One Night Stand With My Ex's Uncle

Pax’s POV

The duct tape ripped away from my mouth, taking what felt like several layers of skin with it. The stinging pain barely registered through the numbness that had already claimed my face.

"Help! Is anybody there? Help us!" My voice cracked as it echoed across the empty field, swallowed by the vast indifference of the abandoned industrial zone.

The temperature had plummeted since Anna Shaw’s people had left us here, bound to separate trees like sacrifices to some vengeful god. My thin sweater might as well have been tissue paper against the knife-edge wind that sliced through it.

"Mr. Simpson, what should we do?" I called out, teeth chattering so violently I feared they might crack. No response came from the slender tree where my employer was secured.

"Mr. Simpson? Sir! Can you hear me?"

His head hung limply, chin resting against his chest. The sight sent ice water coursing through my veins that had nothing to do with the cold. He was significantly older than me, with less resistance to these brutal temperatures. If he was already...

_No. Don’t even think it._

"Is anyone there? Help! We’re over here!" My voice grew hoarser with each desperate cry, the words scraping my throat raw.

Our discarded coats lay just beyond reach, a cruel taunt of salvation. I stretched my leg until my muscles screamed in protest, trying to hook the fabric with my foot.

"Just a little more... just a bit further..."

My joints felt brittle enough to snap, but the effort sent blood rushing through my limbs, a momentary reprieve from the creeping numbness.

"Can’t stop moving," I muttered to myself. "If I stop, I’ll freeze to death." I twisted my body against the restraints, working every muscle possible, my wrists rubbing raw against the plastic zip ties.

"Mr. Simpson, are you alright?" I tried again, desperation leaking into my voice. "Sir, please move around— movement will keep you warm."

Nothing. Not even a twitch.

The realization hit me with crushing force: if George Simpson died from exposure, would Anna Shaw eliminate me too!

Anna’s POV

"Ms. Shaw, it’s almost eleven." Rachel’s voice interrupted my thoughts. "Do you think Pax Powell’s information about Doyle was legitimate?"

I arched an eyebrow. "Are you actually defending that man? Pax participated in my son’s kidnapping."

Rachel’s face hardened instantly.

"Absolutely not. It makes me furious that after you helped him keep his job when his mother was sick, he repaid you by helping kidnap Benedict."

"I’m just thinking," she continued, "we could use him against George Simpson.

Get him to testify I cut her off with a slight wave of my hand. "Pax won’t betray George."

"But why? After what they did-"

"Because he’s implicated in every illegal activity George has orchestrated," I explained, my voice dispassionate. "Testifying against George would be self-incrimination.

Besides, he’s too shrewd to risk it.

That’s precisely why George trusts him."

Rachel’s lips pressed into a thin line, her eyes flashing with barely contained rage. "I hope they both freeze to death out there."

’They won’t die," I replied, watching the tea’s steam dissipate. "They’ll just suffer a bit. "

Clayton’s quiet knock disrupted our conversation. "Ms. Shaw, Mr. Simpson is here. He says it’s urgent."

Rachel’s eyes widened. "You were right. He’s here about his father."

I stood up, smoothing the cashmere of my loungewear. "Tell him I’ll be down shortly."

Ten minutes later, I descended the stairs to find Jack standing awkwardly in my living room, his expensive coat still on, a gift bag dangling from his fingers.

I made no effort to smile or extend my hand. The days when I would maintain a polite facade for a Simpson were long gone.

"How are you feeling?" Jack asked, his voice pitched unnaturally high. He gestured vaguely toward my abdomen.

"I brought some things. Betty mentioned a few herbal supplements that help with recovery after, um... after childbirth."

I settled into an armchair across from him, maintaining maximum distance.

"Is there something you need?"

His posture stiffened at my directness.

"I heard Marcus made contact. And that Benedict has been found. That’s...

that’s wonderful news."

I watched him flounder, his rehearsed pleasantries falling flat against my indifference. Somewhere in my chest, a hardened piece that once might have softened at his discomfort remained glacial.

"George is being held in the south district," I said flatly. "Not far from the Industrial Park warehouse that mysteriously caught fire this afternoon."

Jack’s POV

The words hit like a physical blow, stopping me cold. "What... what did you say?"

"You heard me correctly. It was me." Her voice remained perfectly steady, devoid of emotion. "If you go now, they should be fine. Wait too long, and I can’t guarantee it."

I stood frozen, staring at this stranger who had once been my wife. The shy girl who used to hide her tears was nowhere to be found. In her place stood someone formidable, resolute, and terrifying in her calm certainty.

Shame crashed over me in waves. I couldn’t meet her gaze anymore.

"Anna, I’m sorry... and thank you."

My voice trembled, a storm of emotions tearing through meshock, guilt, gratitude, and profound remorse.

All of this because of the Simpsons, because of my father, because of my weakness and complicity.

"Don’t thank me," she replied coldly.

’This is just the beginning, not the end. Someday, I’ll personally see him behind bars."

Her words cut like a blade to my heart. The pain was acute, but I couldn’t argue. She had every right, every reason.

