Page 67 of The Muse

Ending the call at that threat, I pick up my suit jacket, slam the door from the kitchen into the garages, and take a moment to calm down before I get in the car. This couldn’t be going better. Arsehole of a father permanently breathing down my neck. Sister who’s deciding to run off with a fucking Foxton like the child she is. And now, low and behold, that particular Foxton has been cunt enough to have found the one place I happen to frequent to relax in since I’ve been back.

My hands squeeze the steering wheel, sawing on it back and forth, as I reverse onto the drive and swing the car around. Control is becoming lacking. It’s not a feeling I’m good at. And certainly isn’t when I’ve got a company to bring back into check, let alone merge with another one. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could ground myself back in this country, but I’m scarcely managing that with all this emotional crap interfering with logic.

Everything’s changed since I’ve been in the States—me included. Working with the Canes does that to a man. Legalities blur. Lawfulness and civility become a revolving headache of morality versus necessity. I was one of them there—part of a machine that worked seamlessly as a unit, mostly—but now I’m here dealing with emotive family responses again, and I don’t know what I am because of that. Son? Brother? Apparent father to a sister whose ridiculous notions of love are causing me problems? And that’s mainly because our own father couldn’t give a damn about anything remotely connected with concern or affection. Where I am in that blend, where Landon is beneath this lawyer's mask of indifference I’m part immersed in, I don’t know.

Courtrooms are easier than this crap.

Even Logan Cane is easier than this crap.

A long breath pulled in and I focus on the road as I turn out into traffic. I should go to the offices. Deal with something. Maybe sack someone. I’m so fucking irate I could physically strangle someone, let alone sack them, and that’s not something I’ve lowered myself to so far, regardless of Cane life. But this, this fucking nauseating problem, is consuming rationale beyond normal levels of intellect. And because of those photos of me at The Priory and fuck knows what else Foxton has on me, I’ve now got to accept not only him taking her, but also him holding something over me for the foreseeable.

The noose of a tie gets ripped away from my collar and slung into the footwell as the roads rumble and merge into each other. I’ll just drive. Try to calm myself down that way. It doesn’t work. All it does is heighten the very real truth that I can’t give Persephone any sensible reason why she shouldn’t be with Scott. I don’t know the full motives any more than she does. Not entirely anyway. I doubt Scott does either. It’s just part of our generation, forced there from generations before us.

It was drilled in from the moment I showed interest in my father’s business, and then coached further as soon as I began learning the ropes alongside him. By the time I graduated law, it was so deeply entrenched that it became an underlying feeling rather than a simple learnt behaviour. Time as a barrister in the States hasn't lessened it either. It’s just an ongoing, embedded vengeance.

The Herald was the first step. That's done, after months of leveraging and toil. Breaking it into shreds will be the second. And then finding a way to ruin them all will be the third. Regrettably, I’ve now got to deal with this interruption because not only has Scott Foxton got something on me, he's also got her. My sister.

A Broderick and a Foxton. Together.

Traffic brings me to a halt, and I stare out into the sun. Paris? Sounds charming enough, I suppose. Romantic. The notion's wasted on me, but what young impressionable woman wouldn’t want to be whisked off somewhere like that? It must seem like an escape route for her, certainly considering her inability to actually make her career viable in any form going forward. Stupid, silly little girl.

Christ, I don’t have time for her shit. Neve is bad enough with her peculiar skulking around, but at least I don’t have to worry about her. She’s secure enough. And Ivy has her head firmly screwed on her shoulders, no matter how bitchy she can be. Where the hell someone like Persephone came from in our family is a quandary I haven’t even begun to comprehend. The determination and drive she has isn't in question, but now she’s acting flighty, fanciful, and, as proved, fucking idiotic. Not something any Broderick can usually be accused of. Certainly not me.

Scowling as a horn blasts behind me, I pull away slowly and contemplate the possibility that maybe it won’t last between them anyway. He’s a full-grown man, for God’s sake, a good looking one at that, much to my annoyance. I can only presume his artistic flair tied in with the brooding older man syndrome has been enough to sweep her into stupidity. Daddy issues wouldn't be a stretch too far either.

Unluckily for her, I dare say a few weeks back there, of him remembering the life that a man like him can indulge in, and he’ll probably drop her like a fucking stone. I know men like him well. Mainly because I’m also the kind of bastard to women that he is. And besides, from my limited knowledge and the files I already have on him, Scott Foxton seems to prefer the married type. Not surprisingly. Married women are unavailable for anything remotely emotional. Even if they want it. And because of that, they’re easier to use and drop.With any luck, he’ll soon tire of schoolgirl dreams and petulance because my little sister is anything but easy.

My lips turn up slightly at the thought, relaxing at that prospect. She’ll come back when she understands that about him and the life she’s about to get into. She’ll come crawling and hoping for salvation in the arms of a family that actually gives a damn. In fact, perhaps this will do her some good in the long run, show her that the world is full of bastards who are extremely ready to debase the gullible. It’s sad that Father and Mother let her become that in my absence, something I was trying to counter, but here we are.

For now, I’ll let her run until she works it out for herself. Albeit with the caveat of Noah following her every move. Father's hyperbole about it when he finds out will just have to be managed appropriately.

Finally pulling up to the street I’ve seemingly been aiming towards unconsciously, I pull into the private underground parking and kill the engine. I shouldn’t have come here, but I need to relax; take some time to cool off and find clear thought. A little space from the inevitability of meetings and decisions might offer solutions I haven’t considered yet. It’s a shame Jackson isn’t in the country because I could do with him dealing with his fucking security. The fact that I didn’t even notice Foxton tailing me is problematic enough, but that he was let through the bloody door after is almost farcical.

Journalism has no place in any of Jackson’s venues, either here or abroad. Something I’ve told him—repeatedly. Sadly, he doesn’t seem to have gotten the fucking message. Again. I could debate the same inflection with myself. Especially considering the hold Foxton now has over me. The imminent CEO of any major company shouldn’t be here either, let alone a respected defence lawyer, but my dirty little girl is here.

Or rather, her legs and body are.

Smiling at the mental image, I make my way up to the back entrance this time. I don’t know anything more about her, and I’ve kept it that way. I don’t need her face for her to give me what she does, nor do I need her real name behind the pseudonym she uses. I just need her skin in front of me. That’s it. It’s not something I’m giving up in a hurry. But I suppose it might be something I need to pay for privately going forward.

Time, that’s what I need. Time and thought.

And then, when I’m ready, I’ll take down anything in my way.