I was Whitman Rose’s punching bag, she was his trophy wife, and he kept her supplied with pills and booze on the off chance she finally grew a backbone and attempted to stand up for her only child—something she’d never do.
From the outside, I looked like everything Shane had accused me of being: a rich, entitled asshole. I was an asshole, but only because I didn’t know any other way to be. I’d had the hell beaten out of me for so long that the only time I felt good was when I was inflicting that kind of pain on someone else. At least with those assholes at my school I knew I’d win. And I was never the one to start any of those fights. They’d push and push, knowing I’d snap, and when I finally did, all I saw was red, all I felt was this twisted exhilaration. Each fight was like an out of body experience. I’d lose complete control, only stopping when someone else stepped in to break it up, usually having to pull me off the bastard I was pummeling.
Everything about my life that all those other kids envied was all for show. I had the nice ride, the nice clothes, my own credit cards, all that shit so no one on the outside would look too closely. My old man couldn’t risk anyone seeing behind that perfectly crafted facade.
Being judged by someone who didn’t have a clue what the truth was had never bothered me before. But for some reason, knowing the girl with all that long, dark hair and those sweet, honey-colored eyes thought I was a piece of shit made my stomach twist violently. I didn’t know what it was about her that set me off, but from the moment I saw her standing inside my bedroom I knew I wanted her. It was a feeling I’d never experienced in my whole life. I’d had plenty of girls. Girls who got off on being with a bad boy, girls who thought they could “heal” me, girls who were after my family’s money. But I’d never wanted to make a single one of them mine in the way I wanted to make Shane.
Walking into my room, seeing her standing there, my gut reaction was to be pissed someone was in my personal space. Then I heard those words come out of her mouth, insulting me without even knowing me, and that pissed melted away, replaced with humor.
However, when she turned and looked at me everything changed. She was as bright as the sun. When those eyes hit me, they lit everything up, her glow cutting through the darkness and chasing away the shadows. And when she threw attitude, giving as good as she got, when she didn’t waver or seem impressed or intimidated by me, that need for her only grew.
She was the only thing I’d ever wanted that wasn’t handed to me on a silver platter—aside from a loving family—and the fact that she couldn’t stand me, that she thought the same things about me that everyone else thought, left me feeling raw and exposed, like a sanding block had been dragged over my skin.
Curling my hands into fists and clenching my jaw, I climbed the stairs to the old man’s second floor office.
I hated that fucking office. I hated the whole fucking house. But mostly, I hated the people in it.
Knowing it would piss him off, and unable to stop myself from pushing his buttons, I twisted the knob and threw the door open without knocking. I didn’t have any control over my own life, so I made outlets for myself. I banged any willing girl who threw herself at me, I got into fights with assholes who were just asking for it, taking my aggression out by pounding their faces into a bloody mess. And I stuck it to my folks in little aggravating, childish ways like not knocking, leaving my room a mess, and behaving like a punk every chance I got.
“You summoned?” I snarked as soon as I stepped into the room, looking to the huge monstrosity of a desk he stood behind, looming over it like a king surveying his kingdom.
His rage-filled eyes came up from stack of documents he’d been reading through. Looking at him just then, I hated that we looked so much alike. I got my height, my eyes, and my coloring from him. I even got his build, only he had more muscle than me. For now. For a dude in his mid-forties, my old man was built like a brick house. He worked out regularly, most likely to stay in shape for all those bitches he cheated on his wife with. Not that she cared. Just as long as my dear old dad didn’t spend any of the money that was supposed to be hers on them, he could fuck whoever he wanted. Most of the time she did the same damn thing.
“You’d be wise to mind your tone,” he warned. “Or have you forgotten who you’re dealing with?”
He hadn’t hit me in four years, not since I punched him back, shattering his nose when I was fourteen. But that was mostly because I hadn’t lived under his roof for a majority of that time. That didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of threatening me in other ways. And he did . . . all the damn time.
“Haven’t forgotten a damn thing,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest and staring him right in the eye—another thing he hated. He preferred it when I cowered, something I refused to do. “I know exactly what you are.”
Slapping the paperwork down, he rounded the desk, clenching and unclenching his fists, causing the veins in his forearms beneath the cuffed sleeves of his expensive button-down to bulge.
“You’ve got some nerve, boy,” he hissed, his top lip curling up in a snarl. “After that stunt you pulled today, you should be on your knees kissing my feet for bailing your ass out a-fucking-gain.”
There would never be a day in my life where I’d get down on my knees to thank this man for anything. Never. I’d die before doing that. “That was your choice. I didn’t ask you for shit.”
His arm shot out before I had a chance to react, streaking through the air in a blur before his fingers wrapped around my throat. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” he hissed, leaning in so close we were nose to nose. His fingers pressed deeper into my skin. He wasn’t squeezing hard enough to leave a mark or prevent me from breathing. That wasn’t what he was going for. What he was after was my fear. He wanted to scare and intimidate me, but after so many years of dealing with him like this, I’d become a pro at shutting off any kind of reaction.
Staring him dead in the eyes without so much as flinching, I remained silent as he began to pant with rage, his whole face turning a deep, mottled red. “You think you’re a man now, huh? A tough guy. You think using your fists is what matters? Well, I got news for you, boy. That’s not power. Power is having the means to ruin a person without ever having to get your hands dirty. I have power. You have what I’m gracious enough to give you, what I could take away in a heartbeat. That’s power, and you have none. Don’t you ever forget that.”
He released me with a shove, sending me back two steps. “Now get the fuck out of my office. And if you pull another stunt like the one you pulled today, I’ll show you exactly what real power is.”
Having said his piece, he turned his back to me and rounded his desk once more. He returned to those documents without a second glance in my direction, like I wasn’t even there. Like I was an annoying bug he’d just crunched under his shoe. Dead and forgotten.
I kept it in, all the rage and hatred I was feeling. I held it all inside me, letting it bubble and fester as I left his office and crossed the hall into my bedroom. It wasn’t until I had the door firmly shut behind me, the lock on the knob engaged, that I let it all loose. With a yell that sounded like it belonged to a wild animal, I cocked my arm back and drove my fist into the thick, solid wood of my closet door. I punched over and over, as hard as I could, not giving a damn when my knuckles split and blood began oozing out, leaving red streaks down the perfectly polished oak. I didn’t feel it, too consumed with the fire burning inside of me, so big it threatened to consume me, to feel any outward pain.