Page 191 of The Exit Strategy

I’m not that person either.

Instead of opening the door, I slip out the side and meet him on the porch.

“Juniper, you’re the one who asked me to meet you here. I?—”

“I’m here,” I say.

He spins, and I get a good look at him for the first time in years. I don’t actually remember the last time I was this close to him. My mother’s funeral, maybe?

“Let me in.”

I do remember his entitled tone though. “I won’t be doing that.” I sit on a stone pillar that’s to the right of the old stairs.

“This is still my house?—”

“Actually, it’s not. It never was. It never will be.”

“Your mother owed me?—”

“I’ve seen the documents, Tommy.” I’ll never call him dad again. “You married her knowing that you would never have a legal claim on the business or this property. Yet you tried to steal it anyway. Or at least, you tried to steal the value, and you didn’t give a single shit about what happened to me while you did it.”

“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” His face is a mottled red color that happens when someone spends their life drinking away their problems instead of facing them.

“I do though. You never had a legal claim to anything.And you never will. But I do know what you tried to do to me. I’m here to tell you that you will pay for what you’ve done. Regardless of whatever ‘proof’ you attempt to bring forward, I will win.”

“You have no idea what I have on?—”

“Cole?”

He blanches.

“Or are you talking about the loans with my name illegally attached? Because I know everything. Nolan knows everything. I asked you here today so I could look you in the eye because regardless of what you and Anna put me through, I’ll never be like either of you.”

“Open this goddamn door, Juniper. You have no right to keep me out.”

“I do, though. Everything you see here is mine. It’s my house, my land, my decision. You’re just the sperm donor I learned spite from. You’re nothing, Tommy. You never will be.”

“You listen to me?—”

“I won’t be doing that.”

His hands ball into fists, but for some reason, I’m not scared of him like I was when I was a child. The monster is older now, gaunt, vicious in tone but not in action—there’s nothing he can do to me anymore.

“Then why the hell am I here?”

“Because I want to knowwhy?” I ask the same question I asked Grace. The same one I asked Natalie. But as soon as it’s out of my mouth, I have an epiphany.

I don’t need their reasons. I just needed to find the confidence to believe that I’m not someone they can walk all over ever again.

And standing here, on the porch of my childhood homethat raised me more than my parents ever did, I finally understand.

My voice has always been my own. It’s good enough. It’s loud enough. It’s strong enough all on its own because it’s mine.

It all happens in less than three seconds, so when Tommy opens his mouth to rage against me the way he did in my youth, I simply walk away.

The house is locked up. My feelings are decoded, labeled, and stuck in the appropriate columns.

I can turn the page now, content in the knowledge that Nolan and his friends are building a case that will take away Tommy’s choices like he tried to take away mine.