“Yet it’s never stopped you from trying to impress him.”
Samuel scoffs, takes a sip of his drink. “Believe me, I’ve given up on that years ago.”
“When you wanted to be an architect, but your dad decided?—”
“I’d be better as a puppet overseeing one of his companies. Yeah.” You’d have to be a fucking tree to miss the resentment in his tone. I don’t blame him, though. He’s always been one to work hard at everything. Grades, languages, sport, an overachiever—not because he loved any of it. Because excellence was the currency he'd identified early as the thing most likely to purchase what he actually wanted.
His parents’ approval. Especially Rowan’s.
He never got it. Not really. Rowan would acknowledge the grades the way you acknowledge weather—noted, filed, moved past. Samuel would try harder. Get better results. Rowan would acknowledge those too, in the same flat, distracted way, already thinking about something else before the conversation ended.
I watched it happen for years. The boy who kept raising the bar, hoping eventually his father would clear it with him.
Rowan never did.
What Rowan gave Samuel instead was space. Autonomy. The shipping company. A life that looked from the outside like trust and felt from the inside like being handed a room in a house you're not allowed to explore. Samuel decorated his room beautifully—Mary, Lucas, the career, the careful, legitimate life—and learned not to try the doors.
He was the good son. But just never good enough.
He slams back the rest of his drink, orders another, then lights a cigar. “So, why are you here?”
“Told you. Business.”
He lets out a dry laugh. “My father’s business.”
I study him carefully.
“Oh, come on. We both know you’re more a son to him than I am.”
There it is again. The resentment that’s as subtle as a gunshot.
“I've always been adjacent to this family,” he continues. “Present but not—inside it. My dad has his world and my mother has hers, and somewhere in the middle there's a shipping company and a marriage that functions and a son they produced who never quite fit either side of it.” He says it without self-pity. Just the plain fact of it. “You, on the other hand, you got inducted, didn’t you? I got the company car. You got the approval.”
Something moves through my chest that isn't quite a laugh. If only he fucking knew what thatapprovalcost me and what I’d give to not have it.
“There was a time when it bothered me, all the attention you got from them.” He shoots back the last of his drink, orders a third with a wave of his hand. “Especially my mother.”
“Fuck that.” I turn on my seat to face him. “Tell me you don't know what your mother is.” I hold his gaze. “Tell me you don’t know what the fuck’s been going on in that house.”
The silence is enormous.
Samuel doesn't look away. But he doesn't say it either.
Because he can't.
Because he knows. Not the full picture—he's been careful, deliberately careful, about how much he lets himself see. But the shape of it. The outline. The practiced blindness of a man who understands that what he doesn't officially know, he can't be held responsible for.
His third drink arrives. He doesn't touch it. “I know my mother’s not perfect.”
“No, Samuel. She’s not. Ask me.” I point at my face. “I know all about how fucking far she is from perfect.”
His eyes go to the scar. The one with the lie attached to it.
“Here's a clue.” I lean closer. “It wasn't one of the security dogs.”
Samuel goes very still.
Because he knows what the security dogs look like. He grew up with them, too—the big, silent ones that patrol the estateperimeter, trained to specific commands, loyal only to whoever holds the lead. They don't bite without instruction.
