“What do you mean?” I ask as he lifts his head from my shoulder and leans back against the couch.
“I never wanted any of this crap.” He rolls his eyes to meet mine. “I hate my father, and I hate his life. I would have peaced out the second I turned eighteen if I didn’t have my sisters to think about. Silvercrest, going to work for him after I graduate, taking over the family business; I never wanted any of it. But I have to stay in his, and my stepmother’s lives to stay in my sisters’, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
He flicks his lip ring with his tongue a few times. “At first I wanted nothing to do with them. I was grieving not just losing my mother, but also my grandparents and pretty much everything I’d ever known. I had to move across the country andleave my friends, my school, and my entire support system, and I was pissed off about all of it.
“I don’t make friends easily,” he continues. “And being the bastard mistake of someone like my father didn’t make things any easier, but my sisters were different. They were always so happy to see me and they followed me around the house like I was the most important person in the world. They came to me when they were scared or hurt and were always ready with hugs if they thought I was sad or upset about something. And they’re the only people who’ve ever said they love me other than my mom and my grandparents. I wanted to hate them, but they were my only friends for a long ass time, and they’re the only family I have left.”
“Do you get along with your stepmom?” I ask when silence stretches between us.
“Yeah. We’re not especially close, and I don’t think of her as a parental figure or anything like that. But we have a good relationship.” He pauses for a few beats. “She was twenty-four when I moved in with her and my father. She had three kids under five, and she didn’t even know I existed until a week before I moved into her house. She always made sure to include me in things and never made me feel like I wasn’t welcome or like I was a burden or anything like that, but she had her own life and the girls to worry about, so I wasn’t really a priority for her. And my dad paid about as much attention to me when I lived in his house as he did when he pretended I didn’t exist, so I pretty much raised myself even though I had two ‘parents’”—he makes little air quotes with one hand— “Around.”
“I can’t imagine what that’s like,” I muse. “I’m an only child, but I wasn’t raised like one. My cousins were always around, and my aunts and uncles too. And we have a pretty big extended family, so holidays and stuff are always crazy.”
“My life used to be like that,” he says wistfully. “Not the big extended family part, but things were a lot different before I lost my mom and had to cut her side of the family off.”
I didn’t really look into his mom’s side of the family outside of having Jace see if any of them would have a reason, or the means, to hire people to kill him, and he came up blank.
“My grandparents tried to get custody of me when she died,” he continues, his voice soft and a bit faraway. “But my father wouldn’t allow it. He used his parent card and no one gave a shit what I wanted or who I wanted to live with, so I had to move in with him, and he cut off all contact I had with them. We reconnected when I was away at boarding school, but they died when I was seventeen, in a car accident.” His voice goes thick, and he clears his throat. “My mom didn’t get along with her family so I didn’t spend much time with them growing up. It wasn’t until she died and my rich daddy claimed me that her relatives came out of the woodwork to try and get a piece of my newfound fortune, so I cut them off. It wasn’t that hard since I didn’t really know any of them, but now my sisters are my only family, and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to stay in their lives.”
I gently put my hand over his, and he quickly laces our fingers together.
“Do you know what my plan is?” he asks softly. “After my dad dies and I get full control of his companies?”
“What?”
“I’m dismantling it all.” He shoots me a wry smile. “I don’t need his money. I have my mom’s life insurance in a trust I can access when I turn twenty-five, and I make good money with my music. I’ll keep enough assets so my sisters will never want for anything and will always have a viable source of income, but I grew up with a socialist mother who got fucked over by a billionaire who knew exactly what he was doing when he tookadvantage of her. I’ll play the game for as long as I have to, but once I’m in control, I’m burning it all to the ground and doing my own version of wealth redistribution. Fuck my dad and fuck his legacy. He’s spent his life destroying people for his own gain, and I’m going to make sure that there’s nothing left of his empire and it helps as many people as possible. I only wish I could do it while he’s still alive, but I can play the long game.” He shoots me a wary look. “Does that change things between us?”
“Why would that change anything?” I ask, genuinely confused.
“Because I’m guessing you don’t have plans to dismantle your family empire and that’s not a popular thing to say around here.”
I run my thumb over his hand in a slow arc. “No, I don’t plan on dismantling my family business, but I don’t give a shit if you do it. In fact, I think it’s pretty bad ass. And it’s not exactly a shock.”
He his brow furrows in confusion.
“I know about your foundation,” I tell him. “I know you’re already doing that sort of thing, so it makes sense that you’d keep doing it. And everything I’ve read or heard about your dad makes me agree with you. He’s an asshole who deserves every bad thing that’s coming to him and for his legacy to be destroyed.”
He smiles, and I can see the relief in his eyes as he gives my hand a squeeze, then gently lets go so he can crack open his water.
I do the same and take a few long gulps.
“I still can’t believe someone is trying to kill me,” he says, taking a few more sips of his water before capping it again.
“Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt you? Anyone who’s threatened you or would benefit from your death?”
He shakes his head. “Literally no one.”
“What about one of your father’s enemies? Something tells me he has a few of those.”
Damon snort-laughs. “Definitely more than a few. But anyone who knows him would know that using me to get to him is pointless. He only claimed me because he needs an adult heir to take over the family business. And he probably would have still claimed me even if my sisterswereolder because he’s a misogynist who thinks my sisters’ role is to be good housewives and pop out genetically superior babies, so he can’t even fathom one of them taking over when they’re older. Plus, he’s almost sixty-three, so hopefully he won’t be around long enough to see them get older. But that’s pretty much the only reason he bothered to claim me after my mom died. I’m male, and I’m the oldest of his heirs. He doesn’t give two shits about me, and everyone knows it.”
“Is there a chance he had something to do with your mom’s death?” I ask gently.
“I doubt it.” He flicks his lip ring a few times. “You didn’t look into what happened to her?”
I shake my head.
He looks down at his bottle and swirls the water around so it creates a little tornado inside it.
