The Heart That's Meant to Love You [COMPLETED]

Chapter 84: Ultimatum

Kieran stepped into the same old office, featuring the same broken plastic chairs as always. But this time, he found the atmosphere entirely different.

It wasn't Patrick or his goons that had changed. It was Kieran's attitude toward them. And, somehow, that morphed his entire perspective on the upcoming conversation.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, my boy." Patrick sailed into the room like he always did, a bit late and far too arrogantly.

Fine. Whatever. Let him act all high and mighty. Kieran knew the truth now, and it fueled his determination to cut Patrick out of his life. He never should have blindly followed this path in the first place. Which was why, this time, Kieran had arrived with all the evidence he needed to get Patrick off his back.

"I told you, I'm not your boy." Kieran sank into Patrick's usual chair, a power move that he had been waiting years to make. "Have a seat. Let's talk."

"Oh, dear." Patrick clucked his tongue, full of sarcasm that Kieran didn't want to deal with. "Aren't we a little testy today? What's this about?"

"Do you really want me to cut straight to the chase?" Kieran smirked at Patrick, a look he knew to be more villainous than cordial. "Or are you simply afraid to chat?"

"I'm afraid of nothing." Patrick looked around the chairs that he had never deigned to use. "Where should I sit? Here?" He took the seat without an answer, but that was his way of trying to retrieve the status quo.

Kieran had no intention of allowing him to do anything of the sort, but the seat was unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

"What did you want to chat about?" Patrick asked it so hopefully that his eagerness had to be fake.

Kieran folded his arms across his chest, studying Patrick fully for possibly the first time in his life. "We could start with why you were at my apartment the other day. Tawny never said, and that's never a good sign."

Patrick chuckled, a sound that Kieran had always found repulsive. Yet, for the sake of the conversation, Kieran didn't react.

"I came to see you, of course."

"Don't lie to me." Kieran knew exactly why Patrick had come, and even if he didn't he was smart enough to know that Patrick would never come to see him without ulterior motives.

Patrick raised a hand in a semi-surrender that he also didn't mean. "What's going on, Kieran? You seem... upset. Have I done something to offend you?"

"I think you know exactly what you've done." Kieran's arms unfolded in favor of clutching the arms of the chair and propelling him forward. "Or else, why are you scared to tell me that Tawny called you over that day?"

The look on Patrick's face should have been preserved and stored in a museum. As a man who thought himself smarter than anyone around him, Patrick clearly hadn't anticipated Kieran's knowledge of the situation at hand. In Patrick's mind, he had covered his tracks perfectly, so there was no need to fear anything.

Patrick had never counted on one thing.

"I was chatting with mother the other day."

That ought to rub salt into Patrick's festering wounds. Kieran refused to call Patrick his father, yet he had referred to That Woman as his mother. It showed clear preferential treatment, and might be just the thing that cracked Patrick's facade.

Patrick ran the tip of his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. "I thought you weren't in touch with Cathleen. That's why she has that guard dog watching you."

Kieran leaned back in his chair again, completely at ease in the face of Patrick's discomfort. "Donovan? He's for protection, not communication."

Kieran didn't mention that he disliked how Patrick referred to his only friend as a guard dog. It wouldn't matter later. It only fueled his ire.

"Fine job he's done," Patrick muttered, then sighed. "You must have a reason you brought her up. Why were you talking to Cathleen?"

"The same reason, I presume, that you were talking to Tawny."

"What might that be?"

"You know very well what you did. Do I need to present the evidence?"

"What evidence?"

"I have the footage and the records of your meetings with those thugs."

Patrick chuckled. "Is this about that rich brat?"

Kieran leveled his harshest stare at his biological father. "Her name is Naomi."

Something in his tone must have tipped Patrick off to his seriousness. Perhaps the low, deadly timbre of his voice. Or perhaps the daggers shooting from his eyes. At this point, Kieran no longer cared if his affection for Naomi showed through. Even if it turned him into a monster, he couldn't let go of it.

"I didn't do much, you know. I just wanted to test her. For Tawny's sake."

"Wrong. You wanted to see if you could use her to threaten me." Kieran tipped his chin, a conscious effort to keep himself calm. "So you sent some petty thieves to rough her up. Which was your first mistake."

"I don't make mistakes."

"You did this time. Take note." Kieran rose to his feet, dug an envelope from his pocket, and dropped it too hard onto the card table. "This is the last payment you'll receive from me. I've broken up with Tawny and I will not be paying off any more of her debts."

"But you're her guarantor." Patrick raised his brows in question.

"If you try to take me to court over it, I'll give them evidence of how illegal your business is. And if you try to attack me about it... well, I think you know how that would go." Kieran turned for the door.

Patrick had never been one to give up easily or to know when he had been defeated. "If you walk out that door, be sure to keep an eye on your little girlfriend."

That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Kieran spun to face the man he hated most in the entire world. "You've done enough to her already, I would suggest that you stop while you're ahead."

"The police never caught those robbers, you know."

"Oh, I know." Kieran was certain that his smile was that of a maniac. "Cathleen took care of them."

"Why should she care?" Patrick retorted.

"They laid hands on Naomi. And, just for the record, if I ever find out that they did anything more than scare her, I'm sending Cathleen for you next."

If that wasn't enough to shut Patrick up and keep him away from Kieran for the rest of eternity, nothing would be. Patrick had only one fear: Cathleen. And for good reason.

Kieran stormed out of Patrick's office for the last time, positive that he would never hear a peep out of the self-centered loan shark again.