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My brother stares at my grip on his sleeve, and then at me, his Montgomery-gray eyes growing dark. I let him go, raise my hand, and show him my palm. “There’s no need, Loosh. You can have the truck. I’ll walk.”
“Then I’ll have Lucius break your legs, instead,” Jack says, still not bothering to look up. “Or your spine, if you’d prefer a more permanent solution?”
I step closer to his desk. “Do you even hear yourself?”
“Do you?” he counters. “You sound like your whiny-little-bitch brothers — the fruity cocksucker and the chicken-shit neat-freak. All garbage stock from the same bitch mother. I tried to harden you assholes more when you were little, but she wouldn’t have it. Got rid of her soon enough, though.”
He leans back in his chair, rocking slightly. “You think you’ve got it all figured out. Don’t you, boy?”
I shrug. “Everyone I love can take care of themselves now, so that leaves you all out of ammunition, asshole. You’re lucky none of us has killed you for what you put us through.”
Jack throws back his head and laughs. “As if any of you could figure out the failsafe protective factors I have in place, to prevent such an incident. I only wish one of you had the balls to try, so I could scare the rest into permanent subservience. Though, after years of training, I’ve bent most of you to my will.”
He puts his pen down — a mark this is the greatest attention he can give. “You’rethe only one who doesn’t seem to get it, Quintus.I’m the fucking boss,” he yells, like the real issues must be that I’m hard of hearing. “I made you; Iownyou. You are, and always will be, my pawn to play. Don’t ever fool yourself into thinking you’re safe when I can always choose to make you suffer. Lucius, remind your brother I can hurt him any time I want.”
Loosh looks at me, his gaze apologetic as he balls his fist.
I smile at him with sympathy for how he’s trapped. “Do your worst, bro. It’s not you; it’s him. And if he kills me, he sets me free, so I win anyway.”
Loosh starts to wind back, and our father clears his throat. “Hold that position, Lucius. Let’s draw this out a while, for maximum effect. Quintus appears to be in a hurry to leave, and that is most curious.” Jack strums his fingers against his chin. “Why now, Quintus? What are you running from, when I’m about to hand you the world on a platter?”
I remain silent, inwardly cursing myself for not having left earlier or later or more quietly. Though that would have been less satisfying and left me looking over my shoulder forever. I should have faked my own death. If I try that now, he’ll never believe it.
“It’s not about school, obviously. You still have another year before you’ll earn your degree — not that you give a shit about that, when you’ve been moonlighting as a carpenter’s apprentice all this time.”
My eyes widen before I can restrict my facial expressions, and his eyebrows twitch. He caught it.
“You thought I didn’t know, because I didn’t stop it?” He breathes an amused snort. “I liked how hard you were working for it, so I’ve let you keep thinking it was possible. That way it’d have a greater impact when I bust you down a peg or six and ripped your pussy little sweetie-pie dreams away from you.”
I swallow hard, hoping he doesn’t know more of what I’ve been up to, and he plays the musing detective, tapping his cheek in a thinking pose. “You claim you’ve waited until you thought you were in the clear with everyone safely squared away, but there isn’t a person alive who is out of my reach, Quintus. I can ruin anyone I like, whenever I want. I own this town, and many others like it,” he says.
“You can’t own all the towns,” I mutter.
“The ones I ignore are few and far between, so it’ll be easier than you think, to find you when you run and hide, boy. But why is it so important to break away now? What’s coming up this month, Number Five?”
I grit my teeth at the number reference but maintain my silence.
The wheels of his chair squeak, as he rolls sideways, to view the dates on his big wall planner. The forecast includes mergers, social events, the planned takeovers I’ve intentionally been tampering with, so they’ll fall through, and boring PR shit we’ll be forced to begrudgingly attend… Kira’s charity eighteenth-birthday bash.
I’m such a fucking idiot.
I’m going to be made to go, just to prove I’m not leaving to avoid that, in particular. I quickly choose an event from the next month and formulate extra excuses not to participate — never too difficult, considering how demeaning Jack’s shit usually is to marginalized communities.
He turns back to me, grinning. “The little axe-wielding maniac is ready to ride.”
I can’t keep my jaw from ticking. “Mind your tongue, old man. She’s a child. And no, I don’t want to go to some bogus party, where a bunch of old assholes like you scam on little girls. I don’t want to go toanyof your shit events again. Ever.”
About to walk away, I turn back and jab my finger in his direction. “And if you make me sit through that poorly disguised hate-speech extravaganza, masquerading as a big ol’ southern-family barbecue back in Austin, you’re sorely mistaken. You have two gay sons — maybe more by the time you’re done sowing your oats — and they deserve better than your bigotry. Who cares where they want to stick their dicks? Like you stick yours anywhere better. I’m done with you, your money, and your name. You think those things are powerful, but they’re not where power comes from, and if you want respect, you can fucking earn it by showing our family some basic human decency.”
Jack motions for Loosh to stand in the doorway and block my exit. He’s not done with me. I stepped out of line and tried to make him look foolish in the process, and there will be repercussions. Harsh ones.
“You’re going to every engagement for the next two months — including the family barbecue — and you’ll uphold our image and our family name until you fucking die,” he says, and proceeds to deliver the terms of my sentence.
“You’ll repair the damage you’ve done and single-handedly complete the negotiations with the Osaka group, to my expressed standards, and you will get the Canadians back on board for the mergerwithsignatures,” he says with a grin.
He fucking knows how difficult it’s going to be for me to regain the company trust I intentionally ruined to spite him.
“You will also ask my good friend’s pretty little daughter to dance on the night of her party. Where I can see you. And you’ll put some effort in. It’s her birthday, after all. Do all that without pissing me off, and I’ll consider some lesser penalties for the two months after that, when we revisit the pointless nature of this rebellious little tantrum — which I assume is one more of your pathetic attempts tofollow your heart,like some cockamamie, whimsical princess. Grow the fuck up.”
