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22
Cato
It was late fall, so the air started to get cold fast. The nights came earlier, and there were fewer people on the sidewalks. I’d started wearing my heavy coat over my suit when I visited the office, a few cigars in my pocket to keep me warm.
I arrived at our main facility and headed to my office.
Bates sat in the armchair, smoking a cigar while he stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows behind my desk. He was in a navy blue suit with dress shoes, ready to make money at a second’s notice.
It was the first time I’d directly interacted with him since Siena had returned. I knew he was livid that I’d fetched her. If he could have it his way, we would have forgotten about her entirely—the baby too.
I sat behind my desk then raised my hand. “Lighter.”
He pulled his out of his front pocket and tossed it at me.
I lit up my cigar and watched the smoke rise to the ceiling.
Bates took a deep puff, the smoke lifting from the end of the cigar and rising in front of his eyes. It made his ferocity even more potent. He looked like a serial killer when he wore a stare like that.
“It’s a girl.”
He let the smoke shoot out of his nostrils. “Congratulations.” His voice was heavy with sarcasm, like he couldn’t care less. I could have said I was having a giraffe, and he would have the same reaction. “Another little bitch.”
I lowered my cigar because I’d reached a new level of anger. It annoyed me when he spoke of Siena that way, but to talk about my daughter…was a whole different situation. Saying that phrase in my head made this pregnancy more real.
I had a daughter.
The smoke rose out of my mouth. “Bates, say anything like that ever again, and I will shove my cigar so far into your eye that it’ll burn your brain. It pisses me off enough when you speak of Siena that way. But my daughter…it’s different.”
He kept smoking his cigar.
“She’s your niece, asshole. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“She’s half my niece. The other half…I don’t know what the other half is.”
My brother had always been pragmatic and smart. Sometimes he was emotional and temperamental, but I’d never seen him this way. “Bates, this needs to stop. I know you don’t like Siena, but you need to get over it. Who gives a damn how many times she betrays me? I own her. I fucking own her, and there’s nothing she can do about it. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“What’s the worst that can happen?” he asked sarcastically. He let his arms hang on the armrests, his cigar burning smoke to the ceiling. “I’ll tell you what’s the worst that can happen. She persuades you to marry her. She persuades you to sign over half the business to her. Then she kills you in your sleep, and ta-da, half the company is hers.”
It was so ridiculous that I wanted to roll my eyes. “That’s never going to happen, Bates.”
“She’s manipulated you this far.”
“She’s never manipulated me to do anything. I’ve told you that.”
He shook his head. “From the second you met her, you’ve been different. You don’t fuck other women, and now you’re living with her—in the same room.”
“That’s not manipulation, Bates. That’s a man finding a woman. Simple as that.”
He shook his head again, the disappointment in his eyes shining like two beacons. “She got pregnant on purpose.”
I didn’t believe that. “Even if she did, that’s my problem, not yours.”
He took another deep puff. “This is ridiculous. You’re so far gone that you don’t even see how much you’ve changed.”
“I don’t care how much I’ve changed, Bates. I’m happy, alright? Don’t you want me to be happy?”
“With a real woman, yes. Not with this lying, manipulative—”
“Don’t fucking say it.” My hand balled into a fist.
He rested against the back of the chair, sighing in defeat. “Fine. If you want to waste your time with this woman who’s used you from the beginning, I can’t stop you. Since the dawn of time, good men have lost wars because pussy was involved. It fucks with our brains, and we can’t think. I’ve warned you many times, but you don’t listen to me. But this also directly affects me. I helped you build this company from the ground up, fifty-fifty. By being involved with this woman I don’t trust, you’re jeopardizing that. You’re putting me in a position I don’t want to be in—so you’re choosing her over me.”
“Bates, that’s ridiculous. My relationship has nothing to do with our business.”
“For now,” he said. “But what about when you marry her?”
“I’m not gonna marry her.”
“Really?” he asked. “You’re shacked up together and having a baby. It’s only a matter of time before she puts on the pressure.”
