A glass shatters on the side of the wall, and I don’t even cringe. Shoes crunch over the broken shards, curses muttered as he rounds the corner.

“Why hasn’t anything gone public yet?! It’s been three bloody months, and he’s still sitting in his goddamn throne room, getting his knob polished by his little American slag!” My father roars, his face redder than I’ve ever seen it.

Because Rachel and Nora Randolph are better people than you’ll ever be, and even if they are devastated, they would never leak anything personal about their family or Bennett to the press.

He’s losing it, and I’m just fading deeper into my despair. From the moment that news broke that the American peasants turned princesses would be moving to London, it was a marathon to the finish line for me. I bided my time, grew close to Nora, gained her trust, worked my way into her body, and then crushed them all like ants under my boot.

Except, I hadn’t accounted for the feelings I would gain for her. How interwoven my emotions would be with the girl that I made my mission … how dark and steep my slide into oblivion would be.

Nora was, for all intents and purposes, the one shining spot I would ever have in my life. Her laugh, the way she looked at me as if I was just as innocent and pure as her, all of the things we’d done together. They were all gone, I’d robbed us of all of our light.

And so far, the only person it had seemed to hurt was me. Sure, there was speculation when Nora and her mother went home to visit the American college she’d been accepted to, just another thing I wasn’t around for. But they’d come back, were photographed with Bennett, seeming to still be the perfect family unit they’d been since before the dinner from hell.

“I’m going to have to leak it to the press then. Bloody hell, I always thought by exposing him to the ones he loved the most, that they’d do the hard part for me. But I underestimated the callousness of those two peasants.”

My father picks up his cellphone, his shirt collar wrinkled and his hair out of place. He’d never looked more desperate, and I was suddenly fearful.

Leaping out of the chair I’m sitting in, I try to grab his phone. “No! You’re not going to leak this.”

For three months, I’d watched him become unhinged. He wasn’t proud of me, the way I’d always envisioned. It hadn’t brought him closure, only further toward the brink of insanity. I hadn’t realized until just recently that there was no way to please him, to make him happy in this lifetime. Too much damage had been done, and he wasn’t the type of person to let it go.

But I wasn’t about to let him take me, or Nora and her family, down with him.

“What are you doing, you twit! Give that to me, now. I’m going to correct what you clearly couldn’t accomplish. Christ, never leave a little boy to do a man’s job.”

His words stung, like cigarette burns to my skin. I’d lived under his influence for so long, fed the same bullshit day by day. And in the end, it hadn’t made anything better. It only proved that he would never love or care for me the way I wished he could, and that I needed to get out from under him. I needed to be free.

“If you leak this, I’ll go to the press.” I stand tall, my shoulders squaring for a fight.

He cackled, the sound hollow and malicious. “And say what, you tosser? Tell them how useless you are?”

Inside, my heart cracked further open. “No, I will tell them what you assigned me to do to Nora and her family. I’ll tell them all the sordid details, and describe what it is you’ve done to others in our community. You forget that I’m a good listener, father … I know things that you don’t want any other person to know. Your reputation will be tarnished … but even worse in your eyes, the Frederick name will be tarnished. You’ll be the laughing stock of London, and none of these blithering idiots you call friends will ever speak to you again. So go ahead, muck up Bennett McAlister’s life. But just know that if you do, you’re going down with him.”

My father’s face was the shade of burning coals, dark and ruddy. “You spineless little shit! You’ve ruined everything! You’re a disgrace.”

A renewed sense of strength courses through me. “You know what, coming from you, that is a compliment. I’m glad I’ve disgraced and disappointed you, because I never should have wanted to impress you in the first place. You’re evil, a prick with a hard on for revenge and eyes for nothing else. My mother would be ashamed, in me and for what I’ve done.”

“You know nothing about your mother.” His voice is somber.

“And neither do you. There are two sides to every story, Dad. Why did she cheat? What was happening here that she felt she needed to leave us? I may not remember many things about her, but I do know that it wasn’t all of her fault. And it wasn’t all Bennett’s. I’m done listening to your delusions, and I’m done being your errand boy.”

His fists grow white with how hard he’s clenching them. “You have no idea what it’s like to be on your own. I’ve given you everything, everything a person could want.”

I knew he would throw that wrench into it. “You can’t touch me, and my trust fund is mine. A gift from Mum and her family, if you didn’t forget. And you may have given me money, but you never gave me what a parent should.”

My whole life, I’d been made to feel as if I was a nuisance, or an afterthought. He hadn’t come to my achievements, been present for birthdays or milestones. Money might make the world go around, but I was beginning to realize that there was nothing that came close to being loved and cared for. And while I may never feel it like the way I had with Nora, I wasn’t going to settle anymore. I wasn’t going to live in this dark place with him.

Without another word, I turned on my heel and stormed out of our townhouse and onto Downing Street. The sidewalk was thin with pedestrians, almost everyone already at home eating supper with their families.

Leaving another person behind in my life should have made the hole in my gut grow wider. But … it didn’t. The weight was finally lifted, the expectations and pressure and false realities taken off of my shoulders.

I didn’t have a clue where to go from here, or how to do anything when I’d been brought up in a world where every single thing was taken care of for me. But I’d figure it out. It was about time.

And I was ready.