Free The Darkness of Perfection by Michael Schneider

business in any way, so what exactly put that stick up your ass? I’d really like to know. I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m sick to death of you acting like I am. I’ve run H, O & E all by myself for the past few years. No one holds my hand when I’m dealing with the activists. I’m the one who pushed to invest in alternative energy resources, quite successfully I might add.” Now I was the one pacing. “I haven’t lost control or been ‘reckless’,” I said, making air quotes. “I haven’t lost my temper and shot any one of those bureaucrats, as much as I’d like to sometimes. So tell me, how exactly have I lost control of anything?”
    Instead of giving me the answer I demanded, he slapped his hands on his knees and stood again, striding to the door, clearly done with this meeting.
    Before he left, he turned to face me. “I just wish she’d been left alone. She’s going to be nothing but trouble, and you’re not going to be able to handle her. The training she had as a child is most certainly forgotten, and even then she was a child. The only thing she learned was to heel like a damn dog and stay out of trouble. There’s a big difference in molding a little girl versus controlling an eighteen-year-old, and you know it. She’s been away from this world for a long time and lived a very different life than the one you’ve just brought her back into. So stop being delusional that she’s just going to heel to you now.” His jaw flexed in anger and his eye twitched. “She’s not that same timid little mouse, Nicholas,” he said, his voice dropping as he stared at me, while his eyes reflected the stress he felt and some other emotion I couldn’t identify. “Why couldn’t you just leave her the hell alone?”
    I returned his stare, crossing my arms over my chest, and stated somewhat smugly, “Simple, because she’s mine.”
    He shook his head, allowing me to briefly see the disgust in his eyes before slamming the door behind him.
    I continued to stare at the closed door, my fists clenching and unclenching with the desire to pound an answer out of him. I didn’t understand William’s attitude and it was really beginning to piss me off. I turned back when I heard my father’s deep chuckle.
    “Sit down, Nicholas.” I tried to calm myself as I sat down as he’d instructed. Still laughing, he said, “You and your brother are so much alike. Neither of you were ever willing to back down and admit defeat. That’s good in our business. It’s why you’re both so successful at running things.” He rocked back in his chair and took a long pull on his cigar before blowing the smoke back out. Then he picked up his bourbon and took a drink to chase the heat.
    I sat in the chair William had recently vacated and propped my ankle on my knee, bouncing in agitation, wanting to get back to Jayden before she woke up. I gestured at the cigar in his hand. “You know, the doctor told you no drinking and no more cigars. You’ve already had a heart attack and a triple bypass; you want another?”
    He brushed away my concern with a wave of his hand. “Damn quack is lucky I like him so much.
    Telling me I can’t have my cigars,” he stated, gruffly. “I’ll have you know your grandfather smoked at least two packs of cigarettes a day and had a whiskey every night, and was healthy as a horse until the day he died.”
    I shook my head. It was hard to argue with that fact. It was true. The man would probably still be alive except for the bullet that stopped his heart when we were kids. He was murdered by one of his closest men. My father walked in just as he pulled the trigger, but was too late to save him. He executed the traitor on the spot.
    “Maybe so, but still, you should at least cut back. You want to live long enough to see some grandkids running around, don’t you?”
    He stared thoughtfully at me through another haze of smoke as a grin slowly spread across his face.
    “Hmm … my grandchild,” he said,