“Fuck the title, and everything that goes along with it, Daideó.”
In seconds, my grandfather was out of his chair in my face. I stood tall in front of him because one thing that would never change, no matter the scenario, was that a Brannington never cowered to anyone. I never had before, and I wouldn’t insult him, me, or our entire heritage by doing it now.
I continued to stare down the man, and while his salt and pepper hair reflected his age, his still youthful face defied the fact that he was pushing sixty. Age had not diminished his power any as I quickly found out when he struck me violently across the face with his ringed hand. Besides the sting of the blow, I now had the coppery taste of my blood on my lip. I stood there determined to endure his ire, especially because I knew I would never concede to his ridiculous wishes.
"How could you be so fucking stupid, garmhac?"
Before I could even answer, he pulled me closer as he gripped the top of my shirt. We were now eye to eye, and the hatred in my grandfather’s gaze was noticeable. "Are you going to drive what’s left of this fucking family into the ground because you can't keep your puny dick in your pants? Answer me," he spat out before striking me again.
“You’re making much more out of this than you need to, Daideó. I?—”
My words were cut off as a string of curses came from the other man. No matter how he both threatened and insulted me, I would not cave. I wasn’t invincible, though. My hands balled into fists at the venomous barbs. This seemed par for the course growing up here, although it was usually Kingston getting a lashing from him instead. My oldest cousin never cowered either.
No matter what any of us ever did, it never seemed to be enough. “Speak, dammit,” he said before striking me again.
After that blow, I growled loudly, but the sound didn’t faze my grandfather at all. Warm blood now dripped down my cheekand off my lip, but I wouldn't wipe it away because it would only give him a reason to hit me again.
Since childhood, I'd been hardened to steel, the beatings done to build strength according to this man. He'd always viewed us as weak, but I wasn’t. Having done his bidding my entire life, I was now thinking about my own.
Maybe I had developed a stronger backbone, or the very idea of never being with Reagan again fortified something within me. Nothing had ever been enough. Throughout my earlier teen years, I’d been abused by more than just this man currently sneering at me. At his orders over the years, I'd been tortured by the very men who would one day have to answer to me. As long as Ronan Brannington was alive and well, however, they did whatever was asked of them or face death.
The hell inflicted on every Brannington heir had shaped us into the men we were becoming. Unwilling to comply as I normally did, I shocked both my grandfather and me as I brought my hands to his throat and forced him against his desk.
“Fuck you!”
My grandfather’s smirk, even in the hands of what could be his death, infuriated me. I had every intention of squeezing tighter, but I remembered that he was my elder. Beyond that, he was family. It was only after I loosened my grip, my grandfather struck me again. This time, he did so with enough force to send me staggering backward.
After I regained my equilibrium, I looked up to find my grandfather pointing a gun at me. "I’m sure it made you feel like a man to defy me, but you’re about to see why that was a mistake. Possibly even a bigger one than getting caught with that whore. You’re never to see her again or else?—”
“I’ll see whoever I want to see,” I told him before adding, “I’m about to be an adult.”
“And what are you going to do with your adult life? Saddle yourself to a piece of ass, then get your weak ass killed when our enemies try to use you to get to me.”
“I’m sure you have men everywhere,” I started to say.
“And not a single one will ever respect you. No matter how much power you delude yourself into believing you exude, they only see you as the weak boy you are. The weak one you will always be. The weak one I still see.”
“I’m. Not. Weak,” I ground out between gritted teeth.
“Thank fuck I still have Kingston and Princeton, because upon my death, you’ll have the entire empire run into the ground. You’ll never be half the man I am because you allow your emotions to make decisions for you. Everything I've done in my life has been precise and intended, which includes siring your father. I see his mistake now was being too weak to tell your mother to abort you when she had the chance.”
“If you want me gone, consider it done. I’ll leave this damn house right now.”
He chuckled, then fingered the trigger on the gun he still had pointed at me. Psychological warfare was the name of the game, but he would never break me mentally. He could break my bones, but never my spirit.
“Are you going to pull the trigger or not?” When he said nothing else, I shook my head. “Of course, you won’t. You’re not as strong as you think you are, Daideó.”
“And you’re not as smart as you think you are, garmhac.”
Before I could ask what he meant, he tapped the butt of the gun against the heavy oak top of the desk, and the door quickly opened behind me. Two of his men stepped in, and at my grandfather’s nod, they grabbed me.
“Bring him to the hole.”
I tried to shake off the grip these men had on me until I saw my grandfather’s smirk had returned. Determined to withstandwhatever punishment he wanted to dole out, I squared my shoulders as I was led from the study and out onto the estate.
The dog days of summer were in full effect, and I was spending what would soon be one of the last few nights of solitude outside with my mother while my twin watched from inside. It had been raining off and on all day, but for the last several hours, Mother Nature left a haze, which made my skin perspire. Or maybe the thin sheen on my flesh was due to the thoughts I had been having lately of Cillian.
I ran a hand through my long, auburn curls and threw my bare feet up onto the small ottoman in front of me. The creaking of the rocker and the sound of my mother flipping the pages of the mystery novel she was reading weren’t the only sounds out here, but they pushed the symphony of tree frogs and the lapping of water down to where I could barely hear them.
