Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jack
Iwasn’t going to say anything. That was absolutely the plan.
I would keep my lips zipped, pretend nothing at all was out of the ordinary, and while my dad was distracted with his campaign and whatever he was up to with the Tech Expo, I would shift as much money as I could find into new, secret accounts and start plotting my escape from his reach.
That was the plan, at least.
“Junior, I want to see you in my office. Now,” my dad’s voice sounded over the old-fashioned desk phone he’d insisted I keep in my office.
The whole point of that phone was so that he could do exactly that, bark orders at me remotely whether I tapped on my phone to answer him or not.
I sighed, sat back in my chair, and rubbed my hands over my face.
It had been a full day since the awkward encounter in The Grand Hotel’s conference room.
I’d managed to avoid Dad, and fail to answer a couple calls from my mom, after my lunch with Quincy.
I’d gone back to the office and done some work on the case I was currently passionate about.
Dad hadn’t returned to the office at all.
I’d tested my credit cards and checked my bank accounts after heading home last night, and my money was still gone.
All of it. Same for this morning. It was a good thing my fridge was already stocked and the rent paid up until the end of the month.
That gave me all the wiggle room I needed to ignore my dad’s gambit and buy myself time.
I couldn’t ignore him anymore, though.
“I’ve been summoned to Dad’s office,” I told Imogen as I strolled out of my office.
“Uh-oh,” Imogen said adjusting her glasses.
I glanced back at her over my shoulder with a wry smirk.
“Oh, and, um,” Imogen stopped me before I could turn the corner into the hall. She bit her lip, then quietly said, “I’m not having any luck redirecting payroll. Your employee ID has been deleted from the system.”
My stomach twisted, but I smiled at Imogen anyhow. “It’s okay,” I said. “I think I’m about to find out what this is all about anyhow.”
I already knew what it was all about. Strangely enough, that fact kept me calm as I strode down the hall to the elevator, then waited. It wasn’t half as scary as it could have been to be summoned to the CEO’s office when you already knew what you were about to be yelled at about.
I took the elevator up one floor to the executive suites. It felt more poignant than ever that I hadn’t been given an office on that floor along with the other important people in the firm. Poignant and obvious.
“He’s expecting you,” Arnold, Dad’s admin, said once I reached the corner office.
“Is that Junior?” Dad’s voice came from the other side of the open doorway as I headed for it. As soon as I stepped in, he said, “Close the door,” in a voice that had me thinking he was probably going to toss me out the window.
I did as I was asked, then moved to stand in front of Dad’s desk. Unlike pretty much every other office in existence, he didn’t have spare chairs in front of his. He expected the people he summoned to stand in his presence.
“Tell me why you’re here,” he said to kick things off.
I settled into a stance that was as close to “at ease” as someone who’d never served in the military could get.
I kept my mouth shut at first, trying to figure out how he wanted the situation to play out.
Did he want me to fold and grovel, begging for my money back, or did he want me to be defiant so he could enjoy cutting me down.
I settled on, “Why don’t you tell me?” Resistance without attitude.
Dad scowled. “Are you going to be difficult or are we going to smooth over this wrinkle like civilized alphas?”
So it was a game of questions, was it?
“What do you want from me, Dad?”
Dad definitely wasn’t amused. “I want you to behave like the alpha I raised you to be,” he said, surging forward and slamming his hand on his desk. “I want you to follow the rules of the society you were born into and achieve the potential I have aligned you for.”
“Alright,” I said with the barest of shrugs.
Dad’s lips pulled back, revealing his teeth, like the wolves we all apparently had in our blood somewhere from ancient times. “Don’t get smart with me, Junior,” he snapped.
“I’m not being smart,” I said, keeping my voice as even as possible. “You told me you wanted me to follow the rules and I said I would.”
“But you didn’t mean it.”
Well, he had me there.
“You will have nothing to do with that whore omega ever again,” Dad went on, sitting up straighter and issuing the order as he stared down his nose at me. He was a master of the art of making himself look bigger than someone even though he was seated and they were standing.
“My personal life is my own,” I said, not contradicting him explicitly while absolutely giving him the finger.
“Your personal life is mine!” Dad shouted, shocking me enough that I jumped.
