"Lachlan, would you care to explain why you've brought my soon-to-be ex business partner's daughter into our home?"

"Soon to be?  You're cutting ties with her dad's company?"

Lachlan's father's study was as close to an evil lair as one could get.  The dark green walls that reminded me of a mossy forest floor brought a dim ambiance to the space, the dark oak desk and furniture adding to the color scheme, and the wall to wall bookshelves that lined one wall completed the look. 

"When that company is trying to find a way out, I have no need for them any longer.  I'm sure she knows now my little task I asked of you.  Do you want a reminder of what happens when you disobey me?"

I wasn't shaking yet, but I could tell that Lachlan was close.  This man didn't use threats against you in question, but the people that you cared most about.  In this case, it was Blythe for Lachlan, because he knew that his father wasn't talking about hitting him, but his little sister, if he didn't obey him. 

"And what happened to her face?  Really son?  I forbid this relationship, I know you two were together at the gala and afterwards at the house."

My eyes nearly bugged out of my head.  He might have been able to threaten Lachlan, but he couldn't threaten me. 

"Excuse you, but I don't really think that's any of your business.  We are both about to be eighteen and then you won't have any hold on Lachlan, not like you have any on me anyway."

Sitting down at his desk, Gerard Brooks leaned back in his desk chair with his feet up on his cherry oak desk, the finish shining underneath the lone fluorescent light fixture hanging in the middle of the ceiling.  

"That's very sweet that you wish to protect your little boyfriend Katrina, however I don't think your input was necessary here.  You can just stand there and look pretty, er- well, with that nasty mess going on with your head, I suppose I can say just stand there."

I laughed humorlessly. 

"You might have to work a little harder to insult me there, Gerard."

"Kat," Lachlan warned but I ignored him.

Gerard grew somber, the arms that he'd placed in faux leisure behind his head falling as he leaned forward.

I was goading him, trying to get his temper up enough to admit something that would incriminate him, something that would actually work, because I was so sick and tired of all of us living in fear and this pseudo space of reality where we were all walking on eggshells and what if's, never truly free.  At least my phone was recording the audio in my back pocket.

"What do you want, Katrina?"

"In this very moment?  I want you to step down as the CEO of your company and name your wife as your successor.  Then I want you to turn yourself in to the cops for child abuse and money laundering, among other things, but we can't always get what we want, do we?"

An easy smile landed on his lips and I was very clearly rattled.

"You have no proof."

"What about the scar on Lachlan's thigh, Blythe's words against yours?  Hell, I'd even bet Brandon and your wife would testify against you at this point."

Calm and collected, he folded his hands in on themselves while observing me like I were nothing more than a pesky fly that he had to swat away. 

"You want to know what I think?"

"Not particularly, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me anyway."

"That mouth will get you in trouble one day, Miss Randolph.  You're walking a dangerous tightrope right now, and I think that, hypothetically speaking of course, if I threatened my son's life right now, that you would walk away from him forever, if it was what I wanted.  I think that you'll do anything I say, just to make sure that he doesn't get hurt."

I pretended to be interested in my nail beds and prayed my poker face was as good as I thought. 

"Not even close.  Lachlan was using me to get to my dad's company's information.  Why would anyone think I could ever forgive him for doing something so heartless?"

The words weren't true, I only hoped that Lachlan wouldn't believe that I really meant them when it was the farthest thing from the truth. 

Lachlan's father itched the bridge of his nose in contemplation, like he was trying to decide if I was worth the risk of my bluff or not. 

"Right.  And if I stood up right now, and punched my son in the face, you wouldn't care?"

"Honestly, I think he probably deserves it," I said, trying to hide the fact that I was shaking where I stood.  If he really did punch Lachlan, then I'd have caught the audio, and we'd have proof that he really was abusing his kids, or one of them at least.  It would ruin his reputation and he'd be forcibly removed from the board of directors of his company.  

If it worked...

"Take a step near me and I'll lay your ass out, old man," Lachlan said, but I could tell that he knew where this was going.  He didn't think I would have taken it so far, but if we could get the proof we needed then the ends justified the means.  I hoped. 

"I'd love to see you try.  You're set to take the entire company over when you're of age, and you're wanting to throw it all away for this...girl?  Do you know what will happen when it's time for you to take over, after you get your degree?  She'll probably be knocked up by some low life, the adopted little charity case unable to break from tradition of her blood line.  She's a mutt.  She is nothing, Lachlan.  Nothing."

"Well, this 'mutt' is obviously a better person than you.  What kind of monster hits their own children?"

"You see?  She doesn't even understand anything.  Shaping my children to become stronger doesn't make me a monster, it makes me a good father, and a good businessman at that.  I'm making sure my investments pay off."

"So you think your children are investments?  Wow, am I glad I didn't get you as a birth father.  The one I got jumped in front of a bullet for me.  What will you do for your children?  Put them in the firing line of one?"

He sneered at me, though it was clear that he didn't see me as a threat, and I tired to find a way to change that. 

"I would never hurt my children.  I discipline them, of course, but I would never lay a hand on them."

