The feeling definitely wasn’t mutual. “Where is he?” I growled, making her jerk back in fright.
“Wh-who?”
“Don’t play that bullshit game. You know who I’m talking about. Now where the fuck is he?”
I didn’t give her a chance to reply before barreling past her, giving her no choice but to skitter out of my way to keep from being mowed down. She called after me as I took the stairs two at a time, but I didn’t bother turning around.
I made it to the office and lifted my booted foot, kicking the door open with a crash.
My father shot up from his desk. “What in the world? Jensen? What the hell are you doing? A simple knock would have sufficed. There was no need to storm in here and make a scene.”
“Where the fuck is it?”
“Watch the way you speak to me in my own house, boy.” He still had the same bluster, the same condescending attitude, the same air of superiority he had all those years ago. None of that had changed. In fact, the only difference in him that I noticed was that he looked harder than he had before. The grooves at the corner of his eyes and mouth from his perpetual scowl were deeper than they used to be. The effects of the life he was living were written all over his face.
The games time played on a person’s memories were sometimes astounding. I remembered him being so much bigger. In my mind he seemed larger than life. But looking at him now, he was just a man. We were no longer equal in size, my time in the Army had made damn sure of that. But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed. He didn’t know it, but he was about to learn that the power had shifted in a big fucking way.
“I don’t have any clue what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do,” I said in a low, menacing voice. “I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Well, not that it’s much of a surprise, but you’d be wrong. Now you can show yourself out. I’ll send you a bill for the damage you did to my door.”
“Why don’t you just use the money you stole from my fuckin’ family,” I barked, charging around the desk so fast the old man stumbled backward. He wasn’t fast enough to escape me, and I used the advantage I got when he tripped over his chair to grab him by the throat and jerk him up, pinning him against the bookshelves built into the wall behind his desk. “We had a deal, motherfucker. And you broke it.”
I wasn’t squeezing hard enough to do any damage, but it was still enough to send fear flickering through his eyes. I was stronger than him now, so no matter how hard he fought, he couldn’t break my hold.
“I know you took the money from the account I set up for Shane and our son. I know you didn’t hold up your end of the bargain when I left. I’ve got guys following the trail as we speak, and it’s only a matter of time before they find what you did with it.”
“Get your hands off me,” he croaked. “I’ll call the police.”
“Call them,” I dared, leaning closer and squeezing a bit tighter. “Please do it, ’cause I’d love to see how they’d react to all the shit I’ve got on you.”
“You don’t have anything,” he rasped, trying to suck air in through his mouth.
“See, that’s where you’re wrong, old man. Biggest mistake you made was thinkin’ sending me off to the Army was gonna be the answer to all your problems. You see, I made my own connections while I was in there. Mine don’t necessarily have the money or the status that yours do, but my connections have something your guys lack. See, the team I was a part of, the men I got to know, the brothers I made; they’re really fucking good at finding shit. Shit people don’t want anyone else to ever find. Shit that some might think is buried so deep it can never be dug up. My connections, they know how to dig deeper. There isn’t anything they can’t find.”
The fear in his eyes no longer had anything to do with the fact that I was oh so slowly making it harder for him to breathe. “Say, like when a DA’s gotten himself over a barrel and the only way to pull himself out of the financial clusterfuck he’s created is to take bribes from some really nasty men, the scum of the earth really, helping them get off by throwing the cases he’s prosecuting.”
Whit made a garbling sound as his face started to turn purple. “Yeah, I think you get it what I’m sayin’. So please, go ahead and call the cops. That’ll make this little visit very interesting.”
“I-I don’t have it. I don’t have the money,” he sputtered frantically. “It’s gone.”
“Then it looks like you have your work cut out for you in getting it back.”
I let him go, stepping back as he crumpled to the floor, sucking in big, heaving breaths as he rubbed at his neck.
“I suggest you get started on that real fuckin’ fast,” I said as I started for the door. I stopped at the threshold and looked back at the pathetic excuse of a man that was hunkered against the expensive-as-hell bookcase he’d had specially made for this ridiculous office. “Oh, and just in case you get any crazy ideas, you should know, another skill my connections have—one that I just so happened to acquire as well: we don’t mind getting our hands dirty, unlike the pussies you know. And when we hide a body, it’ll never turn up. Who has the power now, motherfucker?”
My mother was still standing where I’d left her at the foot of the stairs when I came walking down, clutching her necklace and fidgeting from side to side. “Jensen,” she said, her voice pleading. “Son, can we talk?”
“Got nothing to say to you, woman, other than to tell you I am not your son.”
On that, I walked out of that godforsaken house, only this time, I did it with the biggest fucking smile on my face.
Jensen
Eighteen years old
I wasn’t sure exactly how long I’d been out. I remembered Caroline answering the door and yelling for Scooter at the sight of me, then everything went black. But now I could feel myself slowly sinking into consciousness, the muffled sound of voices becoming louder and clearer at the same time the pain in my body made itself know, reminding me of where I was and what had happened.
“I don’t understand why we’re waitin’. We shoulda called the cops the moment he collapsed face first on the entryway floor.”
So that explains the new, sharper pain in my nose. If it hadn’t been broken before, it certainly was now.
“Just wait till the boy wakes up.” I recognized that voice as Scooter Hendrix, which meant the woman’s voice belonged to Caroline.
“Screw that. This boy’s aura is all kinds of black.” Yep, definitely Caroline. “I’m callin’ them now.”
That snapped me all the way into reality. I quickly blinked my eyes opened, muttering, “No cops,” as I took in all three faces hovered around me. Scooter, Caroline, and a glassy-eyed Shane who was sitting on the edge of the bed.
She leaned in, smiling wobbly as she reached up to brush the hair off my forehead. “Hey, you’re awake. You scared the crap out of me, you know.” She was going for light and funny, but I could see the tears welling up in her eyes as they skated across my bruised and swollen face.