Trade Me (Cyclone #1)(7)

When I was a kid, the prospect of inheriting Cyclone felt like it would be the winning move in a worldwide game. Today, I know it takes strength. Determination. A will stronger than steel.

In other words, it’s going to take someone other than me.

“I get it,” he says. “You’re scared. You’re using school as an excuse. You think you can’t do this. You’ve bought into this bullshit that just because you’re twenty-three and barely an adult, blah blah blah, you can’t do this. Well, that’s f*cked up. Stare your fear down. Come on, Blake. Cyclone needs you.” He frowns. “I need you.”

It’s a paradox. If I’m not strong enough to say no to my dad, I’m surely not strong enough to run the company. If he manages to break me down, I’ll know I can’t do it.

I also know that in a long-term battle of wills between my father and me, I will never, ever win. Nobody does. The only solution I can see is to get strong enough to take over before he breaks me down.

“Dad. I can’t.” The rest of the sentence is on the tip of my tongue. I have a problem.

But he’s already rejecting this with a dismissive chop of his hand. “Can’t is for *s.”

Can’t is the only word I have. Going away to college was a stopgap measure, the best I could come up with to buy time to fix this thing. It’s not working. If this keeps up, he’ll break me before I’m ready. I switch my apple back to the other hand. Three.

I know my dad sounds like a mean f*cker, but that’s just the way he talks. He doesn’t play games. He loves me; he wants me to be happy. Cyclone made him happy, and so now he wants to give it to me. He expects me to continue his conquest of the world.

“Look,” he says. “We have a vanishing window here. The Board of Directors will let you take over in the name of continuity and public trust at this point. The longer you stay away, the less weight that argument carries.”

“You own 12% of Cyclone stock,” I point out, “and everyone f*cking worships you. The Board of Directors will do whatever you damned well say.”

“Hmmm.” He frowns, but doesn’t disagree.

My dad may be something of a mean f*cker, but he’s a mean f*cker with prescient vision, brilliant business sense, and an almost preternatural ability to know precisely what needs to be done at any given moment. Hundreds of people depend on his decisions.

I switch the apple yet again to my other hand. Four.

And the truth is… I know why he wants me to run the launch. It’s not about wanting a vacation or needing to slow down. It’s not even a manipulative attempt to yank me out of school and pull me back into his orbit.

It’s because a little over a year ago, Peter Georgiacodis—Cyclone’s Chief Financial Officer, my father’s best friend, the only person who could face my dad down and remain standing, and, incidentally, the closest thing I’ve ever had to a second parent—had a massive heart attack two nights before the launch of our third-generation tablet.

My father would never admit that preparing for our upcoming launch has afflicted him with anything so weak as lingering grief. He would never tell me that the memories are getting to him. He’d certainly never talk about fears of his own fleeting mortality. But when he says that he needs me, I suspect that’s what he means.

If he were just a mean f*cker, if all he had to offer was cash, I could tell him to piss off. But it’s not about the money. Imagine that Darth Vader had the chance to raise Luke as his son. Imagine that he spent every day with him, loved him, and taught him everything he knew. Imagine that he put Luke first every day of his son’s young life, even though he had an empire to run and galactic rebellions to squash.

It’s easy to shout “I’ll never join you!” when some random * makes ridiculous claims about your parentage. It’s harder when that * loves you with a world-bending ferocity. And it’s downright impossible when you love him back.

Dad and I stare at each other for a moment, both of us desperately wishing the other will change.

“Compromise,” I finally say. “I’ll draft the launch script. I can do that and stay in school. But you’re still the public face of Cyclone. You stay in charge. You run it. Not me.”

His eyes bore into mine.

I want to do everything for him. I want to be everything he thinks I can be.

But… Dad, I have a problem.

He doesn’t need to hear about my problem. I’m going to take care of it on my own, and when I do, I’ll come back. At that point, I’ll be the person he believes I can be, not just the illusion of a son he can rely on.

He lets out a long breath. “Fine. I can work with that. I’ll have George set everything up. Thanks, *.”

“You got it, you bastard.”

He ends the conversation.

And in that moment, I realize what I’ve agreed to. It’s not the work that convinced me I needed to get away from Cyclone. I don’t mind work. But Dad’s not the only one with lingering grief issues. He’s just the one who is managing his issues in a reasonably healthy manner.

Agreeing to script the launch will put me back in the heart of memories I can’t forget. And unlike my dad, I have a problem.

I remember staring at Peter’s casket, seeing Cyclone employees, industry contacts—a crowd, really—surrounding him. And that’s when I started to feel trapped. There were hundreds of people there, and he knew all of them—every single one—from work.