Page 19 of Ramsey & Emerson

Ramsey~

Ihad just walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around my waist, when my phone rang with that familiar, dreaded, unwelcomed ringtone.

My fucking father.

I swiped to answer, though I really didn’t want to. “Yeah?”

“Is that any way to greet your father?” he asked, actually sounding affronted.

I didn’t have time for his shit. “What do you want, Dad?” I asked, getting straight to the point.

I could hear him sigh on the other end of the phone. “I’m in Kansas City, doing some…consulting, and I will probably be here for a few months longer,” he answered.

So?

I stopped caring long ago where he and my mother were at, or if they were planning on ever coming home or not. What the fuck was he calling me to tell me about this shit for? “And I give a fuck why?”

“Careful how you speak to me, Ramsey. I am still your father,” he reminded me coolly.

“Yeah?” I bit out. “Well, if I wereyou,I’d be careful not to confuse who I’m speaking with, either. Now cut the shit, Dad, and tell me why you’re calling?”

“I heard a rumor that you’re running with some poor girl from some fucked-up hick town whose father murdered her mother,” he finally said, telling me exactly why he was calling me.

“Yeah? And where did you hear that from?”

Truth be told, he could have heard it from anyone in this fucking town. Damn near everyone had either their mouths closed over his dick, or their lips permanently attached to his ass. So, I wasn’t surprised that someone would call him and tell him that I was running after Emerson. Hell, me running afterany girlwas newsworthy in this town, but the fact that it was Emerson, well, that made it sensationalized news.

“Is it true?” he asked, ignoring my question.

“Yeah, and so?”

“Y…yeah, and…and so?” my father sputtered, and Colby Reed never sputtered. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘yeah, and so’? Have you lost your mind running around with trash, Ramsey?”

“You’re going to talk tomeabout running around with trash?” I let a heartbeat of silence pass. “Really, Dad?”

“Pick another girl, Ramsey,” he barked, and those words-the same that had been uttered by Emerson earlier-had my demons scratching at the surface of my skin.

I’d meant what I’d said to her earlier; there wasn’t another girl like her. I wanted Emerson like I’d never wanted anything else in my life. I wanted to ruin her and protect her all at the same time.

Fuck, how I wanted to hurt her though.

My father was still going on and on about all the other more suitable females that I could choose from when I cut him off. “No.”

“Rams-”

“I. Said. No,” I growled, not letting him finish. He was out of his fucking mind if he thought that I would ever give up Emerson.

“Ramsey, you have obligations,” he reminded me. “Do you think that girl is going to understand that?”

I was very aware of my obligations. After graduation, I was to go to college at Blaineview, then graduate from there with as many degrees in finance as I possibly could. After that, I would start working for my father inallcapacities and learn all the tricks to balancing that fine line between criminal and upstanding citizen. However, what my father didn’t know was that I had no intentions of taking over his business. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s bitch, and that included the Mafia’s.

“I haven’t forgotten what’s expected of me, Dad. Trust me,” I shot back. “But I’m not giving that girl up for anything or anyone, so deal with it.”

Colby Reed let out a deep sigh. “Son, listen to-”

“No,” I said again. “She’s mine, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.” Then a dark thought occurred to me, so I added, “And if you’re entertaining the thought of taking her from me, I feel that I must advise you on that subject, Father.” My next words were the most serious that had ever left my mouth. “I will fucking kill you if you dare to try to rid me of her.”

I could hear the intake of his breath on the other end of the line. I would bet everything that I owned that he was seething at being threatened by his eighteen-year-old son. Hell, being threatened byanyone.However, I wasn’t just anyone, and he knew it; having to deal with the monster that he’d created and all that.

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