Page 67 of Broken Empire
Robert lowered his chin. “Yes.”
“But you stole his wife anyway.”
“It just happened. Allison was… magnetic. If you ever knew her, you’d know exactly what I mean.”
“He never got the chance to know her, because ofyou,” Shay said, narrowing her eyes.
“I know. Please, just let me tell the story,” Robert said. “Things were good for a while, but then Allison got pregnant. She wanted to keep the baby. I didn’t. I wasn’t ready to be a father. Not even close. I told her to get an abortion. We had a screaming argument, and then she left.” He took another deep breath, and a faraway expression appeared in his eyes. “She stayed in DC, not far from my place. Had the baby. Begged me to be a part of things. But I refused. I knew it was hard for her, having this baby all on her own with no friends or family around, but I warned her from the beginning that I didn’t want to be a father. That was a major issue with Allison—she expected every man to be just as obsessively in love with her as Hugh was. He really spoiled her. So she expected me to roll over and do her bidding, and then she was shocked when I didn’t.”
I rolled my eyes upward and waved a hand. “Get on with it.”
Robert swallowed thickly. “Eventually Allison left DC and came back here. I heard through the grapevine that she begged Hugh to take her back, which he did, of course. I was worried she’d tell him that I was the baby’s father, but she didn’t. Hugh never knew. He simply took him in as his own son like a lovesick idiot.”
Shay cut in, eyes still narrowed on Robert. “Stop insulting Killian’s dad to drag all of this out. Just tell the fucking story.”
Robert went quiet for a few seconds, as if he were gathering the right words to say. “Allison was fine with her happy little family… until she wasn’t,” he finally said. “When you were around seven or eight months old, Killian, she decided to leave Hugh again. Leave all of you. I was actually here in the city at the time, and she’d somehow heard about that. She started calling me, begging to see me. Telling me she couldn’t handle anything without me anymore. She said she wanted to be with me again, and if she had to leave her whole life behind in order for that to happen, she’d do it. I said I’d meet up with her at the Kingsford to discuss things.”
“What then?”
“She showed up with a few bags. Said it was already done. She’d left Hugh and the boys behind. But I wasn’t interested. By that stage, I’d already met another woman back in DC—the one who would later become my first wife—and I had no interest in starting things up with Allison again. I told her all of this. She did her usual crying and screaming thing, saying her life was falling apart and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take. I honestly think she was in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Some sort of post-partum episode, maybe.” Robert paused, eyes focusing somewhere on the wall behind me. “Halfway through this psychotic rant, she changed her mind. Said she’d made a huge mistake, and she wanted to go home to Hugh and her sons. I encouraged it. Said it was a good idea. But then…” He trailed off again and let out a heavy sigh.
“Thenwhat?” I asked, eyes narrowing.
“She said she needed to come clean about everything. She thought she couldn’t be a good mother—or a good person at all—if her whole life was based on a pack of lies. She was going to tell Hugh who your real father was, Killian, and she was going to tell my girlfriend what sort of man I was as well. The sort of man who’d abandon his own child.” Robert stopped and cleared his throat. “I panicked. Hugh was always a nice man—nice to a fault, really—but he was under the impression we were friends. If he found out what I’d been doing behind his back all that time, with the woman he loved more than anything, he would’ve dropped the nice act and destroyed me. He comes from a far more powerful background than me, and he has a lot more connections as a result. A few phone calls from him would’ve sidelined me with my career. Ended my relationship. Stopped me from networking as effectively in the future.”
Shay scoffed and cut in again. “You’re a Schöneberg member, Robert. They wouldn’t let you fail.”
“You don’t understand,” Robert said, turning his cool gaze to her. “Even in an organization like the Schöneberg Group, there’s an unspoken hierarchy. Someone with a background like Hugh Knight wasalwaysgoing to be above someone like me, despite all the claims of equality for every member. So if Hugh wanted to ruin me, he could’ve done it. Easily. My life as I knew it would’ve been over. The only thing I could do to stop that from happening was… stop Allison.”
“So you got rid of her.”
Robert’s lips tightened, and he nodded. “I’ve always regretted it. It was an overreaction.”
I clenched my jaw and balled my free hand in a fist. “Anoverreaction?” I ground out. “You had my mother sold to a psychopath so he could fucking murder her!”
“Like I said, I’ve always deeply regretted the way I ended things with her,” Robert said. “I’ve regretted not being a part of your life as well, Killian. I knew it was best to stay away from you, so I never told you, but when you came into my office that day, wanting my help with the Vandenberg issue… I instantly regretted all the years I missed. I was so proud of you.”
“I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work,” I replied, face setting in a stony expression. “You really think I’m going to let you live, after all the heinous shit you’ve done, just because we’re genetically related?”
“Killian, listen. I’ve made mistakes. Terrible, terrible mistakes. I know that, and I know how awful it was for me to abandon your mother when she got pregnant.” Robert drew in another deep breath and lifted his chin. “I wasn’t ready to be a father then. But I’m ready now. I know that after today, I’ll be spending the rest of my life in prison, and that’s okay. I just want to be alive so I can finally be honest with you about everything. I want us to get to know each other. Properly. Like family.”
I lifted the pistol again, aiming it right between Robert’s eyes. “I already know everything I need to know about you, Robert.”
“Please, son. Don’t do this.”
“Son?” I shook my head, almost laughing at how pathetically transparent he was. “I’m not your son. Not in any sense that actually matters.”
“Killian,please. I’m sorry. For everything. Don’t do this. Just… just let me go to prison.”
My brows lifted. “Prison is too good for you.”
“It’s not. I’ll be miserable there. My life will be ruined. Isn’t that enough for you?”
“After you had my mother killed and then tried to do the same to Shay?” I cocked my head and sneered. “No, it’s not enough. Not even close.”
“Please.You can’t kill your own father. Youcan’t.”
I brought the gun even closer to him, resting the tip of the barrel on his forehead. “You never wanted to be a father to me, so I don’t feel like being a son to you.”
