: Chapter 31

I’m losing control. If this was a chessboard, my uncle would be maneuvering me toward checkmate. Even though I’m fighting it, I get the sense that there’s something I’m missing.

As soon as I’m done with this dinner, I’m going straight to Margo’s. It’s the only solace for attempting this dinner alone.

I’ve barely walked into the house when my uncle pounces. His palm lands on the back of my neck, gripping firmly and guiding me down the hall. He’s shorter than me by a fraction, and thinner, too. I’m stronger than him, but years of bending to his will has left me unable to strike back. My body still remembers the pain he’s inflicted, and it seizes up.

That, and he still controls everything else in my life. The constant threat hangs over me at what he could do if I tempted him badly enough.

“You’ve been visiting your mother?” Uncle David asks.

He gives me a light shove into his study, and I stumble forward. I did the same thing to Margo on one of her first days at Emery-Rose. Guilt washes through me, feeling the humiliation of it. The helplessness. I straighten and face him, meeting his mocking smile with a blank expression.

He wants to pick a fight—or just get his anger out on his human punching bag.

He grabs the front of my shirt and twists the fabric. My collar bites into my neck. He gets in my face, his cold blue eyes burning into mine.

“Answer me,” he grunts.

“I didn’t realize there was a rule against seeing my own damn mother.”

Only a few weeks to go until my birthday, and then I can be done with him.

He’s been in a foul mood ever since Margo reappeared at school, but it’s only gotten worse in the last few weeks. I’m not fool enough to think it’s unrelated to either of those. My birthday and the girl from my past.

A feminine cough draws my uncle’s attention.

Aunt Iris stands in the doorway. Her blonde hair is coiffed, her long dress perfectly pressed. There’s not a wrinkle or misplaced piece of lint in sight, just as my uncle prefers her.

She pauses at the state we’re in. “David, is everything okay?”

“Does everything look okay, Iris?”

She murmurs something. The click of her heels on the floor indicate she is abandoning me to him. Again.

“I’ve done what you asked,” I say, while on the inside I plot his demise.

One day, he’ll get what’s coming to him.

“Oh? And what’s that, exactly?”

He was never supposed to bear the brunt of my father’s company. Even after the merger, Dad owned a percentage that he passed on to me. But because I was so young, Uncle David inherited it in my place.

He was never supposed to support his nephew or guard my inheritance. I imagine he had plans of his own that were tossed to the wayside. It broke something inside him.

All because, as Mother likes to say, “It’s happening the way your father wants.”

Bullshit.

“College,” I grit out. “Hockey. Grades.”

“For one—you’re not even playing hockey. And how about the part where you don’t fuck that Wolfe girl?” He shoves me backward. “You’re so stupid, Caleb. Are you destined to repeat your father’s mistakes? You’re going to break off all relations with her. You’re not going to see her. Touch her. Communicate with her.”

Shit.

I laugh, because he’s lost his mind. “Or what?”

Uncle David has a few telltale signs of extreme anger. But the best indication I’ve ever seen is the redness of his ears. If it were possible, the next step would be steam coming out. Right now, his whole face is mottled red. Including his ears.

I know why he hates the Wolfes, but it’s more satisfying to make him say it out loud.

Instead, he goes to threats. “You won’t see a dime from me. You will get nothing. No help. No support.”

“My inheritance doesn’t revolve around your permission. As soon as I turn eighteen, I don’t need anything from you. So what’s stopping me from marching into the Prize Industries offices on my eighteenth birthday and explaining to the Board exactly what you’ve been doing?”

His red face turns white.

I’ve never threatened him before, but it feels good. Satisfying.

Aunt Iris gasps from the doorway, her hand raised to cover her mouth. “Caleb, honey⁠—”

“Shut up, Iris,” her husband snaps.

The last time, when I was trapped here for a weekend, he wanted me to leave Margo alone. It was part of his conditions, layers of rules cast down on me that are meant to suffocate my free will. But I didn’t do it. It isn’t the hockey, or refusing to pick out a college, or my failure—my mom’s failure—to get Amber to leave town.

It’s Margo.

I shake out my arms on my way out. I’ve read through the paperwork multiple times, but it’s clear. Even Mr. Black, a prestigious defense attorney, has concurred. My father, through the company holding my trust fund, put no stipulations on my inheritance except age. Uncle David, as my legal ward, got a stipend every month to cover my expenses. I assumed he passed along at least a slight portion of them onto Eli’s family. They were the ones who fed me and gave me a place to stay, after all.

But now… I kind of doubt that.

“You walk out that door, you don’t get to come back!” Uncle David roars behind me.

It’s a pity that family has a way of disappointing you—even when you expect it.

“If I never see your face again, I’ll die happy.” I salute him and walk out the door. Something crashes behind me. I keep going, liberated by my choices, until a sharp pain spikes through the back of my head. My vision goes dark, and I distantly feel myself falling forward.

The impact with the floor finishes the job of knocking me out.