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“Dad! For once in your life, will you take a step back and see the good I am doing? I know what I am doing and you would see that if you could get your head out of your ass!” Anger surged and I no longer cared if anyone overheard.
“Sawyer—”
“No, this is the time for you to listen. I have broken my back trying to repair the reputation you created. I have fought to do some good with the insane profits you soaked up off the backs of unknowing people. And Kane? Kane is a great man, and we share a vision!”
My father’s eyes narrowed to slits, and his bushy brows pulled so low that they almost brushed against his high cheekbones.
“I am through with you trying to undermine me just because you don’t like who I choose to work with, so back the fuck off!”
My father stepped forward.
“Are you really that blind? You can’t see what’s right in front of you because you’re so busy trying to prove me wrong. I have decades of experience in this world, and I know how things work,” he snarled. “So, what will it take, hmm? Do you need more money to claw your way out of this mess? It always comes down to money with you because you have such a chin on your shoulder. Do you need better lawyers, is that it? What is it and I will fix things, once again.”
“This isn’t your company anymore,” I snapped, my heart flying up into my throat. “I don’t need you fixing anything.”
“It’s my name on the building, not yours!” My father surged forward and for a moment, I was ten years old again.
I stood in the kitchen with pieces of my father’s broken model in my hands. It had broken while I was playing with it, and fearing his wrath, I had done my best to put it back together again. Only, I’d repaired it wrong, so my father made me watch as he smashed the model boats to pieces and blamed me for breaking them.
He’d yelled so loud that my ears rang for days after and he’d beaten me so hard that I’d had to tell a teacher I fell down the stairs.
The moment he surged forward in my office, I felt like that little kid again and I couldn’t move. My father’s arm raised and my heart stopped.
Then, suddenly, Liam was between us and he shoved my father away.
“Back the fuck off,” he snarled. “And stop talking in riddles, old man. The fuck do you mean we’re working with a stolen patent?”
Liam held one arm back toward me, not making contact, but it was enough to comfort me briefly. After getting my thoughts in order, I realized we’d glazed over that during the argument.
My father barked out a humorless laugh, unphased by Liam.
“You can’t be serious?” His sharp eye slid to me. “It’s not a new lawyer you need, it’s a new fucking brain.”
“Explain!” Liam snapped.
“Turn on the news,” My father growled. “This new business having idea of yours? It’s stolen. PRISM has filed a patent for the same thing, and theirs dates back earlier than yours. If your plan was to crumble everything important to me? Then congratulations.”
He started to clap slowly.
“Crane Enterprises won’t survive this.”
It was almost too much to process all at once. PRISM? Fucking Eli Talbot has filed for the same patent? How was that possible?
And how the hell did his date earlier than ours?
As I opened my mouth to demand more attention, a loud clatter sounded from behind my father and we all shifted attention to Callie as she collapsed by the door.
24
CALLIE
“I’m okay, really I’m okay.”
My reassurance didn’t seem to matter to Liam, who kept one arm around my waist as we climbed the stairs to my apartment.
“You’re not though. People don’t just faint like that.”
“In this heat?” I squinted at him through a few strands of hair. “It’s easily done. Especially since I’ve been so busy, and I hadn’t drunk a lot today, so it was my own fault.”
