I turned to my brother. “Thanks for the blindside. This was just lovely. If you want to go back to the ranch, you go right ahead, but the only way I’d ever go back there is in a coffin, and even that would be a stretch. I’d rather be buried in this concrete hellhole, as you so graciously put it.”
My father stepped toward me. He used to do that when I was a boy and he towered over me. He’d used his size and his menace to intimidate me into caving. It worked for a long time, until I was as big as he was and decided to push back. That hadn’t gone well for me. By then our mother was long gone, and John would usually be somewhere out on the ranch working. He wouldn’t hear Dad messing me up. Busting my lip. Bruising my ribs. And when he saw the damage? Well, he believed Dad, who told him I had it coming.
Fuck the ranch. Fuck my old man. And fuck John.
I made for the door and my brother rushed after me, catching me by the upper arm. “Jakey, let’s use some logic, here. You don’t have to make a decision right away. I know shit wasn’t always good back home, but it wasn’t all bad. There are good memories there, too.”
“Not for me.” I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened. “Take your hand off me.”
His grip tightened. “You’re acting like a child. I know Dad’s delivery sucks, but the offer is genuine, and I think it deserves a conversation at the very least.”
“We had our conversation. I want no part of this. Nothing either of you can say will change my mind. You want the ranch? Take it. I’m not stopping you. But I’m done bending to Dad’s demands. I’m not a boy anymore.”
“You’re acting like one.”
“Fuck you.” I tore my arm free.
John grabbed for me again and caught the front of my shirt. Like all Cassidy men, he had a temper. He got in my face. “You’ve always had an attitude problem, Jakey. Sometimes you have to do hard things for family. Sometimes you have to set your personal feelings aside and do what’s right.”
My father was there now too, glowering at me from beneath his wiry brows. I could smell the tobacco from his pipe. “Listen to your older brother and get your head out of your ass, Jake. You’re making a scene.”
I didn’t know what came over me, but I started laughing. This was insane. “The only reason there’s a scene is because you won’t let me leave. Take your fucking hand off me, John, or I swear to God, I’ll lay you out right here.”
John’s lips peeled off his teeth. “You think you can take me, little brother?”
One of the club staff yelled at us to simmer down. Their warning went in one ear and out the other.
“I’ve been looking for a reason to knock your teeth out for a decade,” I hissed.
And that was it.
John exploded. He wound back and dragged me forward by the front of my shirt, and his fist came hurtling toward my face.
Dumbass.
I swept my leg out, taking his feet out from under him. John went down like dead weight. My father barked at us to knock it off while the security guards surged inside to stop the brawl. Someone’s camera flash went off, momentarily blinding me.
I didn’t lose sight of my target.
I reached down, hauled John up to his feet, and struck him across the jaw. He stumbled, spat blood, and hurled curses at me.
I rushed him, hellbent on striking again, but one of the security guards got a hold of my arm, yanked it behind my back, and twisted sharply. Pain exploded in my shoulder.
“Enough!” the guard yelled. His buddy got hold of my brother, who was trying to get to me. The one holding me spun me toward the door. “Time to go, asshole.”