CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ZADE
I step into the administrative office behind my father—Ethan Hamilton—and close the heavy oak door behind me.
The latch clicks with a sound that feels entirely too permanent.
He walks over to the desk, settling into the leather chair before gesturing for me to sit across from him.
I do.
I take my seat, watching him.
This man walks like he owns the entire world. And the reality is, he actually does own more than half of the industrial world.
Every movement he makes is calculated, heavy with authority.
"Mr. King mentioned what happened. Care to explain?" he says.
His voice is tight, stripping away any room for negotiation.
He leans forward, crossing his fingers into a rigid, interlocking grid on the mahogany desk.
"For that, you have to explain what he explained," I say.
I shrug, leaning back in my chair and crossing one leg over the other, deliberately trying to look unbothered.
His jaw tightens. "What. The. Hell. Happened. Yesterday?"
He delivers each word with a heavy grit, his eyes locking onto mine like a vise.
"Many things happened," I drawl, checking my fingernails to test his patience.
"Like... I came to the university.
"I attended my classes. Then I practiced my golf swing. I accidentally hit a girl with the driver... and, oh, I had a mind-blowing blowjob."
I lied about that last part, obviously.
But I love seeing him look disgusted with me. I love forcing a crack into his perfect, aristocratic facade, even if it means playing the role of the degenerate son he thinks I am.
"I didn't ask for your personal schedule," he says, his voice dropping into a dangerous register.
"But you didn't ask for any specific details either, so I guessed I'd just tell you everything," I reply.
He lets out a slow, controlled sigh.
To say this man is in his early fifties would feel like a mistake to anyone looking at him.
He looks like a titan, demanding absolute submission from every single person in any room he walks into.
He doesn't age; he just hardens.
"Why did you hit the girl... and then proceed to take her to your penthouse without telling any of us?" he hisses, leaning even closer.
"I don't need to tell you who I take to my penthouse and who I don't," I say, matching his tension exactly.
The air in the room feels thick, heavy with years of unspoken resentment.
"It's my space. I handle my own business."
"We both know what happened the last time you took care of someone," he says softly.
He leans back in his chair, his expression turning cold and detached.
The words hit me like a physical blow.
The office around me suddenly vanishes. The smell of polished mahogany is replaced by the suffocating scent of copper and hospital corridors. My mind violently rips backward, dragging me into a memory I've spent years trying to bury.
"I can't breathe, Zade... it hurts so bad... Zade... save me... help me... please..."
"Breathe, Lila. I'm taking you to the hospital. You'll be fine... just breathe, please..."
"I... can't... do... this... anymore... just... save... my... baby... please..."
A sharp gasp catches in my throat as I violently snap myself back to reality.
My hands are clenched into fists so tight that my knuckles are stark white.
It's funny, really. It's funny how the people who know you, the people you are supposed to trust, the ones who know every single detail about your darkest nights—they are always the ones who know exactly where to drive the knife.
They stab you with your own past, pushing it in so deep that all you can see is a blinding, empty nothingness.
I look at my father, the anger in my veins turning into a cold, lethal calm.
He knows what that memory does to me.
He used Lila's name without even speaking it, using her ghost as a weapon to put me back in my place.
But I'm not seven years old anymore, begging for my sister to come back from the angels. And I'm not the helpless boy who watched Lila suffer.
"Don't go there," I say, my voice dropping so low it's barely a whisper, yet it cuts through the silence of the room like a razor blade.
Ethan Hamilton watches me, his face unreadable.
He wants to control me. He wants to control who enters my world. But by bringing up the past, he didn't make me back down—he just made me realize that I will burn Oakhaven to the ground before I let history repeat itself.