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I take the stairs up to the third floor, which has exactly one function — to serve as a massive office with windows on all sides. The floors are made from a single giant redwood Reginald bribed the governor of California to get his paws on. Oiled, polished, and waxed, it makes the floor look stained with blood — which is the point, of course.

My father is waiting behind his desk, looking out over his domain. The estate stretches in all directions around us. Not that anyone’s ever attempted to assassinate my father, but the glass is five inches thick and bulletproof. Never can be too careful.

He doesn’t say a word until I take a seat in one of the uncomfortable, not-quite-big-enough chairs on the victim side of the desk.

“I didn’t tell you to sit,” he says calmly, as he swivels around to look at me, resting his elbows on his massive ebony desk. Not cheap knock-off African blackwood, oh no. Probably whole swaths of Gabon ebony trees — squat little things that never produce a slat of wood longer than a few feet — had to be mowed down to build it. Like everything else in the Office, it is custom-made and handcrafted into something painfully exquisite.

I sigh, and put my two-thousand-dollar Italian leather-clad feet up on it. “If I waited for you to tell me to sit, my feet would be sore by the time this was over. It’ll have the same effect if I sit down.”

At this show of defiance, my father’s eyes narrow, but he makes no other move, says nothing right away. This is what he does; I’ve seen him do it during negotiations, and I’ve been on the receiving end of a number of these dressings-down. I wait for it, imagining a roiling storm cloud gathering in the room above us, thunder rumbling warnings of what’s to come.

“Do you know what you’re worth, Jacob?” he asks me.

I shrug. Honestly, I’m not certain. A hell of a lot. “I don’t, sir,” I tell him. “But I’d guess it’s about — ”

“It’s nothing,” Reginald says softly, dangerously. “You are worth precisely zero dollars.”

“I’ve got five hundred and thirteen dollars in cash in my pocket,” I tell him. I don’t know why. To put up some kind of a

fight? Already, I can see where this is going.

Reginald doesn’t laugh at my joke, which I realize moments after it’s out of my mouth is not very funny. “How far in life do you think that will get you?”

“A night at a cheap strip club,” I say. In for a penny…

“All of your stock in my company,” Reginald growls, “your trust funds, your life insurance premiums, even your credit, is connected to my interests and it has been since you were born.”

That’s… actually news to me. I probably should have been more aware of how that was all set up.

“So when I tell you, Jacob,” he goes on, “that I can and will cut you off — I don’t mean that I will stop paying your credit card down. I mean that I will divest you of every single penny to your name. Including the cash in your wallet. It can happen with a single phone call to my CFO, who, by the way, doesn’t like you.”

Nervously, I scratch the back of my neck. “I fucked his daughter a few years back…” I mutter.

“I don’t care who you fucked, Jacob. What I care about is that you seem, for reasons that are beyond my comprehension, to be hell-bent on forcing my hand in these matters. Do you want me to disown you? Do you want to be penniless? Are you tired of this life of luxury that I have painstakingly built for you and then laid, like a golden fleece, at your unworthy feet?” He’s getting louder by degrees, and it’s all I can do to keep still, keep my face blank, and not react. Can’t show him any fear.

“I’ve got a Masters in — ” I start, ludicrously, intent on somehow arguing that I could manage on my own.

But my father shakes his head. “You think I can’t have another son?” he asks. “You think that if I’m going to cast you out into the cold, I’m going to leave loose strings swaying in the wind? Believe me, Jacob — if I find that I have a need to fuck you, I will do so with such a vengeance that you will never find employment in this country so long as I live.”

“What do you want from me?” It’s the only part of the conversation left to have, really. Reginald didn’t bother with the carrot, which means he’s waving the stick for a reason.

“You are to make good with Janie Hall,” he says. “I don’t care how. You’re to charm her panties off like I have seen you do so often — like I taught you — and you are to sweep her off her feet until she’s literally eating out of the palm of your hand like a good little bitch in heat. Make her pliable. Am I clear?”

I nod once, instead of telling him how utterly impossible a task that is.

“I couldn’t quite hear that,” Reginald says.

“You’ve made your wishes entirely clear, Father,” I say, like a good, properly chastised son. It doesn’t take much.

“And?”

“And, I’ll do it.” I feel sick saying the words. A little whiskey will numb that right over. Which is convenient, since I’ll need several drinks to confront Janie directly.

“Good,” Reginald says. “Do you have a plan?”

“Just now?” I ask.

“I expected you to have a plan when you first approached her,” he says. “Did you not?”