Page 51 of Twisted Empire

His face still looked weary, and his hair was more rumpled than he’d have allowed it to get in the old days when he was as strict about his appearance as he’d been about everything else. But there was a firmness to his expression that I hadn’t seen in months… maybe years. A renewed alertness in his eyes.

He could almost have passed for the man he’d been before I’d betrayed him to my friends in Paradise Bend.

“What’s going on?” I asked, drawing myself up a little straighter instinctively under his scrutiny. He wouldn’t have called me in for a face-to-face meeting unless it was important.

If he’d found some of his old spirit, could I dare to hope that we didn’t need the intervention of the police at all? That Dad and I could rain down hellfire on Doom’s Seed together and obliterate him and his men from this city?

“I realized that we should talk about the current conflict between our forces and Doom’s Seed,” Dad said, adding fuel to my hopes. “I gather you’ve been taking the lead on dealing with his people’s offensives against us.”

My throat tightened. “Yes. I’ve been giving Lana regular reports to pass on to you, but the ongoing attacks have required so much of my attention—I’ve been doing my best to handle the situation without needing to interrupt your other work.”

I hadn’t believed he’d have anything useful to offer was more like it, but I wasn’t going to admit that to his face.

Dad nodded. “I appreciate that. It sounds as though you’ve done a capable job of rising to the occasion, as difficult as it’s been. But you’ve done enough.”

My spirits leapt for just an instant before he spoke his next words. “It’s time to back down.”

Any elation I’d felt snuffed out. I stared at him, my jaw going slack. I had to gather myself before I could speak. “What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to cut our losses and pull out of the city,” Dad said, coolly and steadily. “Let him have our territory there if he wants it so much. We don’t need the handful of businesses we’ve established there—they’re just a drop in the bucket of our holdings. It’s not worth continuing the conflict.”

My stomach knotted. “Are you kidding me? You want to just lay down and let him steal from us? How’s that going to look to the rest of the Devil’s Dozen?”

Dad fixed me with an unexpectedly steely glare. “If you’re going to really become the Storm one day and stand at the table as their equal, you need to know not every battle is worth fighting.”

Washeseriously claiming some kind of higher wisdom on that subject? The man who just seven years ago had poured so many resources into a pointless takeover that’d stretched our manpower and resources thin—that we’d only emerged from mostly unscathed becauseI’dstepped in and forced an end to the war?

“I do know that,” I said, unable to stop an edge from creeping into my voice. “I also know that ceding established ground to another power is one of the first things you told me we never do. It’ll only invite more attacks from other quarters. Maybe we can afford to lose our properties in the city, but how much else are we going to lose next? This house is less than an hour away from the downtown core!”

“And there’s no reason for Doom’s Seed to be interested in our family home. You may have taken on a lot of responsibility in recent years, but you’re not the head of the family yet. I call the shots. And I say that it’s become clear that our attempts at holding our local business properties are coming at too high a cost.”

I held back a snort of derision. Now of all times he’d decided to start thinking about practicalities, after years of barely paying attention to our profit sheets? The urge to bring up all the investments we’d recently made in the city itched at the base of my throat, but another, chilling thought shot through me before I could speak.

Yes, whywashe suddenly interested in getting involved?

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did Doom’s Seed contact you—say something to you that made you come to this decision?” We hadn’t lost any more people in the latest attack on us since last night, almost twenty-four hours ago. It seemed odd that Dad would be spurred into motion now by that or anything else I knew about.

Dad’s mouth flattened. “I can make my own evaluations of our dealings. It’s not your place to question me.”

“I think it is,” I shot back. “I’ve been the one in charge for the last four years, in all but name. I’ve been the one handling the day-to-day business and most of the big transactions as well. I’ve been on the front lines of this battle for weeks, and I have no idea how much you even know what’s been going on. So I think I have a right to ask for answers. Did he talk to you or not?”

Dad stood up, slamming his hand against the desktop as he did. “You’ll listen to me,” he snapped, a hint of a tremor creeping into his words. “I practically lost you once. I’m not letting it happen again.”

A stillness swept over me, my chest constricting even more than before. “He did talk to you, didn’t he? He threatenedme? You can’t listen to him, Dad. I can look after myself. We have to—”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Dad cut in. “We’re ending this now, with no more bloodshed on either side.”

“It’s not really you making that call if you’re only doing it because he threatened you.”

Dad’s mouth twisted. “He has the power here. I know how many men we’ve lost. If he goes ahead and comes right at the home I’ve worked so hard to build, at you…”

His voice faltered, and his shoulders sagged.

My heart lurched. I stepped toward him. “He called you up and told you that if you didn’t back down, he’d attack us right in our home? Kill me? That fucking asshole—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dad muttered, all but confirming what I’d said. “I’m not risking it. I took too many gambles in the past, and they could have gone even more badly than they did… I’m not testing my luck again.”

Anger flared up inside me. “No. I can’t believe you’re letting him bully you after everything— This ismylegacy you’re trying to throw away now. Everything I’ve been working for, everything I’ve built. It’s not just yours anymore. You don’t get to decide all of a sudden that you’re going to protect me and ruin everything that I’ve made mine.”

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