CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
JAX
WALKING to meet him didn’t scare me anymore. Walking away from her that day did.
She retreated. She stepped down and waved a white flag in a way I’d never seen her do before.
The battlefield was where we thrived. We smelled the gunpowder, felt the heat of an explosion on our face, and ran forward toward the enemy.
We fought.
It was our dance.
But she saw something that was too big to lose and backed away from the fight. She didn’t charge forward for something she’d wanted for so long. Without her facing this, we wouldn’t have anything.
I was a fool to think I could have kept her from him and have our relationship not be tainted. Now, more than anything, I wanted her to come to him with me. For us to face him together. For her to conquer this fear, and for me to conquer him so we could move the fuck on.
His smile was big and so genuine when he saw me alone that I almost turned back around. He didn’t deserve any happiness. We both knew that. He’d admitted it to me time and time again. Yet, here he stood, like he’d won the damn lottery.
“Someone tipped me off that I might see my daughter with you today.” He tilted his head with that same smile on his face as I sat down opposite him across the metal table.
“She’s not here. So, your tip was wrong.”
“Was it? Or did I just see you open the door for someone who didn’t get out?”
I didn’t take the bait. “You want to talk business, Frank? Or you want to talk about your daughter who you have no communication with?”
“Maybe I should be in communication with her.”
“Making empty threats about something you don’t care about only hurts you, Frank. Not me.” His smile dropped off.
“My company’s stock is floundering because of that other damn candy company.”
I nodded. “The board is doing what it can.”
He slammed his hand on the table, eyes wild. “Do something more. You wanted to go fucking public with my company, and I took your advice.”
Frank always blamed a bad deal or idea on someone else. Normally, that person was me, and normally, he was right to blame me. He just didn’t know it.
“You’re a richer man because you went public, Frank.” My tone was neutral. This was all something I’d listened to before. It was routine.
“You should be apologizing for your misstep.”
I stared at him. He knew I wouldn’t.
He waved me off. “Fine. What can we do to pull back up? I want to propose the casino idea on the reservation. We could fund most of it. The profits would be huge.”
That was the problem with Frank. He always tried to have power over his family. That used to be his wife and now it was his daughter. He’d somehow found out about her trips to the reservation, knew he could taint her love for something and tried to constantly move in on it.
Whether he did it consciously or not, I saw his pattern. He’d used his business to cover up the dirt he threw at his wife first. He’d bought her nice clothes, put her in a nice home, made it look like he gave her everything. His business allowed him to cover up the pain and abuse underneath. He would do the same thing with Aubrey’s haven at that reservation. He’d ruin it. I’d been working toward making sure that business was never there to cover up his dirt again.
“I can propose it at the next meeting.”
“Don’t just propose it. Make it happen. Then, you need to be back here soon. I need an update.”
I let a small smile slip as I stood. “Sure, Frank. I’ll make sure you get that update by next week.”
With that, I walked out.