My father’s men are standing guard next to the bedroom. “Wait outside,” Dad orders, and they take position on either side of the door as he closes it behind us. And before I even see it coming, his hand shoots out and he slaps me. Hard.
I want to touch the stinging skin—I can’t believe that Dad actually laid a hand on me. But I keep my hands by my side and let the anger inside me bubble and boil and rise up from my stomach, through my chest, to sizzle and spit inside my head. I am a volcano of pain. Thousands of atoms of repressed hurt have been scattered throughout my body for years. I’ve kept them buried and spread out so they wouldn’t join up and trigger a cataclysmic explosion. But in one second, Dad’s slap pulls all those particles together and molds them into a fiery core of lava. I stand there, steam rising from every pore of my body.
“What the hell have you been doing?” my father hisses.
“The right thing,” I respond, not daring to move a muscle. Keep it inside, I think, and stare at a vein pulsing in Dad’s neck.
“‘The right thing,’” my father repeats. Crossing his arms he stalks past me to sit on the edge of a dresser. “And the right thing in this case is going against your own father, undermining one of the biggest deals of his career. No, make that the biggest deal of his career.
“I asked you to help me. And what did you do? You stole my contact right from under my nose and delivered her to my competitor.”
“Do you even hear yourself?” I ask, incredulous. “That is the most ludicrous spin on what actually happened. You kidnapped a teenage girl and kept her hostage in your home!”
My father shakes his head. “It’s all a matter of perception. Yes, I was applying pressure, but she was always free to leave . . . if she chose to. And without your intervention, I am sure she and I could have come to an arrangement. In fact, I’m still hoping to do so.”
“You are deluded, Dad. Juneau will never willingly help you. You’ll have to force her. Which makes you as bad as this Avery freak,” I say, gesturing at the door. From somewhere in the house, Avery’s still yelling.
“Force is always vital in negotiating, whether subtle or more”—my father weighs his words—“overt.”
I just stare at him, wondering when dishonesty became so ingrained in him that he began to believe his own lies. Dad is waiting for a response, but I don’t give him the pleasure. Finally he shakes his head.
“Miles, you don’t understand how dangerous this situation is that you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in.”
“Really?” I ask, and pull up my T-shirt.
My father gasps as he sees my bullet wound. “My God. What happened to you?” For the first time today he looks genuinely shocked.
“I got shot,” I say.
“By whom?” My dad’s voice is faint.
“One of Avery’s guards. They were chasing us in L.A. when we left your house.”
“What?” My dad leaps up and throws open the door. “O’Donnell!” he yells. A second passes and O’Donnell appears in the doorway. “Were you aware that my son was shot?”
“I didn’t do it,” the guard says, eyes wide.
“It wasn’t him,” I confirm.
“Your partner shot him?” Dad asks, sounding dangerous.
“He shot at him. But I didn’t know the boy was hit,” O’Donnell says. “And just after, our Jeep flipped, so I was too busy saving my own life to think about his.”
“That will be enough,” my father says, and shuts the door in the guard’s face.
“I almost died,” I say. “Juneau saved my life.”
I see a flash of pain cross my father’s face. A split second of concern. It’s the closest thing to love that I’ve felt from him for years, and my volcano cools a few degrees. Just enough for me to let my mask down. Like the shark he is, my dad spots my weakness and darts at it.
“You have feelings for the girl, don’t you?” he asks. “You think you love her.”
I hesitate, then nod.
“You’re young,” he says in a quiet voice. “You don’t know what love is.”
“Well, I know what it isn’t,” I say. “It isn’t deserting someone when they’re sick. When they’re desperate.”
“So that’s what this is all about,” Dad says with a cold glint in his eye. “You’re angry at me because your mother left. She left us, Miles. I didn’t force her to go.”
“How hard did you try to stop her?” I ask.
My father sighs. “It’s very hard to live with a person who is depressed. You can’t understand how difficult things can be.”
“Try me,” I say. “Explain. For once.”
Dad shakes his head, mournfully. “I bought your mother the best care possible while she was with us. But I have a multibillion dollar company to run. It’s not like I could sit around and take care of her myself.”
“It all comes down to you” I say. “Your business. Your success. Your money.”
“That money pays for everything you have.” Dad puts his hands up to slow things down, and sighs.
“Listen, Miles. Help me convince Juneau, and we can all go back home.”