Pagan (The Henchmen MC 8)

Fighting was always my second favorite pastime. Now, the private school guys I went to school with were a bunch of pansies, but even some schmuck in a fencing uniform or horseback riding breeches could be poked and prodded enough to throw a punch. And that was all I needed.

But before fighting, was skirts.

I lost my virginity at fifteen to the woman who cooked my meals. After that, it was a whirlwind of pussy. The plus side to private school girls is they, like me, had spent a lot of time alone and didn't have much of a childhood, growing up way too fast for their own good. By the time we were all sixteen, I don't think there was a virgin among us. And sex was as casual as a handshake.

It was also around then that I learned how much I liked cigarettes and whiskey.

And because all this drinking, smoking, fighting, and fucking was taking place in the bowels of some mega mansion, completely unattended, no cops were ever called, no records were ever recorded, no parents were ever the wiser.

Hungover as fuck I attended far too many debutante balls, opening days, charity auctions, whatever the fuck event was deemed mandatory by my grandmother who was either so naive or so stupid that she always mistook my red-rimmed eyes, tiredness, and surly ass attitude as a lack of sleep and school pressure to keep up my grades.

She died about a week before my seventeenth birthday and, with no matriarch left to keep up those kinds of appearances, me, my father, and my grandfather were never forced into tuxes or summer suits to attend any of those dull as shit events again.

My clock was running out too. It was a fact I was almost painfully aware of in my lovely, but small gilded cage.

Graduation would mean my father and grandfather would call me into the office, sit me down, likely offer me a whiskey because that was what was done, and have the mother fucking 'talk.'

The one about my future.

The one about their expectations on it.

I didn't need the talk to know what they wanted from me. They wanted a four-year degree in business. They wanted me to sow my wild oats, party, get the childish shit out of me without creating a criminal record, an illegitimate child, or making the news.

From there, I was meant to start at one of the companies as a mid-level employee. You know, so the word 'nepotism' wasn't shouted like a rallying cry. Then, when I was about twenty-five, I would get my corner office. I would get a salary that would make a pro-football player pale.

One might think this was a dream.

After all, money was important. If you were poor, it was important. If you were rich, it was important.

But if the money came with clauses, like mine would, namely a suitable wife, the right number of children, the perfect outward appearances, then it wasn't the freedom that wealth afforded a person. It was just another kind of prison. True, the walls were gold, and the sheets were a fuckuva lot softer, but a prison was still a prison, no matter how nice the view from your barred windows.

As one could imagine, the man I was presently, didn't just appear out of thin air one day. It was the culmination of all the events of my life. So even at eighteen-years-old, I was a headstrong, stubborn, cocky, loud-mouthed dick.

Cue the meeting I always knew was coming.

"That was a nice speech, Dad. Did you practice that in front of the mirror? Or are you just repeating the same speech Gramps over here spoon-fed you at my age?"

"Robert, have some respect," my father chastened, voice bored.

"This is heartwarming, really," I said, tipping back my whiskey and going for a refill, something no one even said a word about. "But I think it is a little late to pull the Dad-card on me. Fuck, I don't even think I've seen your face in over three goddamn months. And you," I said, waving my glass, the kind that cost about a hundred bucks each, at my grandfather. "When was the last time I saw you before the funeral? Three years? You think you have the right to come back here now and make demands on me?"

"Robert, I have done nothing but..."

"You could have stopped at nothing. That was the complete thought. You have done nothing."

"I am your father and it is time to put this insolent, childish behavior behind you and become a man."

My lips quirked up at that. "Didn't you hear, Pops? Sheila made a man of me years ago. You know, during one of those never-ending business trips of yours."

"It's like talking to a damn brick wall," my father grumbled to my grandfather who had simply been watching me with interest since I started speaking. "Listen, at twenty-one, you are coming into your trust, and I can't in good conscience, give it to a spoiled little brat who isn't going to do what is expected of him."