Chapter 26
twenty-six
LOCKE
I don’t tell Rosie about the video. Thankfully, she’s barely in it.
You can’t even see her face in the shadows—just the shape of her body.
Telling Rosalie would feel like I’m giving her more things to stress over.
Podcast conversations between two money-obsessed finance bros should be the least of her worries.
While she’s focusing on the Xion internship, I’ll face the scandal’s backlash.
Said “scandal” is just me defending my girl from getting bullied in a club. It’s the misogynistic ammo these boys yearn for while doing nothing substantial with their lives.
When I get an ominous text from my father, saying nothing else but “Office. Now.” I know it’s hit its peak. During the Friday afternoon car ride there, I give myself a pep talk.
I don’t regret a single thing I did that night. It felt good to speak my mind for once and act as myself—not as my father’s son. I’m not ashamed of what happened, so I should hold my head up high when standing in Dad’s office.
Old habits die hard, though. With the floor-to-ceiling windows showing a gloomy overcast of the city, I fall back into the empty shell of being his son.
“Do you know why I asked you here, Locke?”
Spine straight. Shoulders back. Chin up.
I’m his son again. I hate myself.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that so?” He smiles. Not smirks, but the corners of his mouth are lifted too high. It’s evil. I keep my focus on them when he slams a fist into his desk repeatedly. I don’t flinch.
“I get a call from my publicist, first thing in the morning, telling me my son is trending because he’s getting into a fucking fight at a club?!”
It was hardly an argument, and definitely not a fight. I don’t correct him.
My father hits his hand on the wood again.
I think I hear it splinter, but I can’t bring myself to look.
“You know what’s funny? She tells me this, and I think it’s Grant.
I thought it was Gran going around, fucking up his life and fucking over my name.
But was you. Do you want to tell me what you were doing at a fucking night club, Locke? ”
I don’t have a response. I can barely focus on anything but what’s going on right now. He just insulted my brother and red is flooding my vision.
“Answer me!”
Blood rushes through my head. I can’t think. I’ve only felt like this once before—a week ago, in front of Jeremiah. My nails are fighting their way into my skin, trying to keep my need to defend Grant at bay, and I don’t know what my father wants from me.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Oh, you don’t know?” His laugh is condescending and disgusting and familiar. It’s the only one I’ve ever heard from him.
I hate him.
“I don’t know.” I repeat myself out of spite, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
He flinches like I’ve burnt him. Probably from my tone. In all my life, I’ve never dared to speak to him like this.
Dad scoffs. Throws his hands up, one of which is bright red and swollen. “Who are you?’
Truthfully, painfully, I don’t know the full answer.
I know what I’m not, though. I’m not solely defined by being his son anymore.
Despite my inability to say what I want in front of him, I recognize my mind is different.
Before, whenever I faced him, the only thing I could think about was being the best version of his son.
Now it’s the single thought I push out of my head.
I’m supposed to sit obediently in his office chair. Let the leather stick to my skin uncomfortably while he looks down at me and criticizes everything I do. He affords me no love, despite being my dad, and I’m supposed to accept it.
Before he can make his way to me, I shoot out of my seat. My legs twitch to move and head for the door, but I’m not quick enough. He’s already standing toe-to-toe with me before I make an escape.
But looking at him like this is different. I always saw my father as a large, looming presence in life—both in office rooms and away from his colleagues. He’d look down on Billie and I in every sense.
I’m taller than him. I’ve never realized it, but right now his head is turned up to stare at me, and he feels smaller than before.
“Sit down, Locke. I’m not done talking to you. You were so unprofessional and disrespectful in that video. Do you know who that young man was?”
“I don’t care.”
He could say Jeremiah is my long-lost grandfather and I couldn’t care less. He got what was coming. In fact, I’d argue I went easy on the prick.
My father scoffs again and I scrunch my nose.
“Jeremiah Hastings. His father holds a high-ranking position in one of our subsidiaries, Locke.”
The blur of anger is dissipating, and my body is falling back into what it’s accustomed to. Being afraid of my father, and wanting nothing more than to keep him happy, because I don’t know anything else.
Falling into the act of his son is what I know best. I don’t want to admit that it’d be the easiest thing for me to do right now.
Desperately, I reignite anger.
I think of Grant’s face when my father forced him to sit at the dinner table with us, insensitive to how much grieving he must’ve been going through.
I think of my little sister, and how much time we spent together growing up, because neither of our parents could be bothered, and we were each other’s only company.
I think of Rosalie. I think of her resilience, how much she inspires me with her passion, and how lucky I am to witness such an amazing woman prosper. More than anything, I think about how many times she gets pushed down by industry politics, and how she always gets back up.
If she can face those things head-on, then I can wiggle my way out of my father’s grasp. I’m more than his son. I need to remember that.
“Are you listening to me?”
His commanding voice triggers a part of me I want to die out so badly. Instinctively, I reply, “Yes.”
My hand readjusts my glasses. Shaking, I barely sit them back on the bridge of my nose.
I know what I should say to him. It’s on the tip of my tongue.
Grant. Billie. Rosie.
One hand squeezes the side of my thigh, and the other rearranges my glasses again.
There’s a stretch of silence before his mouth starts to tip. He chuckles, and part of me dies inside.
“I don’t know what high and mighty shit you’re on right now, but get off it. You’re my son. Start acting like it.”
He scoffs for a third time. In my face, it doesn’t sound audacious or shocked. It’s cocky and ever-knowing. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out.
Dad smiles, full teeth.
Old habits die hard.
“I don’t care what you do with your life, Locke.
” He moves out of my space but I still feel suffocated.
I want out of this office now. “So long as it has no effect on me, I don’t care.
But when you’re in public, or using my name, or my money…
” There’s an emotion in his voice that he’s never gifted me.
“You remember you’re my son. You act with me in mind, and you remind yourself that at the end of the day, your responsibility is to be what I need you to be. The next in line for VK Corp. Got it?”
Everything’s shaking. My vision, my resolve, my heart. How cruel is it to be nothing to your father but a chess piece for him, only to be played when he sees value, and never for anything else?
To him, I’ll never be a person or a manifestation of love between two parents. Just a backup plan he needs ready if—when—things with Vaughn go south.
It’s the most miserable feeling in the world, and I just want out. Anything to get away from him and to people who understand me.
With acid clawing its way up my throat, I reply, “Got it, sir.”