This is the one part where Oran can’t keep silent. His eyes are narrowed to slits and his yellowed teeth are bared as he hisses, “I wanted it because it’s mine. It was owed to me.”

“How do you figure that?” I demand. I know Uncle Oran gets a 50% share of the profits of the law firm, which is a hefty amount of money. Double what the other partners get. “You get paid plenty for running this place.”

“I shouldn’t be paid at all!” he cries. “A share in the law firm . . . I should get half of the empire! Or more! I’m the eldest son, not Fergus.”

“You’re the bastard son,” I say, coldly. I never cared about that, but I’m bitterly angry at Oran and I want to hurt him if I can, like he hurt me. “This empire is ten times the size it was under grandfather, because of my dad. He’s the one that built it up to where it is today. You didn’t do that. You couldn’t.”

“You have no idea what I can do, girl,” Oran hisses.

Maybe he’s right. Because faster than I can blink, there’s a gun pointed at my face.

I scoff. “You’re going to shoot me? Right here in the office? You don’t have anybody else to blame it on this time. You kill me, and my father will hunt you down like a dog, and cut the flesh off your bones an ounce at a time.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Oran sneers. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

He reaches into his desk and pulls out a bottle of pills. My stomach squirms as I read the label. It says, “Riona Griffin”. He got a prescription in my name.

“You’re not going to get away with the same trick twice,” I tell him.

“I don’t know about that . . . ” Oran says. “I don’t think anybody believes you’re happy, Riona. Not really. What do you have in your life besides work? Nothing.”

When he asks that question, for one wild moment my brain responds, Raylan. Until I remember that I don’t have him anymore. I only had him for a brief moment. Then I shoved him away.

Oran pops the lid off the pill bottle and shoves it toward me. He brandishes the gun in my face. The muzzle looks as dark and empty as Uncle Oran’s eyes.

I don’t know what the pills are, but it doesn’t matter. I can puke them up after. For now, I have to pretend to cooperate. Or else he’ll just shoot me.

Oran is hanging by a thread. I seriously underestimated my Uncle’s desperation.

I came in here to confront him, thinking he was still the man I knew. I thought I could reason with him. At the very least, I thought he would recognize that it was over, he lost.

I didn’t realize how much hatred was simmering below his skin. Hatred against my father . . . and against me. He never loved me. He never respected me. He used me when it was convenient. And when I got in his way, he tried to drown me like a rat.