"Take your things. I don’t need them." She pushed the package I’d brought toward me, her eyes distant as if looking at a stranger.

I quietly gathered my belongings and turned to leave. The weight of guilt and shame nearly crushed me, but I knew this was only the beginning of a penance long overdue.

Jack’s POV

The bitter November wind cut through my designer coat as I stepped out of the car, scanning the abandoned industrial area. Anna’s cryptic words echoed in my mind: "George is being held in the south district. Not far from the Industrial Park warehouse that mysteriously caught fire this afternoon."

"Jack, over here!" Calvin’s voice carried across the barren landscape. His flashlight beam bobbed wildly, illuminating something that made my blood freeze.

I sprinted across the uneven ground, nearly twisting my ankle on the frozen dirt. The sight that greeted me knocked the air from my lungs-my father and Pax Powell tied to separate trees, shirtless in the frigid night air, their coats discarded just beyond reach.

"Jesus Christ," Luke whispered beside me, his breath forming clouds in the freezing air.

My father’s head hung limply, his usually commanding presence reduced to a terrifying stillness. His skin had taken on a bluish tinge that sent panic racing through my veins.

"Get them down, now!" I shrugged off my down coat and wrapped it around my father’s ice-cold body while Calvin and Luke cut through the zip ties binding him to the tree.

"Anna Shaw did this?" Calvin asked, his voice thick with disbelief. "Has she lost her mind?"

The question landed like a stone in my gut. I couldn’t answer. Part of me understood Anna’s fury with perfect clarity—my father had orchestrated her newborn son’s kidnapping. Yet seeing him like this, so vulnerable and close to death, twisted something painful inside me.

My father’s body slumped against mine as the restraints came free, his weight nearly buckling my knees. He was completely unconscious, his skin cold as marble.

"He needs a hospital, now," I said, my voice cracking as we carried him to the car.

---

Inside the warmth of the vehicle, I cradled my father’s head in my lap, desperately rubbing his frozen hands between mine. The heater blasted at maximum, but his skin remained frighteningly cold. Pax sat hunched in the backseat, shivering violently despite being wrapped in Luke’s coat.

"Jack," Luke began carefully, eyes fixed on the road ahead, "we’ve heard about Anna’s missing baby... it doesn’t have anything to do with your father, does it?"

A bitter laugh escaped me before I could stop it. "Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to."

Luke’s shoulders stiffened. "Maybe you should stay out of this feud between the Shaws and Simpsons."

"You think I have any right to think about that anymore?" My voice emerged hollow, emptied of everything but truth. "I wronged her first. Then my parents humiliated her. Meeting the Simpsons was the worst misfortune of Anna’s life."

ーーー

The antiseptic smell of the hospital emergency room burned my nostrils as doctors rushed my father away on a gurney. In the quiet aftermath, I found myselt alone in the waiting room, my phone cold against my ear as I called my mother.

"Hello?" Her voice was drowsy, annoyed at being disturbed.

"Mom, I found Dad." My throat constricted around the words.

"You found him?" A yawn. "He’s not dead, is he?"

The casual indifference in her tone made something inside me shrivel.

"No, Mom. He’s not dead. But he’s in the hospital with severe hypothermia."

"Well, if he’s not dead, what’s the problem? It’s late, I’m going back to sleep."

The line went dead before I could respond. I stared at the phone in my hand, a hollow ache spreading through my chest.

---

Morning light filtered through the blinds when Pax finally stirred in the hospital bed across from my father’s.

His eyes flew open, wild with fear until they landed on me.

"Mr. Simpson," he croaked, voice raw from the night’s ordeal. "Please let me come back to work for you. Im begging you."

The naked terror in his expression told me everything I needed to know about working for my father. I gestured for Calvin and Luke to leave the room.

"What were you doing in the industrial district?" I asked once we were alone.

Pax swallowed hard, his gaze darting to my still-unconscious father. "Your father was burning things."

"What things?"

"License plates, documents, identification papers... and a car."

The confirmation landed like a sledgehammer. Everything Anna had suspected was true. My father had orchestrated her son’s kidnapping, down to destroying the evidence afterward.

I closed my eyes, willing my breathing to remain steady. "Fine. When you’re discharged, report to my office."

- - -

When Mother finally arrived the next day, it was nearly noon. She swept in wearing a fur-trimmed coat, her face carefully made up, not a hair out of place. Lucy trailed behind her like a dutiful shadow.

"What a dreadful smell," Mother complained, wrinkling her nose dramatically. "Couldn’t you find a better hospital? Are these doctors even competent?"

I stared at her, unable to comprehend the callousness that allowed her to fret about hospital odors while her husband lay in critical condition.

"Don’t you want to know what happened to him?" I asked, my voice deceptively quiet.

She waved a dismissive hand. "Car accident? Heart attack? Whatever it is, the Simpson name should ensure he gets the best care."

"He and Pax were stripped of their coats and tied to trees in the woods," I stated flatly, watching her expression.

"From afternoon until midnight. He nearly froze to death."

The blood drained from Mother’s face, her perfectly applied blush suddenly garish against her pallor. "Who would do such a thing? Who?"