Chapter One
Dominic
"What the hell, Dom? How do you explain this?" my father yells at me, furiously twitching on his office chair.
I sit silently, pretending I'm listening to him. He's going to yell for about twenty minutes, threatening that he'll cut my expenses. And then, finally, he'll let me go. Later this evening, after thinking about our fight and regretting it, he'll decide to give me 'another chance.'
And so on in a circle that will repeat until I die. A thought flashes through my head, and I force myself not to roll my eyes. I already did that a couple of times before, and it only made him angrier.
I know that all I need to do now is nod at his every word, pretending that I'm sorry. Then stay obedient for a couple of weeks. And after that, I can go back to my normal life again.
"I asked you… How do you explain this?" he barks, throwing a newspaper on the table between us with the front page upward.
I don't need to take a look at it to see what is written under the photo. I already know that two blond girls are standing next to me at the strip club while I drink a tequila shot from the third blonde's navel. The caption to the article says, "That's what our taxes go for."
I don't know who those girls are. We drank, we danced, we fucked. End of story. I'll never see them again. I don't even remember half of it because I was wasted. I had my reasons, and my father knows that.
"Everyone knows that you were a millionaire before you went to the Senate. Relax," I say, barely able to speak. My head is killing me after last night.
"I don't care if anyone reads this crap!" he screams, even louder this time, as if he’s trying to make my head pound harder on purpose. "You’ll ruin my reputation!"
Of course, all he cares about is his political career.
I feel my pain slowly turn to anger. I want to yell at him that I didn't ask him to become a senator of California, but I silently squeeze my fists instead.
I haven't seen the other photos, but I'm sure there are plenty of them. You don't have to be a paparazzi to make money taking pictures these days. All you need is a cell and access to the Internet.
I knew I was surrounded by people, but I didn't care. Or maybe I did it on purpose to piss off my father, to take revenge on him for forgetting.
"And it's not the only reason," he continues, calmer this time. I raise my eyebrow. Isn't it?
I give him aDon't even startlook, but he ignores it. Another part of his lecture is going to begin now. The part where he pretends that he worries about me.
"You party every single week, sometimes two or three times," he continues, looking straight at me. "I'm sure you're on drugs, and that's not okay. I worry about you, son."
I take a deep breath and bite my tongue so I don’t start arguing. He gives zero shits about me. All he cares about is his reputation. Also, he's going to be disappointed to know that I've only tried pot, and even then only once.
But I'll let him think whatever he wants to; I don't care.
"You were a B plus student. You wanted to go to college to study business. What has changed?" His voice is so even that I feel like I'm getting sick and not from a hangover.
"You know what happened! And you can do nothing to change that!" I lose my patience and start yelling, even though I know I'll regret it. He'll understand nothing of what I say, but it will probably get me detained even longer.
For a couple of moments, we simply stare at each other without even blinking like two wild animals waiting for the other one to give up.
It won't be me. I don’t say it aloud, but it seems like my father can read thoughts because he blinks at that exact moment.
"I've already put a hold on your bank account, so your credit card isn't working anymore," he continues, calm and confident, without breaking our eye contact.
I know what he's doing. He's testing me. Trying to make me beg not to do that again, to ask for his mercy.
It’ll never happen. Never has and never will.
I'm not the one who gives up. He's going to change his mind after a couple of days anyway when his conscience will slowly start killing him from the inside. Until then, I have a couple thousand dollars in cash. There's nothing to worry about.
"I saw your school report," he continues after a long pause, I guess finally realizing that I'm not going to respond. "You have a lot of Cs."
He raises his eyebrow as if expecting me to say something, to react somehow. Maybe to promise him that I'll improve my grades, that I'll try to study harder.