Chapter 4 #2
But just to fuck with her, I throw her a slight smirk and rasp, “Can’t wait.”
Her eyes light up and she practically prances out the door.
Poor… Sabrina?
Okay, I give up.
Poor whatever the fuck her name is, is going to learn real fast that I don’t pick up my father’s discarded ones. It’s the principle of the thing and the fact that my dick doesn’t work for women like that.
No offense to the women.
All offense here goes to the man who brought me into this world and who constantly cheats on my mother. And who a second later says, “She likes you.”
I’ve been watching her leave, but at his voice, I turn around and there he is.
My lovely father.
All the way across this huge room, sitting on his throne. Or his chair that looks like a throne.
It’s been here for as long as I can remember. Upholstered in polished brown leather, it has a high wide back. It makes him look larger than life. It makes him look like the king of the world, or at least Bardstown.
He specifically had it made for himself, actually.
I think he saw it on TV, this throne-like chair, and he wanted it so much that he had it custom built.
That’s my father; he wants things.
He wants money. He wants power. He wants women. He wants an ugly-ass chair that he saw on TV because he thinks it makes him look rich and powerful.
He is those things, yes. But he also loves to show off.
He loves to shove it in your face, how rich and powerful he can be.
“How tragic for her then that I don’t,” I reply, remaining by the door.
“Don’t be so hasty in your judgement, son. Stephanie’s new but she has her uses.”
Ah, Stephanie, and she is new.
I hum. “Good for Stephanie. But I think I’d find her more useful if she wasn’t fucking my father.”
At this my dad laughs.
He has a booming laugh, loud and echoing, and just like that it becomes a real struggle, a real fucking struggle, to not feel that noose tightening around my neck.
When he’s done laughing at me, he says, “Such prudishness. Still. I thought time would make you more receptive. But you continue to surprise me.”
Yeah, because this isn’t the first time my father has suggested that it’s okay for me to — how do I put it? — avail myself of his conquests. He’s definitely availed himself of mine in the past and so I stopped bringing girls from school over.
For all his greediness, my father can be a very generous man. He’s happy to share things with me, his one and only son. His wealth, his power, this company that he’s built from the ground up.
“Yes, I’m an enigma.” I sigh and brace myself. “Is there a particular reason you wanted to see me tonight?”
As I was heading out of the bar, I got a text from my dad, asking me to come see him in his study.
I’ve had plenty of summons like these over the years and they never end well. So I’m not particularly looking forward to this conversation. But I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter like I did before.
Like I did up until two years ago.
Up until then, I’d blow him off. I wouldn’t answer his texts, wouldn’t pick up his calls. I’d be purposely difficult to get a hold of. It used to be easy too. I used to have soccer practice, parties, friends, school and all those things.
I would actually take pleasure in avoiding him. I’d take pleasure in showing him the finger, doing things he hated just to spite him.
But now not so much.
Now I don’t have very many excuses.
Such as soccer.
Yeah, I don’t have soccer anymore, and I’m not going to get into the whole thing as to why. Because the reason doesn’t matter. Suffice it to say that I don’t play and neither do I go to college.
Not that that’s been a hardship, not going to college.
Like my father, I never liked education. I was only going to classes to have minimum grades so I could play and piss off my dad. Since I’m not playing, I’m not going to waste my time on homework and assignments.
“Just wanted to check in on my son,” he replies almost gleefully. “Welcome him back from New York. I have to say I missed you.”
Yeah, of course.
He wanted to check in on me. He wanted to rub it in my face that he can check in on me and that one call from him, one measly text, and I’d come running.
As I said, my father wants everything.
Such as my complete and utter obedience. Complete control over me.
“And I have to say that I can’t say the same,” I quip.
Chuckling, he settles back in his ugly-ass chair.
“I’ve always liked your sense of humor. I’m sure it’ll come in handy as you adjust to the new workplace.
I’m looking forward to having you here. And the fun starts tomorrow, huh?
The big party in your honor on transferring from the New York office to here.
The future CEO of the company. This is all going to be yours one day. ”
Right.
So I work for my dad. The thing I never wanted to do. I have been working with him at his company, Jackson Builders, for the past two years now. I was in New York up until now, handling things up there because that’s where I was needed. My father’s words, not mine.
