My father scoffed. “Everything in this world is for sale if you’re willing to pay the price.” Something he’d repeated over and over during my childhood. I hadn’t realized how much of his business dealings I’d missed out on by spending my entire life on skates.
Dinner ended soon after that. Delaney made small talk about venues for our engagement announcement, my father responded when expected and nodded at appropriate moments, and I played the dutiful son, learning at my father’s knee.
On my way out, my father’s hand landed on my shoulder, heavy and warm. “I’m glad you’re finally seeing sense,” he said. “You’re smart, Cole. I’ve always known that. No matter what it took to bring you back into the fold, I’m glad of it.”
Delaney gently cleared her throat, saving me from responding. She was a fucking lifesaver.
I opened the car door for Delaney, only for my father’ssometimes enforcer and bodyguard, Slade, to meet me in front of my car.
Delaney met my eyes through the windshield and obviously, visibly, put in earbuds and looked at her phone.
“She’s smart,” Slade observed astutely.
“Yeah.”
“Not your girl, though.”
“Nope.”
“Something’s wrong,” he said quietly. “Your father hasn’t provisioned the account I use to pay for our…” He trailed off then smiled. “For his less savory activities.”
That was odd. I wasn’t even supposed to know about how those cash payments worked, except that Slade had taken over driving me to hockey practices as a kid, and, by necessity, he occasionally had to do business with me waiting in the back seat of his car.
“Why are you telling me this?” Slade was my father’s creature, no matter how well he’d looked after me as a kid, how many of my father’s rages he’d saved me from.
His lips twisted in the moonlight. “I remember what happened to your first girlfriend—and who did it.”
My eyes flew to his, as blank and unemotional as they’d been since the first time he’d picked me up from the floor outside my father’s office, where I’d sat crying after a beating.
Before I could respond, he walked away, leaving me standing there in the dark, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I dropped into the driver’s seat of my car. Delaney pulled out her earbuds. “I don’t want to know,” she said, shutting me down.
No, she didn’t.
After I dropped Delaney off at her hotel, I sat in my car for long moments, hands gripping the steering wheel, the leather biting into my palms.
My father was giving me exactly what I wanted—access, information, and ways to bring him down. I should have been beyond needing his approval, needing anything from him. But every time he praised me, told me how fucking pleased he was that I was smart, that I was part of the business, that I was finally following in his footsteps, part of my hollowed-out soul filled up.
Even with Slade telling me to fucking run, I wanted my father’s praise. The urge hit me in the car. My hands shook, and I clenched them around the wheel until my knuckles turned white. I could taste it already—the burn, the warmth spreading through my chest.
One drink.
Just one.
I could go back to my apartment, review what I’d learned, maintain the careful separation I’d build between my old life and whatever the fuck I was building with Eva, Tristan, and Alek, but I knew if I did?—
Fuck!
I screamed in the car as I drove, ashamed and frustrated and craving what I couldn’t—shouldn’t—have.
Fuck this.
This was stupid, reckless, even. It wouldn’t take much for my father to figure out I didn’t spend the night in my own apartment.
I didn’t care.
I needed them like I needed a fix. More, even.
