“Don’t!”
“—are never coming back, then you can stand on your fucking pedestal and criticize other people for being what you perceive as weak. At least she’s brave enough to stand up and take responsibility for her business, even if that means telling you to go and fuck yourself. And you know what? She isn’t wrong.”
His cigarette burned brightly as it hung out of the corner of his mouth. “If you weren’t my son—”
“You’d be fucked,” I replied flatly. “Because without me, this business would have gone under the day they died. You tell me Dahlia is weak, yet I’ve been running this for the past eight years. You slapped this on my shoulders at twenty-two. I’ve lived and breathed this company that entire time, doing whatever the fuck you wanted me to. I haven’t seen my sister in six years. We lost more than Mom and Penelope that day if only you’d open your fucking eyes and see it. I lost my entire family.”
Dad took a long drag on the cigarette, then violently stubbed it out in the glass ashtray in front of him. The smoke wisped up into the air in a long line before it finally died, disappearing into the tense silence that enveloped us.
“I don’t know what you’re doing with that girl,” he said in a tight voice. Planting his hands flat on the desk, he leaned forward until only inches separated the tips of our noses. “But it’s all a bad fuckin’ idea. Those Lloyds ain’t nothin’ but trouble.”
I said nothing. I couldn’t honestly tell him what I was doing with Dahlia because I didn’t know either. At least not enough to be able to tell him honestly. Until I figured that shit out myself, it was a topic of conversation off-bounds.
Just like my mother and sister were for him.
After a few minutes of strained, angry silence, my father pushed up off the desk. As he left the room, slamming the door behind him, so did the chill that accompanied his presence. The room warmed as if I’d just opened the curtains and direct sunlight was glaring in through the window.
The worst part was that the blinds were open and the sunlight was already streaming through the windows.
The echo of the slammed door receded, leaving me sitting in complete silence. Emotion churned inside of me. Anger, frustration, grief—it all tickled at my skin, forcing the hair on my arms to stand on end until I was forced to fight off a shiver.
Discomfort.
That was the lingering, strengthening feeling that hugged me as I sat in the quietness of my office. My father would be long gone, off to do whatever it was he did when he was confronted with shit he didn’t want to face up to. I wouldn’t see him for a few days now. That was the way it worked.
He’d get annoyed. I’d piss him off more. He’d disappear.
I didn’t know why I still cared. I was fucking thirty-years-old. I wasn’t a child desperate for his approval anymore, yet here I was, caring as though his opinion was the be-all and end-all of the purpose of my life.
It wouldn’t just be the mention of my mom and sister that pushed him over the edge. My defense of Dahlia would have angered him just as much. I’d asked him many times why he had such a dislike of her family, but he’d never told me. I doubted he ever would.
For the life of me, I couldn’t think why he hated them.
If her parents were anything like she was, and for the little I knew, they were, there was no way any rationally minded person could hate them.
Of course, my father wasn’t rationally minded. He wasn’t rational in anything. Cold and heartless and broken, yes. But not rational.
I looked up and stared at the closed door.
So many secrets. So many lies.
Would I ever know the fucking truth?
***
Little lights illuminated the dark, metal gates that separated Dahlia’s house from the rest of the city. The yellow-white glow they gave off bounced off the shiniest parts of the gate.
I glanced around as I pulled my car to a stop. I expected to see the guy who guarded it, but there was nobody around. After a moment of waiting in the car, I got out.
Nothing.
Nothing except the tiny blinking light on the intercom. I stepped forward and pressed the button, and right at that moment, something snapped behind me.
I turned and jumped.
The figure of a well-built man stepped out from behind a small, dark building. The cigarette between his lips pulsed and glowed as he broke through the darkness. Momentarily, panic jolted through my stomach.
It receded when the man drew level with the lights on the gates.
“Dustin.” I chuckled nervously. “You scared the shit out of me there.”
He laughed back, smoke swirling around his head. “Sorry ‘bout that, Mr. Fox. Ms. Lloyd doesn’t like me smoking in the building, so I just stepped out for a moment.” He held the cigarette up. “Let me get the gates for you. She told me you’d be by late.”