annoyance.
“Go on, tell them who their real daddy is, Shane!” Paul chuckles.
“What?” Conor blinks in confusion. “What the fuck is he talking about, Shane?”
They are not going to let this go and I watch the perverse satisfaction on Paul’s face as he watches the unbreakable bond of the Ryan brothers fracturing before his eyes.
“He’s talking about the twins.” Shane’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. “Patrick wasn’t their real father.”
“So who is?” Mikey asks.
“He is,” Shane looks up at Paul who is grinning maniacally at them.
“Surprise, boys!” he shouts. “Daddy’s home!”
“Fuck, no!” Mikey shouts as Liam puts his head in his hands. “Why the fuck… Shane…?” He keeps asking half questions as the revelation ripples through them like a current of electricity that is threatening to spark and cause a fire.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell us?” Liam snarls at him.
I look back at Paul and the smile on his face makes my heart twist in agony. I turn my body slightly and point my gun at Shane. “What else have you lied about, Shane?”
He blinks at me in shock as he stares down the barrel of the gun. “Nothing, Jessie.”
“Why the hell would I believe you now?”
“Jessie!” he frowns.
“You knew who the Wolf was all along! You’ve been planning to hand me over to him all this time.”
“No,” he shakes his head as Conor, Liam and Mikey look at him with suspicion now. The seed has been planted and it is growing at a dangerous speed.
“Why would we be here if we were going to do that?” he shakes his head.
“I don’t think your brothers knew,” I look between him and Paul. “I think you two have been planning this all along, but now you’ve decided you don’t want to give me up after all.”
“Yes,” Paul agrees while Shane stares at me.
Paul still has the remote held up in his hand, his finger hovering over the button and I realize if he is going to buy this, I am going to have to lay my heart wide open. I need to speak my truth because it is the only thing that is going to convince him.
I point my gun at Shane and I look into his eyes. My hand trembles but my voice doesn’t.
“I despise you! I hate you more than I have ever hated anyone in my life.” I hear his brothers’ gasps at the venom in my voice, but I block them out and keep my eyes fixed on Shane. “I know that you think that I love you, but you are deluded. I could never love you. You make me sick. My skin crawls when you are anywhere near me. When I think about the times you have touched my body, I want to tear off my own skin!” The tears are running down my face now as I spit out all of the hatred and venom that I have been storing for years.
“If you ever touch me again, I would die from the agony of having to endure it. You disgust me!” I shriek and he just stares at me and takes it all.
But then I see it, from the corner of my eye, what I’ve been waiting for. Paul drops his hand to his side as he enjoys the show. Me turning on his nephews is what his delusional mind had been hoping for. I hate guns, but I have a perfect fucking aim.
I spin and squeeze the trigger and Paul Ryan drops to the floor before he even had time to realize that I’d moved. My only regret is that he didn’t see it coming. The remote he was holding clatters to the floor and I walk over to his body. He took a bullet straight between the eyes, but I have tried to kill this ghost before. This time, there will be no doubt in my mind that he is gone. I unload the remaining five bullets into his body, which jerks as each sliver of metal tears through it. And with each shot fired, the tears fall down my face faster and harder. When the chamber is empty, I keep pulling the trigger as I stare at his lifeless body, until I feel strong arms around me.
“He’s gone, sweetheart,” Shane whispers in my ear.
I turn in his arms and cling to him. “I wasn’t talking to you,” I sob.
“I know,” he soothes as he hugs me tightly to him. “I know.”
After Conor checks I’m okay, reprimands me for sneaking out of bed, and then hugs me tighter than I have ever been hugged before, he and Shane tell me to go with the twins while they stay behind to take care of things, which I know is code for disposing of Paul’s dead body. Seemingly unable to even look at their oldest brother after recent revelations, the twins don’t argue and together the three of us walk out to the Audi they drove here in, leaving the beat up Land Rover for Shane and Conor.
Liam sits in the back with me with an arm wrapped around me as Mikey drives us back to the house. We are all quiet. There is so much to say that it seems like there is no good place to start.
“You think he always knew?” Mikey eventually breaks the silence.
“If he did, then he’s not the man I thought he was,” Liam replies with a sigh.
“How could he not tell us?” Mikey slams his hands down on the wheel of the car.
“I don’t know. I think of all the conversations we had about how much Patrick hated us and he never once told us why.”
“You think it’s even true?” Mikey asks.
“I don’t know. Shane said it was, didn’t he?”
“But if it is, then…” Mikey doesn’t finish his sentence.
“I know,” Liam looks down at me with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Jessie.”
“Don’t even!” I say as I look away and snuggle against his chest. “Let’s talk about all of this when we all get back to the house. There is no use in speculating and driving yourselves crazy until then.” For now, I just want to sit in this car next to Liam’s warm body and cherish this feeling of being safe and loved before we deal with the fact that the man who has made my life a living hell could be the father of two of the men I love more than anything in this world.
“Hmm,” Liam agrees and Mikey turns up the radio and we listen to it for the rest of the way home.