“Everything this family does is mine! It is my image, my reputation, my future. I plan to be governor of this state and maybe even more someday. You will toe the line and present the picture that I want the world to see or you will pay the price.”
His demands were so cliché for our class that I would have laughed…if I didn’t feel like strangling him.
I fought back by saying nothing.
Dad continued to glare at me, as if willing me to buckle.
“Is that all?” I asked, as deadpan as I could manage.
“You will take this seriously, Junior, or you will feel the consequences,” Dad went on as if I’d flipped him the bird.
“What consequences?” I asked, again without a drop of facial expression.
Dad gaped at me like I was either obtuse or making fun of him. “Haven’t you taken a look at your bank accounts in the last twenty-four hours?”
An exciting flicker of hope reverberated through my belly.
He didn’t know that I had looked, that I’d tried to buy Quincy lunch and failed.
Which meant he didn’t know I’d spoken to Quincy yesterday.
It was possible that he didn’t know I had Quincy’s phone number or that we’d been texting and talking since the day of our RV adventure.
That could only be a good thing.
“I haven’t had reason to look,” I said, still frozen and giving away nothing. “Why? Have you cancelled all my cards and withheld my allowance?”
The entire room seemed to hold still as I waited to see whether the believed me or knew I was bluffing.
“I’ve cut you off,” he said at last, eyes narrowing even more.
He didn’t know that I knew.
A kernel of hope seeded itself in my chest.
“Why?” I demanded, trying to look a little surprised, but still stoic.
“To teach you a lesson,” he said. “Everything you are and everything you have is mine. You will fulfill the role I have chosen for you or you will get nothing. You will be as destitute as that cheap omega you should have just fucked and discarded.”
It was nearly impossible for me to maintain a cool facade when he insulted Quincy like that. But I felt so close to beating him that I put everything I had into holding it together.
Again, I said nothing in response to his statement, so Dad went on.
“You will represent the goals of the family and the firm by fighting for our interests, in court and in the boardroom,” he said.
“That’s my job,” I told him.
“You will stand by my side at any and all campaign events, smiling and showing the world how worthy of ruling them I am.”
I had to swallow my reaction to the gall he showed in implying he should rule the world.
“You will be seen with the omegas your mother and I choose at the events we choose,” Dad continued. “You will listen to the sort of music we tell you to listen to and support the causes that best benefit me.”
None of it was new and none of it came as a surprise.
But for the first time, I scoffed inwardly.
My dad couldn’t make me listen to a certain type of music.
He couldn’t choose my hobbies for me. He couldn’t make me fall in love with an omega he picked, and more importantly, he couldn’t make me fall out of love with the omega my heart had already chosen.
My father had no power over me.
The elation of that realization made me dizzy.
“Yes, Dad,” I said, nodding tightly. It was so much easier to pretend to obey when I knew I had zero intention of doing anything he wanted me to do.
Of course, I was pretty sure Dad could see right through me.
“Go,” he ordered me, focusing on whatever was on his computer screen instead of me.
That was it. No goodbye, no promise to reinstate my accounts, not even any further orders. He just wanted me out of his sight.
I left without another word, nodding to Arnold on the way out. Arnold looked at me like he was trying to tell whether I was smarting from the new asshole he probably thought I’d been ripped.
I headed downstairs and got a similar look from Imogen.
“Are you still alive?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, walking around to stand on her side of her desk. “Am I still locked out of the system?”
She tapped through a few things on her computer.
“Yep,” she said, sending me a sorry look.
I shrugged. “It’s fine. It’ll all be back soon.”
Or not, I said to myself as I headed into my office.
I could have made a statement by leaving early.
I could have gone out and tried to find some money to squirrel away for what I was pretty sure was coming.
But I really cared about the case I was working on, and any move like that on my part would be a glaring spotlight on the fact that I had no intention of staying in this life for any longer than I had to.
It was only an hour after my dressing down that I got a text from Quincy. When his name flashed on my phone, my gut tightened and worry that Dad had gone after him somehow made me snatch the phone up.
“Hey, got a minute?” the text read.
I’d left my office door open when I’d returned, so I got up to close it, sending Imogen a reassuring smile as I did.