I stop running, my legs tired and lungs exhausted. All my tears have dried up, and I make a promise to myself to never let someone hurt me like that again.
I let the pain harden me and give me strength.
If they want someone to hate, someone to blame, someone to be worthy of their abuse, I’ll give them just that.
8 years later
“You disgust me,” my father sneers, his salt and pepper beard twitching as he grinds his back teeth together. “I can’t even comprehend how we’re related.” Moving around the large, ornate desk at the back of his study, he shakes his head, his left hand moving to undo his middle jacket button.
He hates me.
Good.
The feeling is fucking mutual.
I smile, and he narrows his eyes. “She’d be so disappointed in you,” he says with total and utter disdain for me.
It’s my turn to grind my teeth now. How fucking dare he bring her up. “Good that she can’t see me then, isn’t it?” I bite out, thrusting my hands deep into my pockets, my chin lifted in defiance.
“Careful, boy.” He glares, but the hate in his eyes is nothing new. “If you can’t watch that tongue of yours, I’ll do it for you.” His idle threat is nothing to be afraid of, and he knows it.
The days of being afraid of my father are long over. There isn’t anything he can do or say to control me anymore. His words slide off me like oil, and he hasn’t raised his hand to me since I was eleven and took the beating from his asshole father. That was the last time I allowed anyone to raise their hand to me. A month after that, he left on a work trip, and when he returned, neither of us were the same people.
Fucker doesn’t scare me.
I scare him.
Sometimes, I even scare myself.
I’m a cannon set loose upon the world, filled with anger and demons. There’s no backstabbing or behind-the-scenes staging from me. No, I prefer to fight with my fists and see the blood spill for myself. I enjoy the look of shock and horror on people’s faces when I lash out at them, beating them into submission.
Submission. I enjoyed submission in the bedroom too. I expected any woman who shared my bed to be a body for me to use as I saw fit, and I never had any problem finding willing participants.
“This is your last warning, Samuel,” my father continues, like I’m listening to him when he knows I’m not. “I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to keep pulling you out of the shit you constantly get yourself in. It’s obvious you like being buried neck deep in it.”
He stares at me, waiting for a reaction, already knowing he isn’t going to get one.
“Are we done?” I ask with disinterest. My father, the great Maxwell Gunner, is a careful man in all parts of his life. Everything and everyone is perfectly calculated and controlled—except me. I’m the untameable. A relentless storm in its pursuit to destroy everything he’s worked so hard to achieve. And I love nothing more than pushing him to lose his cool daily.
He’s my father, by blood only. This man has never been anything but a dark shadow in me and my sister’s life. The hate is vibrant between us.
His dark eyes glare harder, his nostrils flaring. I let a slow smirk crawl up my face at the satisfaction of pissing him off.
“No, Samuel, we’re not done yet. Let me tell you this, and listen well, because I won’t be repeating it…”
I yawn.
“I put in a special favor with George Griffin to get you into this school.”
“Who the fuck is he?”
“He’s the Dean of St. Augustine, Samuel,” he snaps. “Listen to me. There are no more warnings…”
I pull my hands from my pockets and crack my knuckles. St. Augustine. It’s happening.
“This is the last time you get to embarrass me and shame the family name. The last school you will get expelled from. I’m not going to continue to waste money on your education if you don’t care about it.”
“I don’t need shit from you,” I throw back over my shoulder as I turn to walk away. My lips curl in disgust for him and everything he stands for. I raise my hand up and show him the middle finger.
