Page 49 of The Lawyer
“She should be here.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“You know damn well we do not mix with them.”
“Why?”
“How many times do we have to go over this? It’s been in your blood all your life, Landon. You know why.”
“No, I don’t. All I know is the lines you’ve fed me since I was a child, the same ones I’ve swallowed without ever damn well questioning them. I want the specifics now.”
He stands and huffs, trying to head for the other entrance at the far end of the space.I’ve picked up a book and thrown it in front of his face before he gets there, enough force in it that the champagne he’s holding goes flying and the book rebounds off the stacks.
He stops and turns to me again. “I don’t know what the hell that was, but grow up, Landon.”
“Grow up?”
“Yes. We don’t have room for childish tantrums.”
“Be careful, Father. I'm wound up enough without you adding to it. Don’t ever call me a child again. Or treat me like one.”
I pull in a breath at the thought, positive he’s not the one that deserves my fist, and walk until I’m in front of him again. “I will find out what this is about. And until there’s some clear, concise, and sensible reasoning as to why Persephone can’t stay where she is, she’ll be doing exactly that.”
He opens his mouth, so I wait for any of my requests to be answered. Nothing comes. He simply glares at me, his shoulders attempting to stay steady under my scrutiny. “You’re hiding something. You always have been. I want to know what it is.”
His chin tips up, old, wizened eyes matching my own as we face off. It might be the first time it’s ever happened to this degree, and that thought ends up making my lips tip up in some contempt ridden smile. Still, no answer, though.
And he’s not going to give one either.
“Listen carefully, Father. You have no power over me anymore. In fact, you gave it all to me without considering the point that I might challenge everything you are.” His mouth opens again, and this time I hold my hand up to stop him before I lose my temper completely and this moves irrevocably past reconciliation. “This will end with me taking what little shred of dignity you have left if you carry on attempting to strong-arm me, so I suggest you back off for a while and let me calm down.” Both my hands go to my pockets, and I turn to leave before he manages to cut in.
The sound of my own feet reverberates as I walk away from this place. I can’t even call it a home now. What home delivers the kind of rule this one always has done? At least at Tallington, there was some peace through the summer months because he was barely there. And then, there was law school and the States and my own life to grow into, but since coming back here, it’s been nothing but a monstrosity of rules and orders and apparent obligations.
That’s about to change.
And I’m still ready to punch something.
I stand on the steps, bouncing with rage, and look out to the front gardens. The fucking gall of the man. Childish tantrums? There isn’t one thing childish about me anymore, if there ever damn well was. I’ve forgotten childish anything, mainly because I wasn’t able to actually be a bloody child and do what children do.
Grumbling to myself at the memory of that, the vision of her sitting in Maxwell’s comes back to haunt me. I could laugh more, she said. How dare she say that to me? If she’d lived my life, she might understand there’s been so little to laugh about I barely remember that either.
Willow fucking Etherington.
Fraudulent little bitch.
It takes the image of her hurling abuse at me in the offices for me to realise exactly who’s going to get my fist in their face, and I stride to the car. I don’t even have the sense to check the road as I power out onto it, and a car swerves and blares its horn at me. I glare and keep going, ramping up enough speed that I doubt anything could catch me through these roads even if I was being chased.
Half an hour later and I pull into the one place I can get rid of this tension. The alarm sounds on the car as I walk towards the innocuous door, and I push on it to stride in like I own the place. I don’t, but I damn well do own the fucking cunt that does.
Halls pass by in a shadow of movement until I’m close to his excuse of an office, and for half a beat, I wait outside and consider what this could mean. Having run through all the possible options of retaliation, it’s still not enough to stop me barging in and aiming right for him. Eight strides across the space and a punch lands so hard on his jaw that he tips back off his chair in surprise.
“Get the fuck up,” spits out of me.
“Jesus, Landon,” he says, pulling himself up. “What the fuck was that for?” I’m so close to telling him it’s for making my Willow dance in a place like this I can barely restrain my voice. Thankfully, more rage kicks in to counter it, and another swing lands straight on the other side of his face.
He stumbles backwards, but this time there’s not one inch of pleasantry on his face reading my actions.
“You’re a vile little shit, Jackson.”
