Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
“Good morning, Damion,” she says, greeting me by my first name, as I prefer, while my father is Mr. West to her and everyone else; his name always spoken with a hint of fear.
Just how he likes it.
“Morning, Debbie,” I greet. “Is my father in?”
Her spine stiffens and she bristles. “Yes, he is.”
“That good of a mood, huh?”
“He’s about average as far as I can see.”
In other words, he’s always a jerk to her and everyone who works for him. No surprise there. Literally, this entire floor is about catering to him and his moods. Here is where he has a dedicated staff, a fully stocked bar, a gym, a spa, and a personal chef who serves only him, all of which he pays for by destroying other people. What excited me as a young buck is now disgusting to me as a grown man. But it’s true that I wanted to be like him.
Just like him.
That’s the me I do not want Alana to ever know.
“I’m afraid I’m about to make it worse, Debbie,” I warn, “so take cover.”
Her face pinches with dread. “Do you have to?”
“We’ll all be better for it,” I promise, after which I round her desk and enter the hallway that leads toward my father’s office. There are consequences to his actions, and he is no longer immune, nor will he ever be again. So yes, I will be king one day, and sooner than he thinks, or this company will cease to exist.
It’s the only way this can end.
Making the past right is the only way I stand any chance of her allowing me to wake up next to her every day for the rest of my life. Protecting her is no longer about sheltering her; it’s about arming her with the truth. My father made sure of that the day he first slept with her mother and set the future in play.
So yes, hell will come calling in the process of his dethroning, and it will be brutal, but when it’s over, as I just told Debbie, it will be for the better, and not for a few, but for many. Not sunshine and rainbows, but better.
I enter the alcove that is the exterior of my father’s office, and I’m not surprised to find the secretary desk outside his office empty. He can’t keep the seat filled, firing them all for doing nothing more than breathing. No wonder he has to have a mistress that’s well-bribed and on her knees for him. Like Alana’s mother, I think bitterly. I hope like hell I’m wrong, but a part of me isn’t so sure her mother is as innocent as she seems, and that coming to light would destroy Alana.
I walk toward his office, and the desk plate on the secretary desk reads, Ester, who’d lasted a year, I hear. It was a miracle. Then one day she got the flu and wasn’t in the right spot at the right time when he needed her. He axed her the way he wishes he could axe me, but that ship sailed a long time ago.
Without a knock, I open my father’s office door and enter the room to find my father sitting behind his ridiculously large mahogany desk with his equally ridiculous giant wingback king’s chair. The dark-haired man sitting across from him twists around at my entry to reveal himself as Max, the dirty bastard himself. My father’s been talking in ears, all right. He meant his ear. Max pops to his feet. “Damion,” he greets, and he says my name like I’m a ghost here to haunt him.
He better bet his ass I am.
“What’d he promise you, Max?” I ask, closing the space between me and the desk and halting really damn close to Max.
“Get out, Damion,” my father snaps, but the anger in his voice is feigned, the amusement in his eyes deep. He knew I’d come here this morning. He also wanted me to see Max with him—Max, who played into his hand like a puppy dog who panted his way to his office at his beck and call. I’d like to say I love my father because he’s my father, but that is another ship that has long ago sailed.
He’s headed to hell, he’s not dragging me with him.
I was twenty-five when I’d finally seen that he wasn’t just bad. He was evil. I even know the date. November 11th.
I reach inside my jacket and pull out an envelope, tossing it on my father’s desk, the contents of which detail every insider trade he’s done since he was old enough to pee outside a diaper, though he may need one now. It was a gift from Blake that he miraculously produced in a few hours. “You go after anyone who votes with me, I’ll release that to the press.”