“I know I have.”
His gaze sharpens.
Cold.
Calculating.
“You’re still my son,” he says. “Everything you build traces back to me.”
“No,” I snap. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
My chest feels like it’s going to split open.
But I don’t back down.
Not this time.
“I don’t need you,” I tell him, each word deliberate. “I never have.”
Something flickers in his eyes.
There.
Gone.
“And that’s what’s always killed you about me, isn’t it?” I add, stepping closer. “The fact that I walked away and still made something of myself without you.”
Silence stretches.
Thick.
Tense.
“Get off my land,” he finally spits.
“Yeah,” Josh adds with a nasty grin, “and take your fat whore with you.”
Everything goes red.
I don’t think.
I don’t hesitate.
I let go of Esme’s hand—hell, I didn’t even realize she’d come up beside me until now—and I take two steps forward.
The idiot doesn’t step back like he should’ve.
Next, my fist connects with his jaw.
Hard.
The crack echoes across the yard as he goes down in a heap, swearing.
I stand over him for half a second.
Breathing hard.
Then I turn.
