Breaking Out (20 page)

His father appeared thinner, now that he was standing. Lucian believed him. There was no reason not to, even if he did just lie about Tibet being the one that was sick. Still, for all the sympathy he felt for his mother when she had come close to death, he felt drawn in the opposite direction for his father. Yet an innate part of him wanted to go to his dad and comfort him, let him know he was there and everything would be fine.

“I don't want the girls to know,” his father said. “No sense in worrying them.” He was quiet for a few beats, then in a small voice he said, “Or worse, telling them and realizing I mean so little to them now that they don't seem worried at all.”

Weight crushed down on his chest, only angering him more.
Fuck.
“Guilt? Really, Dad? Bad form.” He drew a quick comparison in his mind between Pearl and Christos.

His father let out a breath of laughter as his mouth quirked in a half smile that didn't reach his eyes. “Sorry. Pathetic, I know.” He sat back in his chair, and this time Lucian took notice of how winded and lethargic he seemed. He returned to his chair as well.

Christos cleared his throat. “So many times I wanted to call you kids and just say . . . hell, I don't know, just say
something.
Isadora's a woman now. You're busy with business. I remember what that was like. And Antoinette . . . my sweet little Annie . . .”

“She hates being called that,” Lucian informed him.

“Well, she's my baby. I can call her whatever the hell I please.” The words should have come out with a hint of laughter, but they didn't. Instead they were laced with what sounded like anger. “I'm too weak to even fly. I can't even get on a plane to see my own damn children!” His hand thumped on the desk. “I know if I asked you kids to come to me you wouldn't. I have three children and not one of them likes me.”

Lucian pressed his lips together. All of his instincts were rallying up his sympathies, but for whom? This man was the same person who made him feel worthless on so many levels, made him feel like he would never be good enough. For all Lucian knew he was destined to be something totally different, but his father's lack of faith challenged him directly where he'd landed. He had to be a success just to stick it up his dad's ass.

Yet here he was all boo-hoo woe is me. Well, where the hell was he when Isadora found out she had a lump in her breast? Or when Toni got in a car accident when she was seventeen? How about when he . . . he came up short when he searched for some life-threatening moment in his own existence.

The only thing Lucian had ever truly suffered was losing Evelyn. The pain of burying Monique couldn't equate to what he felt when he thought about losing Evelyn.

He looked at his dad and found his expression anxious. What could he say? You were a shitty father and husband?

“Tell me why you're here, Lucian,” Christos whispered. “You came all this way. Don't expect me to believe it was for nothing. I know you didn't come to see me, but you came here hoping to find answers. Let me help you. Let me at least be there for one of my children.”

A knot twisted inside of Lucian's stomach. He couldn't deal with any more guilt or stress or he was going to have an ulcer before the month was over.

The trustworthiness of his father was up for debate. He didn't know if even a come-to-Jesus moment was enough to change a man like Christos Patras. His father feared no god. On the contrary, he thought
he
was God. So the entire idea of him suddenly caring about what was going on in his children's lives was too foreign for Lucian to digest.

Lucian was trained by the best to overtake the best. He had to be the better man in order to outmaneuver his dad the way he had. He knew what being a man of business entailed. One had to know how to read people, pick up on any weaknesses and put pressure there at just the right time in order to proceed in the desired direction.

His mind drew back to another time in his childhood, before his mother had gotten sick. He was seven, sitting out back on the veranda, hiding because he was crying. When he heard his father's heavy footfalls he quickly dashed away his tears.

***

“Lucian! What are you doing out here? Your mother's looking for you.”

He drew up the tail of his shirt and wiped his nose. Scrambling to his feet, he bowed his head instinctively, knowing his father would not be empathetic, and scurried by. He came up short when his father caught him by the collar.

“Are those tears? Patras men don't cry, Lucian. You'll never get anywhere in this world if you don't toughen up.”

He clenched his teeth, wishing he could strike the giant that held him immobile. “Yes, sir.”

His father released his collar and narrowed his eyes, critically eyeing Lucian's flushed face. “Is this about that dog?”

That dog! His name was Rex and he was their family pet. Rather than get into an argument, he pressed his lips together, but frustration boiled beneath his skin.

His father shook his head. “Damn dog, I told your mother that was a terrible idea. Now look at you kids, every one of you an absolute mess because some animal's dead.”

Lucian's heart sank. His father was nothing like the rest of them. He was cold and unfeeling. Everything he spoke of had to do with business and money. He never simply stopped to just be a father.

“I should have saved everyone the worry and shot that thing long ago, put it out of its misery,” his father said as he turned away and headed back toward the house.

A white haze of anger took hold of him. His crooked, chewed fingernails bit into his small hands as they fisted at his side. His tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth as he sucked in a deep breath through his nose like a dragon draws in smoke after breathing fire. Hate was a living, seething thing coiled inside of him, and he had to get it out.

Like a locomotive running off its track, Lucian bellowed as deep as his young lungs would allow and charged at the man. His fists crashed into his back, and for a moment he felt his father's shock before it transitioned into anger.

“I hate you!” Lucian shouted as his fists pummeled the giant. “You're mean and heartless! No one here loves you! You don't care about anyone or anything but your stupid money!”

His arms were restrained as he thrashed and spit. His father's anger quickly shifted into something disturbing. As if deranged, his dad was suddenly smiling at him. “Good, boy. That's it. Be angry. Let it all out. Tears are for pansies, and no Patras man is a pansy. You see, love weakens a person, makes them vulnerable. Never put yourself in that position, Lucian. You open yourself up for those lesser emotions and you open yourself up to be dominated. Power is control, and having control leads to more power. Love corrupts power.”

