Page 233 of Powerhouse: Boxed Set
It was then that he met my eyes, and they were as savage as I’d ever seen, even sheened with the chill of calm I’d come to know so well. “It doesn’t seem like you even want the company.”
I returned his calm with a chill of my own as I pulled a foot up onto my knee and leaned back in my seat. “I’m back in the office tomorrow,” I said. “I had some unexpected events to attend to.”
My father wiped his fingers on his napkin, then dabbed his lips. The pause in him spoke volumes, and I looked at him afresh after years of barely registering the appearance of the man before me. Bryant Morelli was still a strong man, and I was the eldest in his footsteps. His dark features were deep enough to swallow everything around him, and his demands on those in his life were hard enough to cripple. They always had been. He’d taught me to be every part the monster I’d grown to be. And there was more. He knew the full extent of my icy coldness in a way that nobody else had ever seen.
He knew me. All of me. Even the deepest secrets. The deepest strengths and weaknesses, both entwined.
Secrets snake through the depths of every family bond, and ours was the very depths of the hiss and snare.
My mother looked unsteady as she picked at the food on her plate, caught up in our unspoken tension while struggling with her loyalty for both sides.
I was her son, but my father was her husband.
Besides, Sarah Morelli hated the Constantines almost as much as he did. Almost.
“You had some unexpected events to attend to, did you?” he repeated with a scowl. “Unexpected events such as Elaine Constantine by any chance?”
I didn’t lower my stare. “I know you’ve been speaking with Trenton.”
“Just as well. Trenton is concerned about family business and reputation. It appears that you haven’t been that smart.”
“Smart enough to double our profit margin in the past six months.”
That’s when my father got to his feet and cast his plate aside with a crash. He jabbed a finger at me across the tabletop, and his face was pure fucking spite. “With my resources. With my company. With my money. You would have been nothing without me.”
“Stop,” my mother said, but father gestured her away.
“This isn’t for you, Sarah. Leave. Now.”
She hovered, a maternal fear in her eyes as she looked at me across the table. Still, it didn’t stop her bowing to my father’s will when he cursed and pointed to the doorway a second time.
“Leave!”
I watched my mother’s exit and wished that I could somehow feel something inside me.
I wished I could feel more. I wished I could embrace a hint of love, or warmth for the woman who’d given birth to me and raised me to my place in this world. I wished I could look over at my father and his rage and feel the true belt of shame gripping me tight. But I didn’t.
I didn’t feel a thing…and Father knew it. I never had.
He walked around the table and kicked out a chair at my side. He turned it to face him and dropped himself down to straddle the seat.
“Believe me, Lucian, if violence were an option to knock some sense into you, I’d be taking it now. You’d be feeling my wrath with your skin and bones.”
I didn’t react, just kept my eyes on his until he spoke again.
“Trenton told me you’ve been asking questions about Elaine Constantine. He said that you met with her. That you’ve been fucking her.”
“You should know better than to believe someone who takes bribes.”
“Tell me now, boy. Have you fucked Elaine Constantine?”
I tipped my head to the side. “I met Elaine Constantine at Tinsley Constantine’s masked coming-of-age ball. I went there to find a wife. Something to make the board calm down.”
“A wife,” he says, his lips tight. “A wife at the Constantine compound.”
I give him a lazy smile. “As you say, I would be nothing without you.”
“I’m telling you now though, boy, you go anywhere near that Constantine again, and you’ll be dead to me. Do you understand?”
