Page 109 of When the Smoke Clears

I advance. He steps back. For the first time, I see unease flicker across his face.

“You and I,” I say, voice low and lethal, “are going to have a long conversation about who you really are.”

Nathaniel exhales sharply, like a bull preparing to charge. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Mom.” I keep my eyes on him. “Go upstairs. Lock the door.”

“Luke, I⁠—”

“Now.”

Her footsteps retreat, each one tight with fear. The click of the lock upstairs lands like a promise.

Nathaniel smirks again. “So. You think you have it all figured out.”

“I know you’re not my father.”

He laughs—a sound like glass breaking. “That’s hardly worth mentioning. Look at you. No drive. No vision. No business sense. You’ve always been painfully…average.”

His words are meant to cut, and once they might have. Now, they slide off me like rain against stone. If anything, the confirmation steels me.

“No,” I say, the word landing like a blow. “I’m nothing like you. I don’t lie. I don’t bully people into submission. And I don’t destroy lives for sport.”

Nathaniel snorts, almost bored. “Sometimes you have to apply pressure to the weak. It’s how the world works.”

“Why Isla?” My voice cracks like a whip. “What did she ever do to you?”

For a split second, I think he might deny it. Instead, his lip curls, and it’s ugly, honest, and hateful.

“I could have made you into something extraordinary,” he says. “If not for her. You were moldable. Focused. Then that girl sank her claws in and filled your head with nonsense about happiness and integrity.”

“So, you tried to kill her?”

“I wanted to scare her,” he says with a nonchalant shrug, like he’s discussing a quarterly loss. “But she didn’t take the hint—even when the threats began to involve you. So yes. Drastic measures were taken.”

The world tilts. Heat surges under my skin.

“Did you set the fire?”

“I don’t dirty my hands with trivialities.”

The last thread of restraint snaps.

I lunge.

My hand slams against his throat, pinning him back against the gun case. The glass shudders violently, the metal frame groaning under the impact.

“Who set it?” I snarl.

His face mottles purple. He claws at my arm, nails scraping my skin. “S–some girl.”

“What girl?”

“The one who works for your brother,” he wheezes. “Stacy…something.”

Revulsion hits like a punch to the gut. “You dragged her into this?”

“She was eager,” he rasps, baring stained teeth in something that should never be called a smile. “She did exactly what I asked.”