Chapter 28

Arsen

Ignoringthe baleful look my father was currently drilling into my side, I stalked ahead of him into the room. Niles smirked, his face smug even as blood smeared it. He was proud he’d hurt my boyfriend. Proud he’d ripped the world right from beneath our feet.

Maybe my anger had been misplaced with Matthew, but it definitely was not with Niles, and it propelled my fist right into his face with so much force the man dropped to the floor with a grunt.

Shaking out my hand, I stared down at him. “You’re fired.”

“Fired!” Niles wailed from the floor. “You can’t fire me. I’m the one who just saved your ass and your father’s reputation!”

I grabbed his tie, yanking his upper body off the floor while bringing my fist back again. “Yeah? Well, your delivery sucks.”

I swung, but Dad caught my arm. “That’s enough. This is hardly the time or the place.”

“Is there ever really a time or place for a homophobic asshole to cause a scene and hurt people I care about?” I spat.

Niles scrambled to his feet. “Stop thinking with your dick and look at the facts! Your father and McClaren have been at each other’s throats practically since they were both elected. Two senators from two different parties representing the same state is a recipe for disaster.” Niles turned to my father. “He wants you out, and we both know it. Smearing your name in the press is the perfect way to block you from re-election so he can push his agenda without interference.”

He had my father’s ear. Dad was definitely considering his words. I admit it looked bad. Bad enough to make me pause before. My father and Matthew’s father, rivals. It was an irrefutable fact. Niles was right in that the men did not get along and they blocked each other at every opportunity. It made for difficult politics. Nothing was getting passed. Many probably didn’t know it, but the state was at an impasse. Stagnant and unable to move forward toward change.

Was this something John McClaren would do? One thousand percent.

But Matthew?

I met my father’s eyes unflinchingly. “Matthew didn’t do it. He isn’t even capable.” I knew it in my bones.

Niles grunted. “Of course he is. He’s McClaren’s son. Snakes spawn more snakes.”

Was that supposed to be a one-liner? Pathetic.

“Some snakes eat their own,” I pointed out, recalling the way Matthew looked while telling the room how awful his father was to him. How he had basically disowned him.

How he thought I would disown him too.

I should be with him right now. I should have stayed. My heart thumped, and I glanced at the door.

“It’s no coincidence that the second McClaren’s offspring shows up, Arsen is arrested twice,” Niles pressed, his face taking on an unfortunate shade of purple. “He’s the only one with motive and opportunity.”

“No, the one with motive is McClaren. Matthew didn’t even know you’re my father,” I asserted in his defense.

Niles laughed. “You really believe that?”

“Yes,” I told my father. “I do.”

Dad seemed torn, the politician in him shrewd enough to believe Niles, the father in him wanting to believe his son.

“If this really is McClaren, why would he send his son to do his dirty work?” I pressed. “It’s a direct link right back to him.”

“Maybe he thought he buried the kid’s identity enough that no one would find out.” Dad considered.

I made a rude sound. “He would know you have the same connections he does. He would know you could find it if you knew where to look.”

“He has a big ego. Maybe he underestimated me,” Niles said.

This guy had the communication skills of an alarm clock. He also had an ego the size of the Grand Canyon.

“He probably couldn’t resist the opportunity to use his son to get to yours.” Niles continued. His blackening eyes swung to mine. “And you fell for it.” He sneered.

I started forward, but Dad caught the hood lying against my back. “I’d like a moment alone with my son.”

“I wouldn’t advise it, Bennett,” Niles had the audacity to say. “I tried to warn you before, but you didn’t listen. I know you want to be empathetic because he’s your son, but?—”

“Out!” Dad roared.

Niles blanched and scurried toward the door.

“And, Niles.”

The lawyer turned back, firing a brief smug look at me. “Yes?”

“It’s Senator Andrews to you.”

Niles’s mouth dropped open. Quickly recovering, he snapped it closed and straightened. Clearing his throat, he said, “I’ll be just outside, Senator Andrews.”

Once the door was shut behind him, I turned. “His birth certificate is an apology letter from the condom factory.”

Dad’s eyebrow arched. “Is that the kind of thing you’re learning at the expensive, prestigious college your mother and I are paying for?”

“You need to fire him.”

“It is not your place to tell me what I do and do not need to do.”

“Then why am I here?”

“Tell me what happened.”

I opened my mouth, but he gave me a hard look. “And no more sarcasm. I’ve had enough. I want the truth, and I want it now.”

I told him. I told him how I was out on a date with Matthew and that Eli called and asked to borrow a speaker. I left out the discovery of my new breeding kink. Some things were better left unsaid. Then I told him how we got pulled over even though I wasn’t speeding.

“He thought I was drinking,” I said.

“You do smell like you took a bath in beer,” he observed.

I glanced down at Matthew’s hoodie. “Some guy fell and spilled beer all over Matthew. I didn’t want him sitting around in a wet hoodie, so I swapped jackets with him.”

“You weren’t drinking?” he pressed.

“Not even a sip.”

“And your date?”

“Matthew.” I corrected. “And no, my boyfriend wasn’t drinking either.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“You told me you barely knew him,” Dad said.

“That was last week.”

“It’s still a very short amount of time,” he pointed out.

“You wanna tell that to my heart?”

He seemed surprised I would just announce it like that, and it took him a moment to recover. “You care about him,” he surmised.

“I love him, Dad.”

His lips parted, but I held up my hand. “Again, my heart seems to be on its own timetable.”

Dad cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. You’ve always been very decisive about what you want and how you feel.”

“You usually call me stubborn,” I emphasized.