"Right.  So which one have you hit the most, Lachlan?  Or maybe Blythe, because she's the youngest and can't fight back?"

He stood up from the desk, the chair spinning around as the action caused it to jump back from behind his legs. 

"I'm not sure I like your tone, Miss Randolph."

I bristled at his disgust when he said the word 'Miss Randolph' like it was poison in his mouth. 

"What?  Can't take what you dish out?"

It was his turn to laugh humorlessly. 

"I believe I am done with this conversation.  Please leave my house."

My eye twitched as I realized I didn't have a choice but to listen to him, unless I wanted another injury to go along with the slight hole in my head. 

I shot him a look which told him that this wasn't over, but before Lachlan could go with me, his father, fast as a cobra, struck out and grasped him on the shoulder. 

His smile was sinister. 

"Lachlan will be staying here, with me.  We need to have a father son conversation, about how I don't think this relationship is appropriate.  You're clearly a bad influence on my impressionable seventeen year old.  I don't have a problem letting the headmaster of the school that I own revoke your attendance at Bayfield, to make sure that you two keep your distance."

Cold fear struck me deep in my heart, and where I was so positive that coming into this office that he would reveal his true nature, Lachlan's father had shown his cards and they beat everything we had. 

I had felt so invincible after my problems had been (mostly) solved, that I thought it would've been so easy to do the same with Lachlan's, but staring at his helpless face as he withered underneath his father's touch, my heart broke right in my chest. 

Just shattered into millions of little pieces on the floor as I realized the truth and gravity of the situation that we'd gotten ourselves into.  If only we'd have kept playing his little game, had Lachlan pretend he was still using me, then we'd still be able to see each other under that little lie, and we wouldn't have been faced with such an ultimatum. 

What else could I do?  This man obviously had contingencies for things like this.  The cops wouldn't listen to me, but what about my father, Jessie, my mom?  Sure, my dad would possibly be in trouble for the money laundering, but if he could help the feds catch a bigger fish, would they let him off for a plea deal?  I didn't know much about the criminal justice system, but surely someone who was only acting under duress wouldn't be in near as much trouble as the ring leader...right?

I clung onto that hope, even as I knew that leaving would spell disaster for Lachlan.  His father was sure to hurt him the second I stepped outside, so I took my time shuffling my feet in that office, eyes locked onto the boy that held resolve in his eyes for what was coming his way.  He knew, and yet he still knew that I had to leave.  He didn't want me to have to see what was going to happen to him.  

But I couldn't let it happen, not to him.  The thought of someone hurting him shredded my insides to bits as I remembered the times that he held me through my panic attacks, all the times that he made sure that I was okay without caring for his safety. 

He had cut his hand open trying to save me from drowning in that icy pond, and now it was my turn to get my hands a little dirty to save him, because it was clear that no one else was there to do it. 

"Clock is ticking, Katrina.  Or I could just call the police?"

Which was exactly what I wanted, but not with his narrative.  

"I'm leaving.  I'm going," I said, voice cracking on each syllable.  But not before I clenched my hands into fists at my sides and gathered up all my strength that I would need to leave Lachlan with this monster. 

"Should I extend this to Blythe as well?  I believe she needs some more...character shaping as well.  Get.  Out."

I flinched as he brought Blythe into the conversation, and with one parting glance at Lachlan's shaking form, from fear or anger I didn't know, I passed through the doorway of his father's study...

and slammed my fist into my eye as soon as I shut the door. 

Over and over, pain slicing over my skin as my fist connected with skin, fissures and blood collecting on my face while throwing a few on my cheek as well, careful to miss my wound, but if I were Lachlan's father, I'd hit me where it hurt the most, so with a wish to anyone up above that this wouldn't tear me apart, I sent my fist careening to my head, smack dab in the middle of the gash in my head that had been caused by a bullet.

I would've cried out in immense pain, if I hadn't bit my lip so hard to make blood bloom on the surface, the surrender of myself for the greater good the only thing keeping me going.

Swollen and battered, I made it to the steps outside of Lachlan's house and fumbled for my phone in my back pocket, glad that my knuckles hadn't split open, and as I tried to mop up the blood from my head wound, the red scarlet liquid coated my hands and covered up any evidence that my wounds had been self inflicted. 

I unlocked my phone and began to dial. 

"911, what's your emergency?"

"Help, it's my boyfriend's father.  He's gone crazy, he won't stop hitting me, or his son."

"Are you in a safe location?"

"Yes."

"What's your full name and location?"

I put the phone on speaker as I texted Jessie and my dad to get to Lachlan's house as soon as possible.  I only hoped that there was an already existing investigation into their business' shady dealings, otherwise none of this was going to work. 

But as I swayed on my feet and my words slurred, I began to realize that everything hinged on the fact that Lachlan was getting beaten up, too, and at that my heart broke even further that my body. 

"The police are on their way," the operator told me over the phone and I slumped down on the concrete steps in Lachlan's front yard, hoping to everything above that it was finally all over.  

If only life was that simple.