Wild Billionaire Romance - Chapter 105: Chapter 105

MEREDITH
It took some convincing, but I finally got Mario to agree to drive me to my stepfather’s place, just the two of us.
I really didn’t want to wait for the other guys to return from the grocery store. Even though I used the fast pickup app, they were going to be at least another half an hour. And I wanted to get home before Josef got there.
Excitement pumped through my veins, and I bit my lower lip. One week was long enough without my husband.
It was funny, or not, depending on how you thought of it, but we’d been apart for fifteen years. I hadn’t realized I’d been living a half-life in all that time without him.
Josef was like my own personal missing link. I needed him like I needed air and water and food.
He was the breath in my body.
My reason. My hope. My dream. My beautiful reality.
Christ, I loved that man.
“Everything okay, ma’am?” Mario asked.
“Do not call me ma’am. You make me feel like I’m a hundred,” I said, trying my best to glare at my bodyguard.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, a slight smirk on the corner of his face.
The fucker.
Mario was a good man, and I felt safe with him, but not like I did when I was with my man, of course.
Still, Josef had handpicked him to be my bodyguard when I left the condo, and I trusted my husband to do what he thought was best.
“The men just alerted me they are en route with the groceries,” Mario informed me, and I nodded.
Good.
Ellie and Sammy would get a text when they left, locking the downstairs section of the house, and arming the security system. I voted against having an armed guard at the place.
Mrs. Stevens was a fifty-seven year old widow, an ex-marine who’d also worked for Sigma International. She was more than capable of handling any security needs, and even better, she was a woman.
I knew from experience it would make it easier on the residents, well, once I filled the other floors with more residents, to have a female on site. Especially one with a background in security.
Mrs. Stevens would also manage the house insofar as toiletries, groceries, and what not. I’d set up a fund for such things. None of the women would have to worry about food or towels or the basics until they were ready to move on.
Even then, I had a system in place to help them continue their education, get a job, or move anywhere they wanted. As long as they felt safe to do so. But they were welcome to stay as long as they needed.
“Here we go—oh, I’m getting a message,” Mario said, frowning at his phone.
“No worries, just find me when you’re done,” I told him and exited the vehicle.
He pursed his lips, and I knew he wanted to argue, but I was already on the move.
The quicker I found out what was going on, why Gretchen had called and messaged me so frantically, the quicker I could leave.
The house loomed ahead, and I shivered. It always felt so cold, so big when I was a child.
Everything looked the same.
The landscaping was immaculate. The structure itself, pristine. But that sense of bigness, of heaviness I used to feel as a kid whenever I came home to this place was replaced by something else.
It wasn’t hatred. It felt more like regret.
My years working with abused women and children had taught me that I was not responsible for the failures of others. My mother’s death was not my fault, and while I tried not to blame her for leaving me alone, I had every right to be angry about it back then.
But I wasn’t so angry anymore. I was more sad.
For both of us. My mother was beautiful and wild, far too fragile for this cruel world and her sadistic husband.
I was just a kid. Not responsible for her transgressions in any way. I could forgive her for that, though. I could forgive a lot.
As for Franklin Gray. He was another story.
I did not want to replay the nightmare of when I left his house on the night of my eighteenth birthday.
I already did that when he’d begged me to see him a few weeks ago. The night he died.
I swallowed, fortifying myself as I walked up the stairs and punched in the key code.
“Hello? Gretchen?” I called out, walking inside the house.
Odd.
I knew Josef had told the staff to pack the common rooms. The parlor, the kitchen, stuff like that, leaving the personal items of my childhood bedroom and my mother’s belongings for me to sort.
But as I walked further inside, it didn’t appear like anything had been boxed.
In fact, there’d been no preparation at all to ready the estate for resale. I’d already planned to donate all the funds to my offsite project for St. Elizabeth’s Shelter for Women and Children, of course.
There was no way I’d keep a red cent from anything that once belonged to my stepfather.
“Gretchen?” I called out again, turning when I heard a noise coming from the office.
I opened the door, steeling myself against any lingering feelings I might have against the place.
I hated Franklin’s office. I always had.
But even readying myself to go inside, I could never have prepared for what I saw.
“It’s Meredith. Are you in here, Gretch—oh my God!”
“Hello Merry, sit down.”
“But you’re dead,” I whispered, shocked.
“That was an excellent trick, wasn’t it? Sit. Down.”
My stepfather had a gun in his hand, and he had it aimed right at Gretchen’s temple.
Horror was replaced by fear, potent and real, as I attempted to back out of the room.
“Not another step or I will shoot her. Now, come inside, Meredith, and close the door,” he commanded, cocking the pistol so I knew his threat was real.
I obeyed. I had no choice.
“I’m sorry, Miss. So sorry,” the older woman blubbered, and Franklin hit her hard with the butt of his gun.