As he drew in one enraged breath after another, he wondered how a man survived all those years without a heart. He jerked his arms away, forcing his shoulders out of his father's grip.

“That's you. I don't ever want to be like you! You have no heart.”

His father stood and smiled. It was odd, that was perhaps the one moment of his life he recalled seeing pride in his father's eyes, but it was for all the wrong reasons.

He nodded. “Go ahead and hate me, son. I'll survive. I've made it through worse. If I have to be the one you hate in order to teach you that it's okay, then so be it. I will not have a son who cries. Love weakens us, but hate focuses our drive. Embrace it, trust it, let it move you to top of the heap.”

***

“Lucian? Lucian, are you even listening to me?”

Lucian turned to his father, so much frailer than the giant he once was. Now, Lucian was the giant, yet that brought him no comfort in moments like this.

He did the math. His father was about his age when he'd given him that load of crap about love and called it advice, using his age as a reference point on wisdom. Lucian had no answers, likely because everything he knew of emotion and the human heart was stilted, being that this man beside him was the only male role model he had growing up.

He shook his head. “I'm sorry, what were you saying?”

His father frowned. “I said you can talk to me. I'm your father. I want to be here for you.”

Not good enough.
His mind played over all of the bullshit his father had spouted over the last couple of decades. This man truly believed that lulling a person into a sense of comfort, getting them to bare their soul, was only a means to an end. He was the python of manipulation, seemingly still but large, waiting until the precise moment to sink its teeth into its prey, strangled it slowly, and swallow it whole.

Lucian shook his head. He had to get out of there. He was being sucked in, and he was smarter than that. “That's not going to work for me, Christos.”

He didn't let his father's surprised expression interfere with his exit this time. He stood. “My days of being a sucker ended a long time ago. Find someone else to buy into your bullshit.”

He hated that the man looking back at him was not the arrogant, heartless giant from his memories, but an older, withered version, sharing the same eyes and nose.

“You don't mean that,” his father rasped, eyes unblinking, face crestfallen.

Lucian wasn't sure what he meant, but he couldn't make a decision like that while his head was a mess and he was working on six hours of jet lag. His dad never had empty sleeves. That was what he spent his life observing, learning. There was always an ulterior motive with him, a way to climb on the weak and slither to the top. He would not be another stepping-stone for this man.

“I gotta go.”

“Lucian,” he pleaded.

He twisted again, this time angry and needing someone to unleash on. Why not let his father have it? He'd taken his abuse for years. Let the old man see how it felt when someone bigger pushed him down. Better he take the brunt of his wrath than his blameless employees. At least with Christos, he could peg some of the blame. Perhaps he was why Lucian could never have a healthy relationship.

“What?” he shouted, and his father sunk back in his chair. “What could you possibly have to say to me? That you love me?
No, never that!
You don't love. You find hate a better-suited emotion for advancement. Well, how's this? I hate you. I've hated you since I was a boy and you're so heartless and single-minded you nurtured that hate, taught me to harness it. I don't know how to feel anything else for you. I can barely make sense of my emotions because you taught me to hide them. I don't want to hide them anymore. But you know what,
Dad
? When I see you I feel more than hate. I feel sadness. I pity you. You have three children and don't know a thing about a single one of us.

“You think you're the only one with problems? I could give you a list of problems we've worked through over the years—without you! We don't need you, and if you suddenly feel the need for family, well, I can't help you. You pushed us all away years ago. So I really don't know how to comfort you through these moments. I've never known how to comfort you.”

He was breathing heavy, waiting for his father to yell back, but he only stared at him like he was some sort of a monster. He uttered an oath. When he couldn't take that look in his father's eyes another moment, he snapped, “Say something!”

Christos cleared his throat, but his voice remained a hoarse rasp. “What do you want me to say, Lucian? That you're right? Okay, you're right. I was a shitty father and I know even less about raising children today than I did then. Truth be told, you all scared the piss out of me. You were so damn small and delicate. I was afraid I'd break you all. I thought when you got older . . . But by then the bonds were already there. Your mother was the nurturer. I was the provider. I wish I had an explanation for you, but I don't.”

Lucian shoved his hands in his pockets and shifted his weight, unsure of what to do or say.

His father laughed. “Aren't we a pair? Two emotionally stunted men discussing our feelings.”

He pursed his lips. “Speak for yourself. I'm only emotionally stunted when it comes to you.”

That slight bit of sarcasm left his father's eyes, extinguished by yet another cutting truth. Perhaps he was getting too old for this verbal sparring that had always been their sole means of communication, but Lucian didn't know how else to talk to him.

Christos lifted the papers on his desk, aligned the edges, and made a show of stacking them. Without meeting Lucian's gaze, he mumbled, “Perhaps you could stay here, at the house, rather than at the hotel. Tibet would love—”

“Christos—”

“Right. You have business to attend to.” His disappointment seemed so real. “Will I see you again before you leave?”

He was suddenly exhausted. “I . . . I don't know.”

“I'd like to, see you again that is.”

There was something frightening about the way his father said that. He was being melodramatic. “I'll . . . I'll let you know.” He quickly turned and exited the room, cutting off any further comments from his father.

When he reached the hall, he saw Claudette. She left whatever she was doing to come to him. “Did you 'ave a nice visit,
garçon
?”

“Is he sick, Claudette? Really sick?”

She turned away, then back to him. Lowering her gaze to the ground, she wrung her fingers and whispered, “Your father is not well. Madame Tibet cries often. We thought we might have lost 'im during these last few weeks.”

“Why didn't someone call us?”

She met his gaze. “Would you 'ave come if I did? I do not know what would be worse, me going over 'is head and contacting you when 'e asked me not to, or seeing the hurt in 'is eyes when I confessed calling 'is children, but not a single one of them came to 'im.”