“Why her?” Max asks, and I bring my eyes to his. Desperate.
My father finally turns to face me. “Because I made a decision to keep her alive a long time ago. That day, I found out that a deal that I needed had gone through for a clinical trial .” He brought his eyes up to Max, and I gulped past the boulder that felt lodged in my throat.
“What kind?” Max asked.
“I’m going to cure schizophrenia and insanity.”
What? I yank on my arms, my breathing ragged. I don’t have schizophrenia.
“How?” Max asked, crossing his large arms across his chest. His coat stretched over his thick muscles. “That’s not possible. Forgive me, but schizophrenia is a mental illness and there are therapy exercises to help the clinically insane. There doesn’t need to be a cure.”
My father’s eyes bored into Max. “None of that works. So are you going to help me or not?”
Max turned his head over his shoulder, his eyes coming to mine. Tears stung the edges of my sockets and my brows pulled together. I shook my head. “No! No!”
I shake out of my memory as the video playing cuts into something else. This time Max isn’t in it, and my father is talking with Taylor. They seem to be in a stretch limo, the camera filming them from somewhere in the corner of the vehicle.
“How do you know that Max will do this?” Taylor, my father’s VP, asks.
“Because he feels a connection to her. He will want to fix her, help her.”
“An awful lot riding on your feelings.” Taylor stilled, and I watch as a flash of pain bares itself over his eyes. Only briefly. “I knew her as a kid too, Johnson. Watched her grow.”
My father smirked at Taylor. “Oh, Max will do as he’s told, and shut up, Taylor. You know this is what I need.”
Taylor seems to be over his brief flash of sense. “How will Max obey?”
My father seems to pause slightly, thinking over his next words. His hand comes up to his mouth, his finger teasing his mustache. “Well,” he begins, reaching for the bottle of whiskey that’s in the minibar. “I guess because he will feel inclined to. They’ll both feel bonded to each other but won’t know why.”
“And what am I supposed to do with that, Johnson? This is too far. Even for me,” Taylor jokes, shaking his head. I always thought Taylor was the smarter one of the two, the one with more humanity. At family barbeques, he would always be the loudest in the room and bring my sister and I toys and candy. We liked him, a lot. That changed drastically when my father became president—well, at least for me anyway. You give some people power and they not only abuse it, but they weaponize it. That’s Taylor. Taylor’s eyes turn serious. “What do you mean?”
My father chuckles. “I had an affair earlier in our marriage. They’re fucking half brother and sister, Taylor. Jesus Christ, have you always been this fucking slow or is it becoming worse with age—”
I fly out of my chair and to my feet before I can recollect my erratic heartbeat. Guards surround my father already, preparing him to leave. Because even a shitty human being can be guarded if he has enough money and status. There’s more commotion I can hear popping off behind me, but I can’t focus.
“Did you know!” I scream at Max, disgust contorting my face.
He rears back. “No! Fuck no!” His arms fly out to the side of him, his eyes frantically shifting to my father. “What the fuck!”
I glare straight at my father. “You’re disgusting.”
He stands from his chair, his eyes going straight past me and landing on Bryant. “You think you’ve won? You may have this one, and you may have the last laugh, but remember who you’re messing with, Royal.”
Bryant grabs me by the hand and glares at Max. “What will it be, motherfucker. You wanna get fucked or be the one doing the fucking?”
I can’t comprehend the meaning of what Bryant is spewing right now, because my mind is spiraling out of control.
I kissed my damn brother.
Max looks between us and my father as I attempt to fight the tears. Slowly, Max hooks his arm in mine. “We need to get her out of here.”
I pull out of both of their grasps, spinning around to look directly at my dad, who’s being escorted by security. I ignore the flashing of cameras in the background and the heavy guards surrounding our table. “Was it worth it?” I don’t know why, but it was the first thing that I could think to say.
My father’s eyes harden as he grips onto his suit jacket and buttons it up. “You think this is all me to blame, then you’re even more blinded as I thought.”