Ah, one of the silent guards. The inflections on his sentences told me this was a call he’d rather not be making and I braced myself.
“Troy’s awake, sir.”
I let out a silent sigh of relief. “How is he?”
“He, uh, seems fine, sir. He’s, uh, asking me to-Well, I know you’re busy, and he might be…” A lowering of his voice. “A bit confused.”
The rumble of a voice came from the background.
“He, uh, wants me to ask you to…That is, if you think you should…”
The rumble grew, becoming Troy’s voice, still too distant to be intelligible.
“I’m sure you have enough to worry about, sir, but he’s concerned that-”
“Give me the fucking phone,” I heard Troy rasp.
“He thinks you-”
“Give me the fucking phone, Tyson, or I’ll be dead before you spit out the goddamned message.”
“Better give it to him.”
A hiss as the phone changed hands.
“Lucas.”
“How are-?”
“Later. We’ve got a bigger problem. It was Carlos.”
“Carlos…?”
“Who shot me. He came to the house, alone, wanting to talk to your dad, and I knew something was hinky, so I went to talk to him…” A soft grunt of discomfort. “Point is, it was Carlos. I woke up a while ago, but I’ve been playing possum, waiting for you to come back so I could tell you. I knew if I opened my eyes, the first thing your dad would ask was who shot me, and I sure as hell wasn’t telling him.”
“Good. I appreci-”
“Not so fast. He got a call that Carlos was at headquarters. I waited until he left, then asked Tyson to call you. I told him what to say, about Carlos. Then…”
His voice drifted off.
“Troy?”
“Your dad wasn’t gone. He could probably tell I was faking it and hung around outside my door waiting to hear what I was hiding.” He paused. “He knows it was Carlos, Lucas. And when he left here…” Another pause. “You need to get there before he does something he’ll regret.”
“How much of a head start does he have?”
“It took me five minutes to convince this numbskull I wasn’t delirious and to call you.”
Five minutes, and the hospital was an additional five minutes closer to headquarters, meaning my father had a ten-minute head start.
“I’m on my way.”
LUCAS: 16
I GRABBED KEYS and the location of a car from a shocked tech, and took off. As I drove along the quiet streets, Paige held on for dear life with one hand and called Griffin with the other.
Griffin was holding Carlos in the boardroom. My father had yet to arrive. Ideally, I would have had Griffin quietly relocate Carlos until we got there, but there was no way to do that without the other guards knowing, and no matter what I said, the first guard my father asked would tell him where to find his son.
I LEFT THE car at the front door and ran in, Paige jogging behind me.
“Is my father here?” I asked the desk guard.
“Y-yes, sir. Upstairs. With your-”
“How long ago?”
“Umm, two, three minutes?”
I threw the car keys on the counter as I passed. “It’s outside. Have someone park it.”
The private elevator would still be on the executive level, so we took the staff one as far as we could, then the stairs the rest of the way. Paige waved me on ahead-she’d catch up.
As I raced through the door, voices drifted from the other side of the floor.
“If you’ll just wait, sir.”
“Get out of my way, Griffin,” my father replied.
“I need to update you-”
“Move, Griffin. Now!”
I knew Griffin would step aside. No one disobeyed a direct order from my father.
I broke into a run.
“Dad,” Carlos said. “I heard-”
“You spoiled little brat.”
A crash and a yelp from Carlos. I rounded the final corner to see the guards at the end of the long hall, clustered around Griffin.
“Griffin, stop him,” I called.
“I can’t-”
“Who did my father leave in charge?”
“Lucas, I can’t-”
“I am in charge, and I gave you an order.”
A moment of shocked silence then, as I drew close, Griffin nodded and went into the room.
“Mr. Cortez, you don’t want to do this,” he said.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I muttered.
I yanked the guard blocking the door out of the way. Carlos lay on the floor, blood dripping from his nose, eyes glued to our father as he advanced on him.
“What happened, Carlos?” my father said, voice low. “Was it because I wouldn’t advance you money to buy a new sports car? Or because I stopped buying off the whores you beat up? Or because you got sick of having to work for a living? No, not work. Just show up. Because that’s all I asked of you.”
“Papá-” I said.
“Stay out of this, Lucas.” He didn’t turn from Carlos. “I gave you every opportunity. An Ivy League education…and you wouldn’t show up for class. A five-million-dollar trust fund…that was gone before you turned thirty. A VP’s salary, with zero responsibilities…and you whine because I expect you here by ten every morning. I always knew you were a vain, vacuous, vicious brat, Carlos, but I blamed your mother’s influence. I told myself you just needed guidance. I was wrong. Your brothers, Carlos…”
“Dad, I-”
“Your brothers!” he thundered.
His hands flew up in a spell. Carlos seemed frozen, making no move to cast back, as if he’d forgotten he could, as if this was a nightmare he couldn’t escape even by simply diving out of the spell’s path.
So I leapt into it.
The energy bolt hit my side and I convulsed, blacking out for a split second before hitting the floor and jerking back to consciousness. Consternation crossed my father’s face, then vanished as his expression went blank.
“Lucas, get out of the way.”
“Yes, Lucas,” Carlos said. “We wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”
I pushed to my feet and got between Carlos and my father…earning a shove between the shoulder blades for my trouble.
“You heard Dad. Get out of the way. You don’t want to spoil his fun. He’s been dying to do this for twenty years. Dying to beat the snot out of me. Tell me how he really feels.”