13. Family Pressure, Corporate Teeth
FAMILY PRESSURE, CORPORATE TEETH
Brock
Harrison Steele doesn't knock. He never has.
Knocking implies the other person has a right to say no, and Harrison has never once operated under that assumption.
I'm in my home office when I hear the front door open, not forced, just entered.
Like the house knows better than to resist him.
Red's voice carries down the hall. Tight. Then nothing. Then boots on hardwood.
I don't stand when he walks in.
"You look like hell," Harrison says.
"You look like you want something." I lean back in my chair. "So let's skip the part where you pretend this is a visit."
He's dressed the way he always is, dark suit, silver cufflinks, hair gone the color of January frost. Sixty-three years old and still built like a man who wins arguments by waiting everyone else out.
He crosses the room without being invited, takes the chair across from my desk, and sets one hand on the armrest like he's already claimed it.
"There's an article running Thursday," he says. "Industry piece. Oil and gas quarterly outlook." He pauses. "Your name isn't in it the way it should be."
"My name is on everything I've built here. Not just the oil."
"Your name is on my company." Flat. Final. "The one that kept this ranch from becoming a tax liability twenty years ago. The one that still funds your—" he glances around the office, at the reining trophies, the framed land maps, the photo of Titan at his first championship "—hobbies."
I say nothing.
Harrison studies me for a moment. Reading me the way he always does, looking for the crack.
"The board is nervous," he continues. "The arena video is still circulating. There are analysts asking questions about liability exposure on the livestock side, about whether the luxury brand is a reputational risk?—"
"The brand is profitable."
"The brand is visible." He says it like that's a disease. "Visibility invites scrutiny. And scrutiny, right now, is a problem."
I keep my expression even. "What kind of scrutiny?"
Harrison reaches into his jacket and sets a folder between us. Clean manila, no label. I don't touch it.
"There are people," he says, "who would prefer Steele Oil restructure its public-facing leadership. Consolidate. Streamline." He lets that sit. "Mercer's group has been making noise to the right ears."
"Mercer." The name lands like a boot on gravel. "You've been in contact with Mercer."
"I've been managing a situation."
"Ariel's clinic lease." My voice stays level. Barely. "The shell company. That was Mercer's move, and you knew about it."
Harrison doesn't deny it. That's always been his tell, not lying, just refusing to confirm. Plausible distance.
"Bret Mercer is a useful pressure point," he says. "I didn't direct him. I simply didn't redirect him."
Cold moves through my chest. Not anger. Not yet.
"He threatened her."
"He applied leverage." Harrison waves a hand. "The woman is a contractor, Brock. A temporary hire whose personal financial situation made her a soft target. That's not my fault."
I stand.
Not fast. Not loud. I stand the way I used to ride. Deliberate. All weight forward. Harrison's eyes track the movement without flinching.
"She's not a target," I say. "She's not a soft anything. And you will not talk about her like she's a line item."
His expression shifts. Not guilt, Harrison doesn't do guilt. Closer to recalculation. He's updating his read on me, filing away the heat in my voice.
"You're sleeping with her," he says.
"That's not your business."
"It became my business when a security contractor I employ flagged it in a report.
" He leans back. Relaxed. "She's a small-town vet with debt, a failing clinic, and no political capital.
She has nothing to offer you. And right now, her presence on this property is being used by Mercer's camp as a story, distraction, scandal, poor judgment.
" His gaze doesn't move. "She makes you look weak. "
"She makes me look human." The words come out harder than I intend. "Which I know you don't understand."
Harrison is quiet for a moment.
When he speaks again, he's dropped to the register he uses in closing negotiations. Soft. Certain. The register that has ended careers and contracts with the same expression.
"I have spent forty years building something that will outlast both of us," he says. "I have made sacrifices you will never fully comprehend. And I will not watch you burn it down because a woman in dusty boots made you feel something."
"This conversation is over."
"Brock." He doesn't raise his voice. He never has to.
"I have the contracts that fund her clinic's temporary operations on this property.
I have the ear of the state licensing board.
I have Mercer's attention and his resources, and I can point both of them at her professional standing before the end of the week. "
The room goes very quiet.
I look at my father, really look at him, and for a moment I see it clearly. Not the patriarch. Not the empire. Just a man who has spent so long protecting what he built that he forgot what any of it was for.
He stands. Smooths his jacket. Picks up the folder from the edge of the desk and tucks it back under his arm.
At the door, he stops.
"End it with the vet." He doesn't look back. "Or I end her career."
The door closes behind him.
Not slammed. Not forced.
Just shut.
I stand there for a long time, staring at the space where he was. The reining trophies catch the afternoon light. Titan's photo watches from the wall, that first championship, Midland dirt in the air, both of us younger and stupid enough to think winning was simple.
My phone buzzes on the desk.
Cami: He's in the car. You okay?
I pick it up. Set it back down without answering.
Then I walk to the window and look out at the north pasture.
The sun is half gone behind the caprock, bleeding orange and rust across a sky that doesn't care about any of this.
The arena is empty. The round pen gate swings loose in the evening wind.
Three mares stand at the water trough, unhurried, tails flicking slow.
And then, where Ariel's truck is parked outside the outbuilding, where her lights are on and her waitlist is full and she's in there doing the work she's always done, completely unaware that my father just put a clock on everything.
My hands aren't shaking.
That's the thing about being raised by Harrison Steele.
You learn early how to look like nothing's wrong.
But she's out there. And he will do exactly what he said. And the only thing I know with any certainty right now is that he's not going to get the chance.
I just have to figure out how to stop him without making her a casualty in the process.
The thing is, I've watched Harrison dismantle people my whole life.
Clean, efficient, no fingerprints. I always told myself I'd never use those tools.
But I've been running his playbook since the day I took that board seat, and I'm not sure where his instincts end and mine begin anymore.
End it with the vet.
Like she's something I picked up.
Like she's something I can just put down.