“Stop it!” I screamed.
Franklin sneered, and Gretchen faltered beneath the punishing blows. Blood gushed from her head wound, making me feel nauseated.
“Stay right there, or she dies. Then you’ll be next, little Merry,” he hissed.
I couldn’t believe it.
He was supposed to be dead. But there he was. The man who haunted my nightmares. The one I once called Dad, who turned out to be not my dad. And he didn’t look so dead to me.
Shit.
This was bad. Very bad. I wanted to get away. I wished I was anywhere but there.
I wanted Josef.
I wanted my husband.
Why did I come here without him?
“What do you want from me?”
“What do I want? I want my fucking life back, you little bitch! You gave that lowlife animal you married my company? He is nothing! I am your father⁠—”
“You’re not my father, remember? You are the one who is nothing. I love Josef. I always have,” I said, lifting my face defiantly.
“Love him? You don’t love him. You were a fucking child! You barely put down your dolls. I had plans for you, and you fucked it all up.”
“You planned to give me to someone like I was just something you bought and could trade for favors!”
“I did own you! What was I supposed to do? Let this man come in and take you from me? I'm your father! You were supposed to do what I said!”
“The only thing you said that is even remotely true is you were my father. At least, I thought you were. You were supposed to take care of me. Not scare me. Not lie. Not slap me or call me names. I've spent my entire adult life in fucking misery because I thought Josef left me for money, but it was all you! You hurt me.”
“I never⁠—”
“Yes, you did,” I shouted back. “Josef is the only man who has taken care of me. Not you. Never you! I was just a possession to you.”
“You’re just like your mother. You have no sense of loyalty,” he raged, and while he did, I got a really good look at him.
How had I ever been afraid of this weak, selfish, greedy little man?
Franklin Gray was a caricature of what a real man was. An exaggerated failure of a man.
But he was holding a gun, and guns were dangerous even when handled by selfish weaklings.
As if he realized it too, he waved the gun in the air, then aimed it right at me.
My time was running out.
I’m so sorry, Josef.
“Look, I don’t know what you want me to do. You’re the one who faked your death, what did you think would happen?”
“You were supposed to come home and save the company. When I found out who owned the note on Gray Corps, you could imagine my surprise. I thought maybe you would throw a piece of ass to your old flame, and he would relent. I didn’t think you’d marry him! I was going to show up a few weeks later and we would have reconciled, Meredith. I’m not your father, but I raised you⁠—”
“Nannies raised me. What you did was fucking deplorable!”
“Oh please, don’t blow it up into something it wasn’t. I didn’t rape you, Meredith. I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was doing. I barely touched you,” he scoffed, shaking off the trauma his actions had caused, as if what he did was nothing.
“You don’t get to tell me how to feel about something you did, understand?” I snapped, feeling angry and reckless.
This sonovabitch was threatening me, diminishing my feelings, telling me how I should think?
I didn’t think so.
“Shut up! Just shut up! I have to think,” he said, grabbing his head, pointing the gun up at my stomach then my chest.
I raised my hands and inched back towards the door, but he was back to aiming at my face.
“I can get you the company if that’s what you want. Just let me go, and I’ll send the paperwork,” I said, trying to placate him.
Empty promises, all of them, but I really didn’t want to die at the hands of a madman.
Not when I finally found my happiness.
“You were such a stupid little girl, and you’re a stupid woman, too. You think I believe you? You think I don’t know, you’re going to run back to him, you fat slut,” he screamed.
“He’s not even here. He’s away on business. I just need to contact the lawyers, they will do what I say.”
“Bullshit. I read about your husband. Aziz is nothing but a thug working for that fucking Volkov gangster. You think I’m a monster, you married the real monster!”
Fuck you, I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue.
You couldn’t argue with crazy. I never realized it before, but Franklin sounded completely insane.
“Just let me go and you’ll have the company back in your power in a few hours,” I repeated.
“You’re lying. This is all your fault. You’re going to tell your husband and he’s going to come after me,” he spat.
Franklin did not look good. He might have faked his prior heart attack, but he was gray and sweating. Whether it was fear or whatever drugs he was on, he looked about three seconds from keeling over.
“You sure he’s out of the country?” Franklin asked, and I nodded.
“Yes, he’s⁠—”
But the sound of the front door cut off anything I was about to say. Feet pounded down the hallway and someone yelled.
“Meredith!” a familiar voice shouted from outside the house, and I turned my head, relief filling me.
“Josef,” I whispered.
“I knew it! You fucking lying bitch! Well, you won’t get away with it this time,” Franklin growled.
The door to the office flew open just as Franklin squeezed the trigger.
I had one second to react.
One second to say goodbye before I tried to move in front of the speeding bullet aimed at my husband’s heart.
“Josef!”