Chapter 6
Chapter 6: The Lion at the Door
I opened the door before he could wake Maya.
My father stood there, his face flushed an angry, mottled red. He was still wearing his expensive tailored suit from the night before, now rumpled and creased.
"Have you completely lost your mind?!" he bellowed, stepping into the foyer without an invitation. "Your brother spent the night on our couch! He had to take a city bus to our house, Julian! A city bus!"
"Good for him," I said, closing the door calmly behind him. "It builds character. Something you and Mother failed to instill in him for three decades."
"Do not speak to me about parenting!" my father snapped, pointing a trembling finger at my chest. "You think you’re a god just because you have money? You think you can humiliate this family? Ryan is humiliated! He went to buy breakfast this morning and his cards were declined!"
"They weren't his cards, Dad. They were mine." I stepped closer, forcing him to look up slightly. "Every dollar he spent, every car he drove, every roof he slept under was paid for by the seventy-hour weeks I put in while he was 'finding his artistic muse' at the beach. I paid for his lifestyle. And last night, he used that lifestyle to make my daughter cry."
"He was joking! He's always been a prankster, you know that!"
"No, he's a bully," I corrected, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "And you enabled him. Every time he failed, you blamed me for not helping enough. Every time he stole from the company, you begged me not to report him to protect the family name. Well, the family name is Vance, and I’m the only one actually working to keep it respectable."
My father’s expression shifted from rage to a desperate, ugly panic. He realized his shouting wasn't working. The intimidation tactics he used when I was a teenager had no power over the billionaire I had become.
"Julian... listen to reason," he pleaded, his voice cracking. "The landlord is threatening to throw his things on the street. He has no savings. If you do this, you’ll ruin him. He doesn't know how to survive out there."
"Then you better start teaching him," I said, opening the front door wide. "Because my bank is officially closed."
May you like
"You cold-hearted bastard," my father hissed as he stepped out onto the porch. "If you do this, you are no longer a son of mine."
"Dad," I called out, stopping him in his tracks. I smiled, a cold, empty expression. "I stopped being your son the moment I became your ATM. Goodbye."
