Page 9 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part One

Dad’s face changes as he leans back against his desk, and the man who took me under his wing and put Band-Aids on my scrapes and cuts as a child resurfaces.

“Storm,” he says, the word sounding heavy. He drops the glass onto his desk and takes one step and then another toward me before putting his palms on my shoulders.

He says, “You know I’m always looking out for you…and I have a?—”

“Fiduciary responsibility to Stratos and our investors—yes, I know,” I cut in. He pats my right cheek.

“Right,” he says. “You will be an excellent leader someday, son. Think of it this way: You’re now free to do whatever you want. Every sacrifice I’ve made is worth it for you to have your freedom.”

I stare back at him, trying to breathe through my anger and disappointment and thisenergythat makes me want to rage against this entire place. He’s trying to placate me, to offer nice words to make this feel less shitty.

But then a thought floats through—the thought I usually manage to push down.

He wanted Rainn instead.

The memory of my dead older brother slices cold across my chest, reminding me that I was the spare. I was alwaysmeantto be second best.

No one counted on the inevitability of my older brother, my only sibling, dying in a car crash on I-94.

“I’ll do what’s needed to prove to you that I’m the best choice, and you’ll change your mind.”

My father stares at me, a sad look crossing his face. “I hope, with time, you can understand.”

“Don’t be toohard on your father,” my mom says. She waited outside the office and followed me—silently—back to the place we both retreat to when Chuck fucks up.

The art studio.

Mom loves watercolors, and I picked up glass blowing after Rainn died. We’ve converted the three-car garage into an art barn.

In one corner is my kiln, workbench, annealer, and propane torch setup; in the loft on the opposite side is where my mother paints in the sunrise, facing the tall wall of windows circling the structure.

But the sun is long gone now, and the late-summer breeze whistles through the studio when I push open the industrial doors on opposing ends.

“I’ll be hard on him when he does stupid shit. That’s his problem. He thinks that because he’s the Chosen One—one of the only niggas to leave Gary, Indiana and make something of himself since the Jacksons—he can do whatever, and it’ll turn out gold. He can make dumb decisions, too.”

Mom makes a small, distressed sound, and it’s one I know all too well. She’s seconds away from crying and has already crossed the line into fretting.

She hates being in the middle of me and my pops, but what the hell am I supposed to do? Take this lying down?

Fuck. No.

“Ma, come on.” I tip my head back, eyes closed. “He and I will figure it out. Just let it be.”

With me in charge of Stratos when the old man finally does step down.

My mother’s touch on the side of my face has me straightening, and I look down on her short frame as she caresses my cheek. I inherited her green-brown eyes, but not the light-gold skin tone she got from her Mississippi Creole heritage.

I’m closer to my dad’s skin tone: a few shades lighter than rich mahogany.

“You were always such an intense boy, Storm, and I have and always will love that about you. But it always worried me too, because I never knew how to protect you from that intensity. How to protect you from yourself.”

My eyebrows come together, trying to understand what the hell she’s saying.

“I don’t want your anger to burn you to pieces, Storm. I don’t want you to destroy yourself. And this stuff with your dad and Stratos? It’s not worth it, baby. Let it go.”

I take a step back, jerking out of her grasp.

She makes that fucking noise again, the tip of her nose going pink and water lining her lower eyelids.

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