“You get that from your mother.”

A little bit of the tension lifted from my shoulders, but I was still on guard. “I know it’s fast. I know, obviously, I’m still learning about him. But I’m not going to change my mind.”

“Not even knowing his father is your old man’s biggest rival?”

“He’s not involved in this. I would bet my Mercedes on it.”

He knew how much I loved my G wagon, and surprise transformed his face. “You’re that sure?”

“John McClaren kicked his only son out of the family, going as far as to strip him of his name because he has disabilities he refused to treat.”

“Disabilities?” Dad questioned.

“He has misophonia and tinnitus. He also has severe anxiety and, I’m starting to think, PTSD.”

“PTSD? What the hell from?”

“From McClaren’s idea of parenting,” I explained, rage bubbling up inside me. “He locked him in closets. Was physically abusive.”

Dad frowned. “He told you this?”

“Yes. But even before he told me, I saw the evidence. The trauma. It’s why I punched that cop and stayed in jail. He was freaking out, Dad. Kept telling me he didn’t want to be in the closet.”

“These are serious allegations.” My father’s expression was a mixture of concern and anger.

“They aren’t allegations. They’re facts,” I said. “He isn’t capable of doing the things Niles is accusing him of. Even if he were, he wouldn’t because he’d never lift a finger to do anything for the man who abused and abandoned him.”

Speculation brightened Dad’s eyes. “Would he attest to this… on the record?”

“No,” I deadpanned. “Absolutely not. It took all of this for him to tell me about his father. He’s convinced I won’t want to be with him now. He told me that in confidence. And that’s how I’m telling you. Matthew is not a bargaining chip. He’s a person. A man who’s been conditioned to believe he has to hide who he is. I’m entrusting you with this private information because he’s important to me and because you need to know he didn’t do this.”

“I see.”

“I hope you do,” I said, meeting his gaze. “Because if you do anything to hurt him, I will never forgive you.”

“I’ll want to meet him, formally.” Dad decided. “Your mother too, of course.”

“No.”

He drew back. “Excuse me?”

“He’s afraid of you.”

He sputtered. “He said that?”

He didn’t have to. “My paternity came as much of a shock to him as his did to us.”

“But I’m?—”

“A senator just like the man who mistreated him.”

I understood now why Matthew called us star-crossed. An ill-fated pair because our fathers were adversaries. Victims of circumstances that were out of our control.

But I would never accept that moniker, for it was nothing more than a Shakespearean trope.

Our DNA may be set in stone, but my heart loves him freely.

“That’s like comparing apples to oranges,” Dad refuted, clearly bothered by being lumped together with the likes of McClaren.

“Now you know how Matthew felt,” I quipped.

“Well, it seems we’re both wrong about each other.” He acquiesced.

True. But I wouldn’t force it upon Matthew like I would my father. They just were not built the same.

“You believe me?” I asked, knowing it didn’t really matter because my mind and heart were already decided.

“Of course I do, son.”

“What about Niles?”

“I’ll take care of Niles.”

“Those drugs were not mine, and they weren’t in my wagon,” I told him. “I think the cop planted them.”

“Why do you think that?” he asked, not accusatory at all.

“Because he pulled me over for no definitive reason. I realize I smelled like beer, but I passed the breathalyzer. I cooperated and let them search my car.”

“Never agree to something like that ever again,” Dad rumbled.

“I didn’t have anything to hide.” I defended myself. “Like I would have agreed if I was actually packing coke.”

“Hm,” Dad hummed.

“They said something before they arrested us,” I told him. “Made a comment about how, the last time we spent the night in jail, one of their friends got transferred.”

Realization dawned on my father’s face. “You think they did this for revenge because I had the officer moved to a new precinct?”

“Why else would they say that?”

“Is there anything else? You can tell me anything,” he stated sincerely.

“There’s nothing,” I said. “Except the two officers at the scene were dicks.”

“You’re sure?”

I thought about it. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Thanks for telling me, son.”

“Now what?”

“Now you can go. I’ll handle this.”

“What about McClaren?”

“I’ll handle him too.”

“But…” I started to protest, thinking of Matthew.

“You can trust me, son. I will make sure you are kept out of it. You and your boyfriend.”

I did trust my father. He’d never given me any reason not to.

I started for the door. Stopped. Turned back. “Thanks for coming, Dad. I didn’t expect you to show in person.”

“Yes, well, someone seemed rather offended I sent only my lawyer last time.”

I half smiled. “Yeah, but I understand appearances matter. Especially during election time.”

Are you even a politician’s son if you don’t keep up appearances?

“I will never be more concerned about the way I appear over the way my son feels,” he said. “I’m very sorry if I ever made you feel otherwise.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

In that moment, I felt Matthew’s hurt maybe a little more profoundly because a father’s unflinching love was something he should have had. Something that was theoretically a child’s by birth, but regrettably, a theory is never a guarantee.

I never did like John McClaren. Call it secondhand dislike because of his relationship with my father. But now?

Now secondhand dislike seemed polite for the way that man made my blood boil.

I turned to go once more, almost homesick for Matthew’s face.

“I still want to meet him.”

I looked over my shoulder. “I told you it’s not a good idea.”

“Give me a chance to change his mind,” my father requested. “The only way to break the bond of DNA is to create something even stronger.”

Those words hit me profoundly. Maybe because he was able to articulate something I saw but could never explain.

This was Elite. A group of people who forged their own bond, creating something stronger than DNA. Creating something untouchable to those on the outside.

I was glad Matthew was a part of that.

I just hoped, after tonight, they’d still let me in too.