But now he’s called me back and I’m supposed to obey him.
And I have.
I’m back, aren’t I?
Even though I’m sure that this big move back was just a way for him to show his power over me.
“Anything else?” I ask, wanting to get out of this suffocating, four-hundred-square-foot and yet claustrophobic office as soon as I can.
But he won’t let me go so easily.
He knows how much I hate it here and he’ll make me take it.
He’s going to make me suffer.
“Yes." On his desk, there’s a file that he slides toward me. “I’ve got a job for you. Your first job here in Bardstown.”
A job, of course.
A violent sort of energy flashes through my body at his words.
It’s nothing new though, this violence in me. It’s been brewing for the past two years, ever since I started working for him. Ever since he forced me to work for him and made me his lapdog.
“And what does this job entail?” I ask.
“The usual. There’s a piece of land that I want. But the owner is being difficult.”
"So, we’re going to make things more difficult for him, then?”
“Of course.” My father smiles. “We’re going to increase the pressure until he cracks.”
It’s not a miracle that my father owns everything in this town and it’s not all hard, honest work either. He likes to bend the rules, fuck with people and their lives as long as he gets what he wants.
Like screwing with their bank accounts so they can’t pay their mortgage. And when they can’t, the bank gets involved. That’s when my father steps up and offers to pay off the debt in exchange for the land.
I have first-hand knowledge about that.
About his business dealings.
About how he fucks with someone’s life. That’s how he got me actually. By fucking up someone else’s life.
I go over to the desk and pick up the file. I recognize the name on it, Henderson. He owns a bookstore in town, I think.
I went to school with Mr. Henderson’s son, Martin Henderson. He was a good kid.
I know it’s not going to make a difference but still, like an idiot, I speak up, “I went to school with his kid.”
My father chuckles. “So?”
“So you want me to destroy someone I know.”
So far I’ve only fucked with people I haven’t known. I try not to think about it too much. But this is new. This is fucking new and I know I won’t be able to stop thinking about it.
“For business only.”
“Yeah because that makes everything so much easier, isn’t it?”
This time I’ve amused him so much that his chuckle turns into laughter and I fist my hands and tighten my muscles again.
Damn it.
His laughter really strangles me to death.
“You’re so easily offended, aren’t you?” he says once his laughter is under control. “Yes. It does.”
“Why can’t someone else handle it?”
“Because I want you to handle it.”
“I think I’m going to have to pass.”
That pisses him off, my refusal.
“Are you sure you want to say no to me?” he asks. “You know how upset I get when I hear that word.”
“Apparently not enough to have a heart attack or something.”
His nostrils flare and all the charm and all the ease that he portrays to his investors at his parties slips even further. He goes from being a posh businessman to just a man from the wrong side of the tracks who managed to own everything that he ever set his eyes on, either by hook or crook.
“You remember what happened last time when you said no to me, don’t you?”
I do.
I do remember it.
“Yeah, last time when I said no to you, you blackmailed me into working for you.”
His eyes narrow. “And whose fault is that? I let you run around, do whatever the fuck you wanted while growing up. You wanted to be a little shithead who hated his daddy, fine. But you don’t fuck with me when I ask you nicely.
I asked you to quit soccer, forget about the championship game, that fucking scholarship — like you even needed a scholarship when your father’s loaded — and come work for me.
But you didn’t listen. So I had to show you who was boss. ”
“And you’re the boss, aren’t you? Always.”
“Yes. Because I always win,” he declares, his features morphing into something harsh, villainous.
“I always get what I want. So instead of being an ungrateful son of a bitch, try showing some gratitude that I’m leaving you this company.
That I’m going to teach you how to fucking run it, because I’m not letting you ruin my life’s work.
And I’m not leaving it in the hands of someone as incompetent as you. ”
Yeah, that’s been the whole saga.
My father and his company. How he built it and how he wants me to run it. How he won’t let me escape it. How he’ll do anything to force me to take the reins.
Although in his defense, he did ask me nicely.
In my senior year, he asked me to not apply for a soccer scholarship. Repeatedly. He asked me to quit the team. Repeatedly. And when I didn’t listen, because I was such a shithead who hated his daddy, he gave me an ultimatum the night before the championship game.