“I didn’t,” Chase replied, doing a really shitty job of sounding sincere. The guy needed to own up to his mistakes. He was playing with fire and now he’d gotten burnt.
“Well, they came from your phone. Why did you send them?”
The room went quiet as Chase just stood there, ignoring his dad as he burned a hole into him with his glare.
Suddenly, we jumped out of our skin as Don picked up his tumbler of whiskey and threw it against the wall. “Fucking answer me! I haven’t got time for this! What the fuck did you do, you no good sonovabitch?”
Chase started spluttering over his response and Don marched over to where he stood and slapped him hard across the face, sending Chase crashing to the floor. Harper gasped and I reached out to take her hand in mine. Obviously, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Using their fists on people weaker than them seemed to be a family trait. They were all bullies.
“Get up.” Don leant down and shouted in Chase’s face, spit flying from his mouth as he hissed, “Stop lying there like a pussy and get the fuck up.”
Chase did as his father told him; struggling to stand as he clutched his cheek, wincing.
“Now, explain to me like the fucking man I brought you up to be.” He leant right into Chase’s face as he spoke through his clenched jaw. “Why did you send those messages?”
Chase took a few deep breaths and looked at us with vengeance in his eyes. “They needed teaching a lesson. They get away with everything. The parties, the fights, the bullshit they pulled on Uncle Alec…”
Don held his hand up to stop him.
“He isn’t your Uncle Alec. For fuck’s sake, boy, stop acting like the world owes you something. Alec Winters fucked up. And so will you if you keep up this spoilt little brat charade every time things don’t go your way. Your eighteen years old. Start fucking acting like it.”
We stood watching as Don Lockwood tore his son a new one. For a family that liked to keep their shit hidden, they weren’t doing a very good job of maintaining that.
“They should be locked away for what they did.” Chase argued back weakly, trying to justify himself after he’d made such a shitty move. “They scam people, Dad. They’re the scum of Sandland. Didn’t you say you wanted to clean up this town? I was helping you. I wanted to get rid of the filth as much as you did,” Chase begged like the loser he was. He could see he was failing in his dad’s eyes and he was desperately clawing onto anything to make what he’d done sound right.
“If you want to say something to us, say it to our faces. Don’t hide behind your daddy like a little bitch,” Ryan spat.
Hearing Ryan’s voice gave Chase an injection of bravado and he sprang to attention.
“I’ll happily tell you to your face what I think of you.” He went to charge towards Ryan, but Don held his hand over his chest and pushed him back, making Chase stumble. His bravado fizzled away fast beneath the shadow of daddy’s disappointment.
“Grow the fuck up. There are ways and means, son. Ways we do things. We don’t hide behind messages and play games. I’m running a legitimate business here.” I couldn’t stop myself from scoffing at his attempt to sound like a middle of the road businessman. He tore his gaze from his son to glare at me, but I just grinned back. “I don’t want the police knocking on my door because you can’t control your jealousy over some cheap pussy you lost out on because of these jokers.” He shoved Chase one last time, then smoothed his hands down the front of his expensive suit jacket like it’d been nothing.
Ryan darted forward, the fury rolling off him was palpable. The reference to Emily wasn’t lost on him, and the fact he’d called her cheap pussy was like a slap in the face. Even I wanted to knock the shit out of him for that one. Who did these people think they were?
“That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about. Your ex-best friend’s daughter.” Ryan could barely hold back as he glared at them both, baring his teeth like a wild animal.
“Ex being the operative word,” Don snapped, pacing forward to try to intimidate Ryan into backing down. “We don’t speak to the Winters family anymore and we certainly don’t condone what they did.” He held his nose up in the air as if his shit didn’t stink. The thing was, we could all smell it, and he was the biggest liar of them all. I was getting tired of their phony bullshit.
“Your filthy hands were all over that deal,” Zak said, making us all turn to face him. “We know that. Everyone in Sandland knows it too. You can argue all you want in here, but we all know the truth.”
Don swerved around like a monster ready to attack an
d focused all of his poisonous venom onto Zak.
“What happened to Winters was his fault. Nothing to do with me, my family, or my business. So, if that’s all you came here to say, you can leave.” He marched back to his desk to sit down and dismiss us like some kind of demon headmaster. “My son won’t be texting you again. You’ve got what you came here for. Now go.”
Like we wanted to stay for a moment longer than we had to.
“Why didn’t he text Brandon?”
We all stopped dead when Finn spoke. Don’s eyes grew wide as he peered over at Chase. Chase froze and swallowed nervously as if he was trying to gulp down the lies he knew would spout out of his mouth at any minute. And we all waited. Finn had hit on something here.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and every muscle in my body tensed up as a gravelly voice at the door said, “Yeah, Dad. Why didn’t he text Brandon?”
We all turned to face Jensen, who stood at the door to the study. His face was bloody and swelling up badly. From the way he was leaning in the doorway, I could tell he was in pain, and that fact made this shit show slightly more bearable. I couldn’t keep the smirk off my face seeing how much he was suffering, but at the same time, I was pissed. He knew something about what was going on and I didn’t like him holding any cards. I should’ve finished the fucker off when I had the chance.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked, looking between each of the Lockwoods. From what Jensen was implying, this went deeper than a grudge between Chase and the rest of us.