He folds his arms behind his back and casually strolls my way. “Don’t swear, Noah, it doesn’t behoove you.”
“I don’t fucking care!” I stomp my hand against the door to close it. “She’s my fucking wife! You had no right!”
“Yes, she is, and had you taken better care of her, we wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.”
My eyes narrow. “I never thought I’d say this to your face, but I always wished you were dead.”
He stops in his tracks, and a smile briefly appears, then fades away. “You wouldn’t be my son if you didn’t.”
What kind of a man says that? No wonder our family is so fucked up.
He pours himself a drink from the table. “Want one too?”
“No, I want answers,” I say through gritted teeth.
He clears his throat, and says, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have them for you.”
My brows furrow. “Stop lying to me.”
He takes a painfully slow sip of his drink, and then says, “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not the one who told President Lawrence she was pregnant. What reasons could I ever have?”
“To bring them back quicker,” I growl.
He snorts and points at me with his glass. “That was your job.”
“And you inserted yourself into my job, like you always do,” I snap.
“No, I gave you guidance. This was all on you.”
“Then who told the president if it wasn’t you?”
He shrugs. “It’s not my problem, Noah.”
“Yes, it is. Your grandchild is now in danger, thanks to you,” I say, folding my arms.
I can barely contain my anger. I want to lash out, smash his face into the mirror, and make him bleed until the walls are covered in his entrails.
But I can’t do that. The other patriarchs would kill me.
“No thanks to you,” he retorts. “I told you to get her back straight away, but you wouldn’t listen, and the longer it went on, the more in danger she got.”
“She was safe there. I had it under control,” I reply.
“Clearly not,” he says, “since you were both escorted back by the president’s private guards.”
He throws me an unimpressed look. “Your wife was out of order. She fled the community. You know the rules. You’re lucky she’s still alive.”
“She’s his daughter, so of course he’d keep her alive,” I retort. “Actually, I want to know. How did he know she was his daughter?”
He pauses and stares straight at me. “I don’t know.” He raises a brow. “Maybe you should ask her mother?”
My eyes widen. No. She wouldn’t. She’d never …
“No.” I shake my head. “That’s not possible.”
He shrugs. “Women do strange things for their children.”
“No, she wanted to keep Natalie safe,” I snap.
“I think you should be more worried about what this is going to do to your reputation.” His face darkens. “You lied to the president.”
“I didn’t lie,” I retort.
“You omitted the truth. That’s worse than lying. Did you or did you not know she was his daughter when you brought her back from our little trip?”
My nostrils flare.
“Thought so.” He puts down his drink and stares at me in that same judgmental way he always does. “Do you know how hard I’ve fought to keep the president from hanging you?”
I gulp and have to stop myself from reaching for my throat.
“He was this close.” He puts his fingers together. “All it took was one bad word about you, and he would’ve done it,” he adds, and he walks toward me. “Lucky for you, you have a father who wants to keep both his son and his daughter-in-law alive, so I put in a good word for you.”
“I didn’t need your help,” I say, feeling bitter from being on the president’s bad side now. “All I needed was time to convince her.”
“To do what?” He snorts and lights a cigar. “Women don’t ever listen. It’s futile to even try.”
“Stop,” I say.
I hate it when he talks about women as if they mean nothing to him.
He takes a drag and blows out the smoke in my face. “You should’ve grabbed her and taken her when you had the chance. You should’ve fucked her and locked her up in her room just as I did with your mother.”
The mere mention of her makes me stiffen.
“Don’t you dare talk about my mother,” I growl, fuming. “I gave my wife an option so she wouldn’t turn into her mother. So she wouldn’t turn into mine. Dead. In the ground.” I pause for a moment. “I’m not you.”
I refuse to ever be like him.
“No, if you were, none of this would’ve happened. At least then you would’ve stayed in the president’s grace,” my father barks as if he’s actually proud of all the things he did. “Look at you now, locked up in the temple like some prisoner.”
It stings when he says it like that. I haven’t thought about it since I came back, but I know guards follow me everywhere now, and they don’t answer to me.