The Kingmaker (All the King's Men, #1)(12)

And it’s shaped like a star.





*



“I’m prepared to forgive you.”

These are the first words my father has spoken since he “collected” me from the police station in town. I’m glad the other protesters had all left by the time the officer came and called for “Cade.” Even though I’ll never see them again, I didn’t want that name clinging to me like slime. When I climb into the back of the Escalade, my father sits with folded arms and a ticking jaw, his head turned away from me. His outrage fills the air-conditioned space. His fury and mine silently wrangle as we head toward the airfield.

I ignore his ridiculous opening line, and swallow my irritation and indignation to respond. “Are you flying me back to Berkeley? I have shit to do.”

The frosty look on his face cools even a few degrees more. It’s his subzero face.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he demands, the anger he’s checked roaring, snapping in my face with teeth. “Do you have any idea how much damage you could have done? What a black eye it would be for Cade Energy if anyone had realized who you were? That my own son protested my pipeline?”

“I agree with you there. I wouldn’t want anyone to know I’m a Cade either.”

“Boy, it’s your damn future I’m protecting,” he thunders, veins straining to get out through the skin of his neck.

“Taking away sacred land? Endangering a tribe’s water supply? Stealing all over again from people who have been done wrong by this country at every turn? That’s not my future, Dad. I don’t want any part of it.”

Hurt flashes through his glare, and for a moment I feel bad, but then I recall the stinging eyes of those in the cell with me. I see the dogs biting Mr. Paul. I touch the bite on my arm that was intended for Lennix. My father’s hurt is a shallow, temporary thing compared to how they have and will continue to be wounded. His is mostly dislocated pride.

“Well you won’t have a part of it then, but there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

“Do this, and I’ll never work at Cade Energy.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“I’m not threatening you, Dad. I’m saying if you go forward with this pipeline, there’s no chance in hell I’ll ever work with you.”

He stiffens, his eyes slits of reptilian green.

“We didn’t need you to build this company, and we won’t need you to keep it. I’ll be damned if you’ll manipulate me into anything. You wouldn’t know how to run a business if your life depended on it. That’s the problem, you ungrateful welp. You’ve had the Cade name all your life. You don’t have what it takes to make it without it.”

“Oh, like Owen became a senator without using the Cade name? Give me a fucking break. He’s your puppet. Your hand is so far up his ass, you have to wipe for him.”

“You’re jealous of your brother’s success. That’s pathetic, since you won’t do what it takes to succeed yourself.”

“I am doing what it takes to succeed. I have been. You just haven’t cared because it’s not your plan.”

“You don’t have a plan, boy,” my father sneers. “What plan is that? Saving whales and Indians? Walk away from me, and we’ll have something the Cade family has never had before.” He fills his pause with deliberate cruelty. “A failure.”

I let his words hurt. I let myself feel the full weight of his contempt and his disappointment. His eyes gleam darkly like volcanic glass. Even in defeat he looks simultaneously frigid and like he might drown you in hot lava at any second.

“I won’t fail.” My words carry no bravado, only confidence, because I have every intention of proving him wrong.

“You will,” he counters with as much certainty. “You are unsalvageable.”

Unsalvageable.

I should have known he’d find a word that went beyond disowned. Beyond disgraced. A word that would cut to my core character as if it was something he’d tried to save and failed miserably. And now there’s no hope.

The car comes to a stop. Our fight has frosted the air. Tension coats the interior of the car. I’m surprised the windows haven’t fogged.

We both exit our respective sides. The Cade jet idles on the tarmac, awaiting my father’s bidding like every other subject in his kingdom.

He starts walking, stopping to turn when he realizes I’m not with him.

“Come on,” he snaps. “I have more important things to do than indulge your temper tantrum.”

“You have never paid one tuition bill,” I say, not addressing his insulting words. “Never paid my rent or room and board. And you haven’t even noticed.”

The look on his face should bring me some satisfaction, but it only reiterates how little he cares about me as a person; he hasn’t seriously concerned himself with the details of my life because I’m not where he wants me to be.

“Grams left me a little money that I received when I turned eighteen, if you remember,” I say with a painful, wry smile. “Not much by your standards, but it lasts if you’re careful. I’ve been on my own for years and doing better than fine.”

“You wouldn’t last a year without my name.” His thin smile relishes the probability of my failure.