Cassian Rourke
I pulled my lips away as quickly as possible. All of a sudden the presence of my father in the room changed everything for me.
I hated the way I was feeling. My privacy was intercepted. I hated Alaric Rourke for always doing this.
But what I hated even worse was the way Aiden was looking. It wasn't a good picture for him.
I could barely read his expression but I knew for a fact that this was as humiliating for me as it was for me.
"Aren't you going to answer me?"
My father didn't help matters, he knew how humiliated I felt but still insisted on doing what he was doing.
"What does it look like?"
I added the sarcastic tone to my voice as rage lingered in my chest.
I had to cover not just my shame but also my anger.
It made my skin boil that we were caught mid-kiss in the penthouse. But what made me angrier was the fact that I had no privacy of mine.
Why did my father, Alaric Rourke, walk in? Couldn't he show a little respect for me, a little. I was furious, in fact I was boiling.
The very least he could do was to simply respect my privacy but he chose not to.
My spine got stiff before I could barely think.
It wasn't the sudden break-in that annoyed me. It's the lack of respect. Didn't I deserve my privacy?
After searching and scanning the room he finally replies to me.
"Well, from the look of things. It looks like you've found yourself another toy but just that this toy is a person of interes-"
"Not anymore"
I cut my father before he could finish speaking. It was my way of defending Aiden from my father. His words weren't only blunt but they were cruel.
I should know because he fathered me by playing the role of my torturer rather than an actual father.
"So you choose to defend him? How captivating. Your love story will sound beautiful on the newspaper headlines tomorrow morning"
There he went off. To tell me how this was going to make his enemies lament.
"It's okay. You don't have to see him again"
I wanted to save face but then I wanted Aiden to be out of this mess.
"Well, well, well. It's too late for that my pretty boy"
I knew where my father was going with this?
"I checked all the evidence and he's cleared. I was about to let him go when you appeared"
I said briskly but Alaric Rourke kept a visible smirk on his face.
From instinct, I understood him. All the years of his voice shaped my every reaction, every rule, every threat.
I understood his tone. It ruined lives long before it would rise.
I looked at Aiden's face as all the life from it drained. We were both awkward, but for a different reason.
"Like I said. It's too late for that. He's the prime suspect and knows too much at this point. So, your little toy stays"
I saw the moment the truth hit him. Aiden's eyes gave him off easily. The fear clouded his mind.
I wanted to protect him but right about now it felt like I was losing grasp of everything.
I looked around the room as I remembered that the penthouse wasn't just my home.
It was a territory controlled by a man you would coin as a nightmare.
My father was everything you could think of. Easy to say that he hated that part of me that was drawn to Aiden.
I flinched as I remembered how he abused me. He had the worst homophobic tendencies anyone could have.
He was a man whose influence could rewrite records and erase people. That was Alaric Rourke.
Giving me this opportunity was a way to show him I could fill his shoes but it seemed like I had failed.
His presence meant that he was taking over. I knew what seeing him here meant.
"Now, no more games or silly fits. Your new toy is a threat to me. So therefore I'll take him out."
My father looked at us, and I could feel his rage traveling in more directions than one.
To him, the betrayal was layered. It had always been like that.
To him his son broke the family code. His company is now forced to carry a scandal which is more like a rumour.
What should have been a sealed archive breach has just turned into something personal, sexual, and dynastic. I forced my jaw steady as my expression was clean. I knew for a fact, I was a cause to this. But I also knew my pulse was loud. I know he heard it.
The worst part? He wasn't just furious because I kissed a man. He was furious because I existed in a place a name like his should never have traveled.
To somewhere his identity should never have survived, never have grown, never have breathed into my life.
Later, after everything . I left Aiden in my room and I retreated into my office tower. The only place quiet enough for the truth to scream out loud to me.
"What have I done? I caused all of this."
I lamented subtly.
I opened encrypted transfers that have been buried in archives that I trusted.
The dates were lined up from the infant removal, asset transfers, legacy displacement. My adoption wasn't paperwork.
It was theft dressed in charity. Was this all Alaric's ploy?
And then it snaps into my focus. It may be that whatever Aiden had found was definitely linked to whatever my father had hidden.
Who was the one whose assets were moved months before vanishing without a trace? My father: Alaric Rourke.
Half the empire my father guarded was like a religion that belonged to him. He didn't just carry the temptation.
He carried the lineage, legacy, and a legal claim to everything he called his.
Why didn't he feel the need to threaten Aiden if there was no truth in the documents he found? Or was it because there was truth in there?
Because if the world found o
ut what he was hiding, the truth would destroy him first. Long before it even reached me.
What was my father hiding?