Page 70 of Shadow's Surrender
Chapter Sixteen
Warren perched onthe edge of the leather wingback chair, watching his father’s face morph into a mask of rage. He’d witnessed that more times than he could remember throughout his lifetime. Whenever Warren hadn’t done well on a test, received less than anAin his classes, or won a soccer game, his father’s rage boiled over. It’d seemed that no matter what Warren did, his father wasn’t quite satisfied.
Now Warren had lost Scarlett to a fucking outlaw biker, and in all fairness, he didn’t blame his father for being livid. Who loses their girlfriend to an Insurgent?A loser, that’s who.It wasn’t that he was in love with Scarlett, but that his pride had been wounded and the dirty lowlife had humiliated him in publicandin front of her. Anger streaked through him as he remembered the incident.And the damn bitch just sat there with him. She didn’t even bother to follow me out. Fucking cunt.
“Why the hell didn’t you propose to her before she got bored of your sorry ass?” His father’s voice sliced through Warren’s thoughts.
“I was going to, but I didn’t think she was ready.”
“Ready? What the fuck does that mean?” Red blotches covered his dad’s face like a checkerboard.
“I felt that we needed to get closer. I was working on it when …” his voice trailed off. There was no need to retell the story of his ultimate shame.
“Working on it, my ass.You’rethe one in charge, not that bitch. You’ve always been weak—just like your mother. Weakness can be sniffed out a mile away, and people don’t respect it—they trample on it. I tried to teach you that, boy.” The desk shook under the force of his father’s fist.
“I can’t make Scarlett or any other woman fall in love with me,” he said between clenched teeth.
“What the fuck does love got to do with it? I asked you to be a man for one fucking time in your life and you failed me miserably. Weneedthe Mansfield fortune. I explained that to you and you said you understood. Now you’ve gone and lost her to this”—he waved his hand frenetically in the air—“asshole in a biker gang. I always thought you were a dumbass, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Now I know I was right!”
When Bruce Huntington yelled, people listened, and Warren was no exception: he felt like he was back in grade school, awaiting punishment from the father he loved but could never please.
“Can’t you just sell the land to Mr. Mansfield?”
Bruce slammed back against the chair, a loud, frustrated sigh pushing through his thick lips. “I can, but that’ll barely pay off the loan. What about all this?” Again his hand waved wildly around. “This lifestyle that you and your mom have grown to love. It ain’t cheap to have it, boy. Not. At. All. George and I had it all planned out—you’d marry his daughter, he’d get the land he wanted for a good price, he’d give you an executive job at his real estate firm, and he’d throw in a big bonus for me for arranging to have our two families merge. On paper I still look damn good, but it’s nothing but a damn paper house. The plan was perfect, and now it’s fucked up.”
“I didn’t do anything. I’ve been wining and dining that frigid bitch for almost a year. I’ve put up with her boring talk on politics and literature, and hung out with her friends. Can I help it if she’s a fucking psycho?”
His dad ran his narrowed eyes over him. “Maybe you don’t fuck so good.”
Warren clenched his fists and bolted from the chair. “Shut your fucking mouth, old man.”
Bruce smirked. “Go ahead and slug me. I know you want to do it. Come on, belt me.” He turned his face so his jaw was in perfect view of his son. “You’re mad as hell at me—hit me.”
Warren’s nostrils flared as he panted, his body rigid as a board. He wanted to smash his father’s face, hear the bones crunch, see the blood flow, and get rid of that damn smug look once and for all.
Several seconds lapsed and the anger slowly quelled as Warren slinked back down in the chair and sat with his shoulders hunched and his head hung down.
“I’d have respected you more if you would’ve decked me,” Bruce grumbled. “Does George know about his daughter’s whoring?”
“I don’t think so.” He kept his eyes fixed on a piece of lint on the Karastan rug.
“Once he does, he’ll break it up for sure.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Mr. Mansfield roars like a lion a lot, but he’s got a soft spot for Scarlett even though she denies it.”
Bruce threw his head back and a deep laugh rumbled from his chest. “He’s not going to let his pretty, sweet daughter bring scum of the earth to his home. And Pamela won’t allow that at all.” He chuckled. “You can’t accuse her of having a soft spot. She’s not weak like you or your mother—she’s one of the strong ones, and if I have to make her my ally against George, I will. I’m not losing this deal. You say the fucker’s in the Insurgents?”
Warren glanced over at a large twelfth-century samurai sword hanging on the wall beside the fireplace. How he wished he had the guts to run that sword through his father’s heart, but he didn’t … he wouldn’t survive one day in prison. His gaze cut over to Bruce’s, and he nodded.
“That’s tricky, but we can figure it out. Do you know which one of the pieces of shit he is?
“Scarlett called him ‘Shadow.’”
His father’s face grew taut and he gripped the bottle of scotch on the side table and poured a healthy dose of it into the cut crystal tumbler. Warren watched as the old man drained the glass.
“He comes from trash. His mom was a stripper who thought she could wash the dirt from her by trying to move into our world.” Bruce brought the glass to his mouth and threw back another shot of scotch.
“How do you know that?”
