Stolen - The Devereaux Case Files Book 4

Chapter 13

While Seth and Sammy were sleeping, Blake was busy dealing with long overdue business. Ayah was beginning to disappoint him. After all the work he had put into getting her over the years, he was damned if he was going to give up so easily. Now that he had her safe and secured inside a guarded building, it was time to call his father and reclaim his heritage. He had disappointed him before. On the brink of a pregnancy with his last wife her money had run out and the stupid cow had an abortion before he knew about the baby. She thought it would ease the financial pressure of their marriage. He couldn't afford to disappoint him again. It was too risky; his father was even more dangerous than he was and he certainly didn't accept failure.

"Dad, it's me. No, the other one, Blake." He sighed into his mobile as he paced around the garden, worried about what his father would say or think or do about the latest update he was to give him. He was an affluent businessman, used to getting his own way, whether anyone cared or agreed to it or not. That was how his stupid half-brother had come into existence; a combination of a flirty maid, his hormone induced father and sex had got him a brother he had never wanted and more trouble than he needed.

"Well why didn't you say so? You both sound so damned similar." His father grumbled to himself, having been unsure of which of his children was trying to sweet talk him with the word 'dad'. Neither boy used it on a normal day, so he saw no reason for them to use it now. Only, hearing that it was Blake on the phone, and not the other boy, made him reluctantly glad not to have to deal with his stupid drunkard son at that moment. "Well, what do you want?"

"I've got her. Ayah. She's here and any day now she'll be mine. She has a daughter already but she's young, just a baby. We can cover it up well." Blake explained, stopping his pacing under the back porch as he huddled in an area where the winter breeze couldn't reach. He had hoped for a warmer reception from his father but that was like wishing for a never ending supply of money, an island of his own, and no trouble to reach him for the rest of his life. Absolutely impossible. So he was at least pleased to hear the little chuckle his father gave to the news; a sure sign that he had done well by the old man.

"Good. Adopt the child and the family business is yours. I would have preferred a grandson but this is easier than waiting on you to produce a child of your own. God knows you're so useless it might never happen." His fathers words were nothing new to Blake, but they pierced his heart all the same. He was a cold-hearted monster as Ayah thought he was. He had learned that from his father, but it didn't mean the personal jibes from the only man he respected meant nothing to him.

They had been going on his whole life, he had hoped he would become immune to them. It seemed that with each one, his father found a new way to question his manhood, his existence and his worth as a son. He almost wondered if his father wished he had never met his mother. He probably did, knowing him. If he could remember who she was. "Alright. Bring the girl to me to examine once the marriage is complete. Once I've seen her and her offspring, you will have my signature." He promised, unaware of Blake's childish fist pump into the air or how happy he had just made his first son.

"Thank you father. I'll make you proud." Blake promised, hoping it would ease the sting of his previous failure. But as usual, he wasn't interested in apologies and he wasn't going to tell him he had done well. He was probably lucky the old man had even picked up the phone.

"Just marry the bloody girl and get this whole thing over with. You're an embarrassment to the family. You and that no good brother of yours." He barely had time to reply before his father hung up on him. He felt like a kid again; a teenager upset that his father wasn't coming home for Christmas. An adult scared of what he would do if he failed one too many times. He was contemplating those awful thoughts as he turned to return to his room in the B&B, hoping to get warm again, when he caught Carter staring at him from the doorway.