She’s (Still) Too Young (She’s Too Young #2)(17)

"That's far enough."

It's almost comical the way he halts with one foot in the air, poised above the step. Not comical, however, is the knife in his hand. It's dark enough that I might have missed the weapon if I wasn't looking for it. Expecting Veda's father to lash out over her choosing to remain with me doesn't stop the rush of blood that goes straight to my brain, blanketing my vision in red.

"You better have intended to use that on only me," I grind out, shaken by the image of him approaching the sleeping beauty upstairs, light glinting off the cold metal. I will never forgive myself for bringing her here, but I can begin to make up for the decision by guarding her with my life. By eliminating the threat.



       
         
       
        

Jack doesn't give me an answer, but steps away from the stairs, backing across the foyer toward the kitchen. "Is this where you have your goons come and drag me off?"

Slowly, I follow him down the steps. "They've been asked to remain outside. This is between us, and it ends now."

"You don't seem too nervous about the knife in my hand," Jack says, that cocky expression giving way to nerves. His face is gray, and as I reach the bottom step, I can smell his foul breath, courtesy of the liter of scotch he drank mere hours ago. He's even staggering somewhat, telling me he's either still intoxicated or there's a stocked bar downstairs.

"Nervous?" I tilt my head and follow him into the oversized kitchen. "Maybe. A reckless man is a dangerous man."

"Then I'm as dangerous as they come," Jack seethes.

There might have been some truth to his claim if he was in a room with anyone but me and I hadn't just caught him coming near my future wife with a knife. That makes me as dangerous as they come. And there's only room for one of us. "You have another weapon, though. Don't you?" When he pauses in his amble around the dining room table, I know I've surprised him. "You make Veda … nervous. And there's more to it than your apparent desire to watch her engage with a man." He has the decency to go pale, a twitch beginning beneath his right eye. "She's told me you were overprotective, but I remember the night on the roof. When I first met her. There was an ease between you and her-it's not there now. The opposite, in fact. I need to know why. Now."

"Damn you, Beckett. You're so arrogant." He moves the knife in a downward slash, burying the tip in the table. "We're not in your office now. I'm not required to jump for you on command."

Whether the abuse of alcohol is responsible or if there was always something inside Jack waiting for the right moment to rear its head, I can see that he's lost whatever balance he'd been maintaining. Veda has opened up in stages about the way he'd kept her and her mother-when she was still alive-confined, not allowing them to go out or have friends. So it could be the loss of his power that has tipped him over the edge, too. Whatever the reason, misery, hatred and self-loathing collide on his face and direct themselves at me.

"You're right," I say, well aware that I have to change tactics or I'll get no answers. "You're not required to jump or tell me what I want to know." I stop at the kitchen island, leaning against it and crossing my arms. "But I think you want to."

Rage is wiped from his facial features and at once, he's smug, drawing the knife out of the table and moving it in a figure eight motion. "Damn right I do," he says, punctuating his words with a laugh that makes my stomach clench. "Did you ever stop to ask yourself why Veda went back to you, Beckett?" He pauses to let that question sink in … and it does. It sinks and sinks, because I have asked myself a thousand times. I was amazed when she came back to me. I still am. "Did you think she just suddenly got over being bought? Being taken away from the only family she knows?" 

"Get to where you're going with this," I manage through parched lips.

Jack has the look of a man with the upper hand. He is. For the first time in my life, I've gone into a battle without the winning strategy.

"I was all set to quit. To come home and find a different job so we didn't have to live under your thumb. Then I had a better idea." His smile is sickening. "All those hours Veda spent alone in your home, with access to your office, your electronic files and bank statements? It was pretty easy for a career accountant to … move things around." He taps the knife against his outer thigh. "But I couldn't have done it without my eager accomplice. She wanted to make you a fool even more than I did."