Blair couldn’t contain her sadness and rage, she let out a primal scream at her father and reached out at the closest item within her reach: a vase that had traveled with her from place to place: it was a blue and green mosaic always boasting a single flower of the season. She grabbed it along the neck and threw it to the side, where it shattered against the wooden floor of her new kitchen, sending the glass scattering.
“I hope that had significance to you,” Blair said through her tears and she moved to the stairs. “Did you buy that for me? On one of your trips?”
“I don’t care about things,” Huck said without moving. He stared at his daughter thoughtfully. Then he rose and walked to the door, opened it wide, and allowed two guards to slide into the house.
“No,” Blair said and she scrambled up the steps. “You won’t take him away from me. I love that boy! Do not take him away from me!” The guards moved with quick steps, unflinching as they gained on her. She tore up to the top level and barricaded Teddy’s door as they approached. “Don’t,” she whispered, aware of how her blubbering must have appeared. Her mind went to thoughts of Teddy’s empty bed, his abandoned toys, and then her thoughts shifted to Darla on the shore. “Don’t take him. Please...you don’t understand. I need him. You can’t take him from me.”
“Ms. Truman,” one of the men said slowly. “Please move or we will have to take you away by force.”
“Call my brother,” she said hoarsely. “Can’t you call my brother?”
From behind the men, her father had climbed the stairs. She saw, for the first time since he had arrived, a true flash of anger.
“Gordy has no power over this decision. You and your brother can gang up against me all you wish, but you will lose,” Huck said, his voice shaking—his unraveling visible and tangible.
“Why do you want to hurt me?” Blair asked, pushing her hands against the doorframe until her arms ached from the pressure. “Why have you changed your mind? The boy is not a pawn in your game, Father. He is a child...who needs me.”
“Take her away from the door,” Huck said without answering.
The guards were able to move Blair easily, but as soon as she had been pulled from the door, she stopped fighting. The last thing Teddy needed to see was her sobbing and wracked self, kicking and screaming as he was carried away. She walked to her father and stood before him, recognizing the puffiness of the flesh underneath his eyes.
“As if I needed more proof that you never loved me,” Blair said, wiping her tears. Then she slipped into the shadows of the hallway and crossed her arms, and watched as the guards cradled the sleeping Teddy and carried him down the stairs, tucked up in the quilt off her bed.
When Blair could no longer see him, she took a long look at her father and then walked into the child’s room, shut the door behind her, crawled onto his bed, curled up into a ball, and cried herself to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was an unacceptable answer. Maxine stood in their kitchen and shook her head. Then she looked at Scott, her eyes full of tears. Lucy paced from one end of the kitchen to the other, her arms crossed and her jaw clenched. Galen sat on the steps that led up to the loft, and the twins were huddled near the window. Harper was asleep. Ethan was at the kitchen island, his head in his hands. There they all were, together, to endure the grim news.
“He can’t do that,” Maxine said. “Not without a vote.”
“He can do whatever he wants,” Scott answered. “He’s Huck. This is his world...I’ve never had any power, Maxine. He’s needed me and, honestly, now he doesn’t. And frankly, I’ve brought him the most trouble...Ethan and Lucy’s arrivals and...Grant...”
“We’re trouble?” Ethan took offense.
“I don’t see it that way, but—”
“Where is Grant?” Lucy asked again over the ensuing argument. “You don’t understand...you left him there. You didn’t secure his safety and then you left him there?” Maxine shot her a warning look, but Lucy ignored it.
“Gordy was adamant that Grant be spared,” Scott said matter-of-factly. “His life is not in danger.”
“Then where is he?” Lucy asked again.
“I don’t know,” Scott said to his daughter. “I don’t know.”
“Find him.”
“I have no authority to find him. My clearance level has been reset.”
Maxine shook her head again. “What does that mean, Scott? What does that mean?”
“No more meetings,” he answered calmly. “It’s not the end of the world.”
Everyone turned and looked at him slowly.
Ethan let out a small, annoyed laugh. Then he stood up. He seemed taller and older; he rolled his shoulders back and stood tall. He wore jeans and sneakers, and it was hard to tell that he was missing a leg underneath the clothes.
“Claude still has his clearance level intact. I’ll go get him,” Ethan announced. He started toward the door.
“No one leaves this house,” Maxine announced. “No one steps foot outside this door tonight. Not until I get a meeting with Huck and Gordy myself. You cannot be booted from the Board because of Grant. You didn’t know about the immunity, and that’s a ludicrous reason.”
“I knew about the immunity,” Scott said.
Lucy stopped pacing and turned to look at her father. Her mother narrowed her eyes. She took a threatening step toward Scott and Lucy held her breath as she watched her raise a crooked finger.
“Do you remember what you said to me that night in the System? When I was ready to crawl and dig my way out of there to find our children? Do you remember what you said to me?” Maxine lowered her voice and paused. Scott ran a finger over the bridge of his nose. “It’s not a rhetorical question, Scott. Do you remember?”
“I said,” Scott said after a beat, “that my position on the Elektos Board granted us safety.”
“And without it? Are we safe, Scott? Are...we...safe?”
“We are safe,” Scott said, his voice full, his own anger rising. He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt with an angry swipe. “We are here...we are home and we are safe. I don’t have power anymore and thank God! Thank God, Maxine. Is it power you crave? Or is it life? Because I have given you one, and I am done with the other. So, if I’ve given you the wrong thing, then you can go out and get it yourself.”
She looked at him wide-eyed. And everyone stared at Scott. He wasn’t the one who swore or yelled. He was their calm, their rock.
Maxine lowered her voice. “If you hadn’t been on the Board, then Lucy, Ethan, and Grant would be dead.”
“Then it was lucky I was on the Board when we needed it the most,” he said. Then he turned to Ethan, “What does everyone want from me? Why does some arbitrary title mean anything?”
“Are you asking me, Dad?” Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you don’t want my answer.”
“No,” Scott said. “Maybe I don’t.” He slipped out of his collared shirt and placed it on the back of a kitchen chair, and then he slowly climbed the stairs toward his room, stopping to rustle the twins’ hair and place a kiss on Galen’s head. “Goodnight.”
“And we don’t go to bed with unresolved conflict,” Maxine called up the stairs. “Don’t you dare walk away from this family when they need you the most.”
Scott paused. He looked down at the faces of everyone looking up at him. Then his eyes scanned the house—the granite countertops, the majestic windows, the spiral staircases. “Really?” he asked with a shaky laugh. “This is when you think you need me the most? When I’m finally free of that man and his whims? When we have a gorgeous home in a beautiful city?”