Page 70 of My Rose

My father cocked his head. “Do you not find pleasure in pain, or did my genetics completely skip over you?”

My jaw worked. “They are here to earn a living, not be abused.”

He chuckled. “They are here to serve us and are lucky to earn a fucking dime while doing it.”

“I wonder—if Beck never crashed that plane”—I took a quick sip from my flask, hissing with the burn—“would he want to put a bullet in your head as badly as I do?” Saying my brother’s name usually elicited a sinking sensation that sent my stomach roiling. This time, it did nothing. Whether I had Rose or the Molly to thank, it had been years since I’d talked freely about him.

“Briggs,” Dean muttered under his breath. “Watch it.”

“No, let’s hear this.” My father drew a circle with his finger. “Please, son. Do continue to tell me how myrealheir would have treated me.”

“Your real heir”—I rolled the bottom of the flask along the table—“he would have killed you the first time you ever hit him.”

“That’s what made him better than you.” My father raised his glass and tipped it toward me before taking a sip. “He had a backbone, whereas you have denied killing anyone I give you to handle.”

I glared at him. “If you wanted them dead, you should’ve done it yourself.”

“My capabilities aren’t the ones in question. You remember how I handle those that interfere, don’t you, boy?” My teeth groundagainst each other, my knuckles growing white along the flask. “You still think about that dead, worthless creature, don’t you?”

“No.” My vision was blotched with red.

My father’s lips twitched. “If you’d been born with a real head on your shoulders, you wouldn’t have even toyed with the idea of a low-level nothing like that. Beckett would have made me proud, whereas you’re nothing but a mistake.”

His goading aimed to trigger me and draw out my rage, granting him truths he didn’t know existed. Arguing anymore was futile. Getting beaten had no meaning behind it for me anymore. I was numb to it all—let him do his worst. I shrugged a single shoulder and snorted. “You’re probably right,” I admitted before taking a swig from my flask.

The waitress returned, sliding the glass in front of me. I reached for it, my fingers tapping along the cold, dewy sides, then pushed it right off the table with two fingers, splashing the waitress with the water as it shattered along the floor. My father’s eyes narrowed on me as his temper flared, and I quirked a half-smile back. “Whoops. Mymistake.”

“Can I get you another glass, Mr. Andrews?” The waitress bent down quickly, saying how sorry she was for placing the cup right in front of me like she was supposed to. Everyone was a puppet in front of Ben Andrews and his heir to the company. Everyone except Rose.

I eyed my silent father, taking a wide stance with my legs beneath the table as I leaned back into the bench. “We’re fine for now. Thank you.”

My father’s face tightened as he checked his watch, eager to get whatever business we had started with. Threatening him with bullets wasn’t going to get me far, but it was less damaging than screwing up business plans. His hand smacked down on the seat of the bench he was on as he cursed loudly.

“Maybe the weather kept them up,” Dean suggested as he slid his phone into my lap beneath the table. My father’s eyes were glued to the doors and away from us as Dean continued, “The snow moved over to the west. Perhaps they tried to cancel and couldn’t?” Why he was justifying where the fuck they were, I had no idea. Until I looked down, seeing the typed-out words on his phone’s screen:

Don’t worry, I got this. Wait ‘til you see who walks through the doors.

He even put a winking emoji, like whoever the hell I had to entertain could make me forget how hollow I was and how much I didn’t want to be here. I only wanted to be in one place, with one person—and that was more than likely never going to happen again.

If only I’d told her how much she meant to me. How much she wasn’t ‘nothing.’

I slid the phone to the bench between us right as the doors opened. The edge of my lips curled up as I stood and fixed my lapels, then held out my hand to the older woman in front of me. I sighed out through my nose, my smile growing as I said, “Briggs Andrews. And, mistake me if I’m wrong, but you don’t look like”—I quirked my head to my side—“Mr. Debaque.” I tried to envision arealsmile, one Rose would put on my face and plaster to my lips, as the older woman grinned back, holding out her hand for me to take.

“Mrs. Debaque,” she replied as she shook my hand. “Mr. Debaque got caught up and sent me.” Her widened eyes wandered, her nose quickly crinkling in disgust. “Why ever would we meet here, Mr. Andrews?” Her eyes snapped to my father, then back to me.

Finally, someone with a fucking mind—and all it took was a married woman stepping in for her husband.

“Can I get you a drink, Mrs. Debaque? Maybe a quieter room?” I glanced over my shoulder at my father, his lips partially parted and his neck very clearly tinged with red. He cleared his throat, adjusted his tie, and then gave a single nod to me.

I turned back to the lovely woman, whose fading hair color and faint wrinkles near the edges of her eyes were accentuated by her clean-cut, business professional attire. Mrs. Debaque continued looking around the room like she’d stepped into the den of Hell itself as I took her arm and led her away to another room in the back, where the fading music rang through my ears like another genre entirely.

After I’d walked Mrs. Debaque through the back door and escorted her to her car, I went back to the room I dreaded. Dean was smiling in the same seat he’d been in before, my father noticeably absent. I peered around—the entire club was much quieter than it had been when we entered hours before. “Where’d everyone go?”

“I cleared it out right after Ben left. Thought he was going to shoot you in the head himself with that threat. And talking about the club like that?” He stood, waltzing over to me and slinging his arm over my shoulders. “I don’t know what the fuck got into you, Briggs, but I’m proud as hell.”

I straightened, cocking a disbelieving brow as I met his eyes. “Didn’t think saying I want to blow his brains out would get me any praise.”

Dean sniffed. “Usually, you save those threats for the ones he puts in your chair.”

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