Owen grinned at the mention of the deal.
And that was all it took.
I crossed the room in three strides and delivered a punch that sent Owen and the drink cart flying to the floor.
“Fugg me!” Owen shouted from the floor, clutching his face through a river of blood. “You broke my fugging doze again!”
“Jesus, Rone.” Liam had already crouched down beside him, offering one of the bar towels to staunch the flow. It occurred to me that he hadn’t seen me like this in years. None of them had. None of them but Mac.
“The snake deserved it.” I shook out my hand. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had a cracked knuckle in there, but I didn’t care. “You just couldn’t bear that you got passed over when Brendan left, couldn’t you, Owen? Or maybe it was that you couldn’t bear that I was actually fucking happy. Either way, you went behind my back with your nose glued to Dad’s ass. You sabotaged my marriage, used my wife’s company as a pawn in your little game to, what, prove some kind of demented loyalty? You think our father gives two shits about that?”
“Ronan!” Dad snapped.
“No, I did it to prove what we have all known from the beginning!” Owen shouted back through a bloody cloth held to his face. “That you are too much of a loose cannon to take over this company. It was just business!”
“No, it was my WIFE!” I bellowed.
Owen scrambled up from the floor. “Cut the shit, Ronan. You met her all of five minutes ago and married her on a whim to please the board. And you didn’t. Fool. Anyone. She’s a nobody. She doesn’t mean shit to you. Be a man and admit it.”
My fist was already balling up again by my hip as I readied for another hit. “You don’t know what the fuck you are talking about.”
“Ronan, calm down—” Dad tried again.
“You expect me to lie down and take it?” I reeled around to face him. “You taught us better than that, old man. You taught me better than that.”
“Watch yourself, boy.” This time, the order was closer to a growl. “Get control of yourself.”
But I wasn’t finished. “Honestly, what did you think would happen when you turned one of your sons into a weapon? I’m not like the others. You made sure of that. I wasn’t raised to kowtow and obey orders and play by the rules in hopes of winning the game—you taught me to play dirty. You taught me to take a fucking punch and give it back ten times over. You taught me to lose control, you piece of shit, not hold it together. And my ability to do that for this family is what has made you so successful year after year after year!”
“That’s enough!” Dad shoved up from his chair, face reddened with his signature rage even as he teetered slightly. Eighty-something or not, he was still a big man, once the size of the rest of us, hunched only by age and the frailty of his recent condition. Even so, the lion was out now.
But for once, I was ready to face him.
“Daddy, you need to calm down too,” Shea tried from her seat.
“Your heart, amor,” Violeta called. “The doctors say no stress.”
“I’m out.” I turned on him. “You orchestrated this. The acquisition, the announcement at the reception, all of it, all just to prove you still control me. Well, I only came here tonight for one reason. To tell you I’m done.”
The words rang silently around the room, bouncing off the glass windows and wood furniture. Everyone froze, like they honestly couldn’t comprehend the words.
When my father spoke again, it was through his teeth. “Done with what, exactly?”
“Done with you. Done with everyone here.”
I looked around the room. To Owen, sneering through his bloody nose, to Huntington, watching the events unfold like an official at a tennis match. To Violeta’s vapid expression, Mac’s assumed neutrality, Liza’s wary observation. And yes, to the clear disappointment on both Liam's and Shea’s faces.
But no one, not one of them, had stood up for the woman who had become the most important person in my life.
And no one knew me like she did.
None of these people, my own blood, could understand.
“He’s joking.” Owen was now focused on pinching his nose. “That’s what he does. Jokes, bluffs, manipulations. He’s not going to walk away for a woman. Blackguard is the only thing that has ever mattered to him.”
I laughed, a harsh sound that was foreign to my ears. “And that, brother, is how I know you have never understood me at all.”
I yanked out the ID badge I’d brought with me from the house. The keys to the penthouse. Every remnant of this life I could find.