"Make sure you tell your people to tell his people that this date happened and unfortunately we did not click. You can say that I was a dick or whatever. The choice is yours. I would say thank you for this time but I do not lie." I stood before her, buttoning my suit with a slow, deliberate motion. Her mouth opened again to say something else and I stopped her with a look that cost me nothing and said everything. I had already lost enough time. There were spreadsheets at the office that demanded blood, not excuses. I smoothed the front of my jacket, felt the fabric settle, and said, "Enjoy the meal. It's handled." I turned on my heels and walked out.
Leaving an arranged dinner in the middle of a restaurant should have felt theatrical, like a scene from one of my father's old films. Instead it felt merciful, like ripping off a bandage that had stuck to raw skin for too long. Heads turned. A fork clattered. A waiter froze mid-step with a plate held like an offering. The woman called after me but her voice thinned into the ambient noise of cutlery and low conversation. I did not look back.
The elevator to the garage gave me thirty seconds of clean air. I moved through the parking lot on autopilot, key fob buzzing in my palm. The car started with a low, obedient hum that pleased me in a way I would never admit out loud. Streets folded around me in predictable patterns—glass and steel reflecting a sky that did not care about my petty rebellions. I should have felt grateful, I thought. Most men would call this life perfect on a Tuesday morning. Gratitude, though, was a currency the Carter household rarely accepted.
My father treated Carter and Fox like a firstborn child, the company that carried his voice after he left the room. To everyone else I was Nathan Carter, first son, heir apparent by name. To him I was the man who must do things the way they had always been done. He did not see that those ways were old recipes for dwindling returns. He equated loyalty with obedience and sacrifice with visible martyrdom. It had taken me years to reconcile what the company was with what it meant to him, and still every staged smile and every woman chosen by a committee became another brick in the wall between who I was and who I pretended to be.
One more arranged date and I would burn the whole Carter and Fox empire to the ground. The threat sat in my chest like an ember I fed with every indignity. It was part bravado, part anger, and wholly hunger for a life that belonged to me instead of being leased by obligation. I told myself to drown it in work. Work had always been both refuge and weapon. If I could not control my father's matches, I would control the flames he worshipped.
The commute was almost peaceful—the last honest hour before the day bled into meetings, emails, and expectations. For thirty minutes the city belonged to no one; radio murmured a low soundtrack I did not recognize, my hands gripped the wheel, and I mapped the day: Eastfield at nine, a marketing call at eleven, a lunch where someone would complain about an impossible client. The rhythm soothed and sharpened me at once. Just like the devil who sees everything and cannot allow common humans to have their peace, my phone rang. The sound cut through the quiet like a blade. I glanced at the screen. Unknown caller. A small, ugly knot of hope rose in me—maybe it was a creditor, an old friend with a problem, anything to justify why my pulse had climbed—but I answered.
"Nathan," my father's voice said. Smooth, precise, carrying that old iron calm that had ordered my life into trajectories I had never chosen. He used my name the way he did when he wanted a favor or when he meant to set a course. "Are you on your way in? There has been a development."
The elevator in my chest dropped. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. "What kind of development?" I asked.
"Eastfield," he said. "There was an incident at the meeting this morning. You'll want to be here."
Eastfield. The name landed like a stone. It was the jewel he had polished in his speeches, the deal he had used to prove the company's continuity. If anything went wrong there, my father would not want answers—he would want bodies. He would want scapegoats. And I bet my head was on the line.
"I'll be there in ten. Who called you?". Although my father ran the company, I always made a point of being first to know about anything that touched my projects. Being the firm's best PR wasn't vanity, it was survival; those spare minutes could change a deal or rewrite a reputation. Now a few of them had been wasted because my father decided to stick his nose into a meeting he wasn't invited to. Once this is settled, I will personally find the fucker who let it happen and make sure that little rat pays for the mistake.
"No time for that. Get here," he replied.
Two hours later, after a marathon of damage control, we finally smother every rumor about one of Eastfield's representatives. The bastard had been sleeping with a younger woman who turned vindictive when he tried to walk away; she leaked compromising photos and threatened to sell the story when his wife found out.
The PR war is brutal: we scrubbed posts, pushed takedown requests, flooded feeds with counter-narratives, and handed carefully worded statements to ravenous reporters who smelled blood. It's the kind of cleanup that leaves your head pounding and your hands raw from typing apologies you don't mean. By the time the Board adjourns and the last legal note is signed, my father is still hovering somewhere in the periphery of my day like an accusation. I need a drink. Fuck it—make it a bottle. I pull out my phone and press speed dial. Damien's name pops up on the screen.
I thumb the speaker and say, "Hey man—Haven Club? You, me, some shots? I need fuel."
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