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“What’s this all about, huh? Or did you two wrinkly old fucks just miss my face?”

Years and years of practice had made it so I could usually anticipate a blow from my father before it happened. I must have been falling down on the job because I didn’t have time to brace before it landed.

I’d stopped feeling the burn of pain in those hits years ago. All I felt anymore was the shame and humiliation he’d intended.

The fucker backhanded me in the face like the pussy he was. Couldn’t even throw a punch like a man. Almost instantly, I righted it and met his gaze, giving absolutely nothing away as I stuck my tongue out to taste the blood beading at the corner of my mouth where his ring caught me. The tangy metallic flavor filled my mouth, the familiar flavor almost soothing in some strange way. Maybe because I was so used to it. A bloody lip was as common for me as pancakes on Saturday mornings were to most other people.

“You mind your goddamn words when you speak to us, you ungrateful little shit,” my father hissed, spittle flying out of his mouth.

He downed the rest of the whiskey, placing the now-empty glass on the edge of Grandpa’s desk, right in front of me, before sitting down. I lost track of how many nights I lay awake, silently praying he wouldn’t come home. For whatever reason. Unfortunately, the bastard was healthy as a fucking horse.

My grandfather was the one who spoke next, breaking the tense silence that filled the room. “What’s this I’m hearing about letting that new guy walk roughshod all over you?”

Rage simmered in my belly, twisting my insides into knots at the thought that there was a fucking rat in my department. But I’d be goddamned if I let them see anything but cool.

Resting an ankle on the opposite knee, I leaned back in the chair, portraying a sense of calm I sure as hell didn’t feel. “So which one of my men did you manage to turn into a rat?”

My grandfather sat forward, bracing his forearm on the expensive leather blotter that covered the even more expensive mahogany beneath it. “Let’s get one thing straight, boy. You don’t have any men. Everything you have, from the goddamn clothes on your back, to your position, to the sheep in that department, belongs to me.”

“Have you forgotten I’ve been running that department for years,” I argued back, the rage inside me going from a simmer to a full, rolling boil.

His hand came down on the desk in a slap hard enough to make most people jump, but I’d schooled my reaction years ago. “Because it’s what I chose! You might think you have power because you wear that badge, but don’t you forget for one fucking second who made it so. Or that I can take it away just as quickly.”

With each passing second, it was getting harder to keep my composure when all I wanted to do was explode. “I’ve been busting my ass for years⁠—”

“You’ve been fucking up for years,” my father barked. “We’ve been cleaning up your messes since you were a kid, and here you are, an adult who still can’t do a fucking thing right.”

It was my grandfather’s turn to pile more shit on top of me. “A Brady has held the position of Chief of Police for more than three decades, and in all that time, this is the closest we’ve ever come to losing it. And to a goddamn outsider!” He finished on a bellow.

I hated how my heart started to race and my palms grew clammy. Those were signs of weakness, and even though they were none the wiser, I felt it, and I hated that I was still wimpy enough to feel fear.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” I muttered, that godforsaken weakness affecting my voice in a way I loathed. Making it small. “I’ve got it handled.”

The old man threw his head back in a fit of laughter that, to my sheer pleasure, cut off into a coughing fit. Once he gained his bearings, he carried on. “You’ve handled absolutely nothing. When is the last time you looked at the numbers? Or is that above your head? North fucking Hastings is leading in the polls! You don’t get a handle on your squad and the people of this goddamn town, he’s going to beat you, and there isn’t anything we’ll be able to do about that.”

My back stiffened and I couldn’t help but shift uncomfortably in my seat, the leather creaking ominously beneath me.

“Ah, that’s what I thought,” he said with a sneer. “You’ve been playing at cops and robbers and haven’t bothered to check your standing.”

“That, or he’s too stupid to know when he’s being beaten,” my father added, not a single ounce of fatherly love or concern for his only child. His son. His goddamn legacy.

“I can still turn it around,” I insisted, though, truth was, I didn’t know how the hell I could do that. “What about what you did to the guy who tried running against Dad all those years ago? Can’t you go after Hastings the same way? Scare him into backing down?”

“With what leverage?” Grandpa bellowed while my dad let out a snide chuckle.

“Christ, you really are a clueless moron.”

“You can’t blackmail or threaten someone with no leverage, boy. I don’t know if it was by design, but there is no leverage to be found. No family close by, no close friends that we can find. Christ, he even rents the shithole he’s living in, so it’s not like his home could be a target. He’s got no roots and nothing holding him back.”

I curled my hands into fists so tight my blunt nails cut into the heels of my palms and my knuckles bleached white. Hastings had been fucking everything up since he joined my department a few years back. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen the threat lurking beneath the surface when it came to that son of a bitch, but I was determined to make him pay for every single second of misery he’d caused me. “Everyone has something.”

“You better hope so, boy,” Grandpa threatened. “Because you lose that position, we lose power, and that, I will not abide. I won’t have the latest generation of fuck-ups destroy the legacy my father started all those years ago and I’ve built upon. These white-trash pieces of shit think they’re better than us?” He slammed his fist on the desk in indignation. “Better than the Bradys? Absolutely not! And I would rather die in my sleep than let a single one of them slither out from beneath my thumb. Now, you fix what you’ve screwed up, or so help me, I’ll make your life a goddamn misery.”

With that, he waved his hand in the air, effectively dismissing me. I didn’t waste any time rising to my feet and getting the hell out of that house.

As far as I could tell, they hadn’t yet found out that Hastings was digging into Layne’s disappearance, and I could only pray I could keep that under wraps until I figured out how to handle the bastard who was threatening to destroy my entire world.

Little did he know, I’d burn the entire fucking thing to the ground before I let him take it from me.