Page 85 of Protected

Parker never imagined he’d see his father again. Dressed in a jogging suit, something he usually didn’t wear, he looked fit. He looked healthy. He hadn’t changed much. Older, with a little gray around the temples, but what hadn’t changed was the evil in his eyes.

“How are you still alive?” Wolf asked, looking as if he was seeing a ghost. He stood before Parker with his hands tucked into his pockets as silence surrounded them.

Parker wasn’t sure what he expected to feel if they ever saw each other again, but he felt nothing. No love. No hate. Nothing. This man was dead to him, and he wished he had closed this chapter of his life a long time ago.

“Elder thought you had some type of amnesia and didn’t know who you were, but that’s not the case, is it? No sense in denying it. I can see it in your cold, lifeless eyes.” He shook his head, looking at Parker with disgust. “You could’ve been leader of the Kingz. You had the brains and the balls for it. Yet, you turned out to be my biggest disappointment. What a waste.”

Wolf glanced over his shoulder at Asshole #1. “Find out where everyone is. Probably outside somewhere smoking.”

The guy hesitated. “Are you sure you want me to leave you wi—”

“Go!” Wolf barked, and the guy walked out the way he’d come in.

If he went to the back of the building, it wouldn’t take long for him to find the guys that were tied up.

“How’d you do it?” Wolf asked, still standing several feet away. “How’d you live? I bet you feel pretty good about yourself thinking you’d gotten over on me, huh?Fifteen years. All this time I thought your traitorous ass was dead. You should’ve been burned to ashes, but no. Here you are.”

Parker said nothing. Hell, he didn’t know what to say. He could threaten the guy, tell him he was going to hell, or he could warn him that he was about to lose everything he’d worked so hard for.

But he said nothing.

His father pulled his hands from his pockets, and Parker zoned in on the brass knuckles that were slid onto his fingers.

Damn, that would hurt if the man tagged him.

When Parker met Wolf’s ruthless gaze, the man smiled, and anger stirred within Parker.

“I’m not that punk kid who you beat to a pulp fifteen years ago,” he said. “I’m a man who will fight you until there’s no more breath in your body. But unlike you, I won’t stop until I know you’re dead.”

Wolf’s rusty laughter filled the space. “And you’re planning to do some damage to me while you’re bound to a chair? Really?”

“Get off me!” Chelsey growled, and Parker stiffened. “Let me go!”

“Ouch! Bitch!”

A slap reverberated through the air and when Chelsey cried out, Parker almost lost his shit. But his woman must’ve startedfighting back, because Elder howled as if she had him by the balls.

Parker didn’t wait. He leaped from the chair and crashed into Wolf, knocking him to the concrete floor. The move stunned him at first, but his father started swinging. Parker got tagged by the brass knuckles, but he kept throwing punches.

All the hatred Parker had carried over the years came out each time he slammed his fist into his father’s face, his neck, his head. Then he wrapped his hands around the man’s neck and squeezed.

Die!The word roared through his mind.

He ignored the way Wolf pounded against his arms. He clawed. Punched. Slapped at his arms, but Parker didn’t loosen his grip.

Not until Wolf landed a blow to his temple.

Pain burst through his skull.

Stars floated in front of his eyes.

Bile rose to his throat.

He lost his grip on Wolf, and his father took advantage, throwing Parker off him while grabbing the gun from the back of Parker’s waist band.

They both were panting, and Parker tried not to make a sudden move. It wasn’t the first time someone held a gun to his face.

His father’s eyes held so much malice, Parker felt it deep in his soul.