My breath frosts over in the cold February weather. I should have brought a heavier jacket, but I rushed on the way out. It’s twenty below freezing tonight.

Not that it matters, really. I’m closer to overheating than I am freezing as I stand outside Joseph’s apartment. I called Lacy five times on the way over here, but there was no answer.

I can hear the intercom clicking, but she doesn’t buzz me up.

Something is definitely up. She won’t answer my texts, and I don’t like the current feeling of a brick forming in my stomach.

I spin around and survey the scene. Lance and Joseph’s old place is not too far from Lake Michigan, and past midnight on a Sunday there’s not too much activity here, especially during the winter. There’s a stillness in the air.

I’m about to ring the buzzer one more time, when I feel something poking me in the back.

“Well, well,” says a voice. “Nice to meet you again, Carter.”

I spin around, and see my dad take a step back, pointing a gun directly at my stomach.

The buzzer to the door finally opens.

“Open the door, Carter.”

“Why the fuck are you--”

“Just open it. No questions right now.”

I do as I’m told.

“Wow. I knew you were sick, but...what the hell is the matter with you?” I say as I trudge up the stairs.

“Shut the fuck up. Or I’ll have to maim that right hand of yours, too, and keep you alive just so you can live on never to play basketball again.”

“You’re a sick fuck,” I say in a throaty growl.

“Some would say so. And I would agree.”

We reach the second floor, where Joseph has his apartment, and I’m waved inside by another man, who opens the door.

I smell her before I see her, when my eyes flit instantly to the middle of the room.

Lacy.

Adrenaline soars through me, and I whip around to face my father.

“What the hell is the matter with you?”

He doesn’t move. The other man tosses me a pair of handcuffs.

“Put those on, and maybe I’ll tell you.”

“No.”

“Put those on, or I shoot the girl.”

“Fuck you,” I say as I put them on.

“Good. Now sit. How about on the couch? This way we can have a nice father-son chat. We’re long overdue, don’t you think.”

Calmly, I sit down. Lacy’s panic-stricken eyes lock with mine for a moment.

My mind churns over how to get us out of this situation. It’s all my fault.

“Ah, Carter. You really are a special one,” he says, turning away from me and pouring himself a glass of red wine from an open bottle.

“Sometimes, I wish that I could have had you for a real son. Done all the things that fathers and sons do. Go fishing. Play ball together. But I didn’t want to do that to your mother. The truth is, she’d never be able to stand me. I couldn’t stand her, either. One night was plenty for the both of us.”

“You lied your ass off to be with her.”

“So I was married. Lots of married men cheat, Carter.”

He takes a sip of his wine.

“You couldn’t leave well enough alone, though. You were living a good life. A pro basketball player, even. Funny, lots of my offspring are stars in their own right. Jake, Chandler, Eva, Mason, Rod, Declan.“

I squint. “I knew about Chandler. Jake...Napleton? Who the fuck are those others?”

“It doesn’t matter who they are. The point is that, they all had the sense to stay away from me. Their mothers, too. When they got their first signals of danger, they pulled away.”

He smacks his lips and looks over at Lacy. “Your father even understood, Lacy. He knew if he got another job after the plant closed, I would start killing more people, like the four who died in the fire at the plant that I started.” Standing right next to her, he runs the gun over her neck.

I squint. “What the fuck are you saying? You started that fire?”

He nods. “I did. After your birth, well, and Mason’s, I took an interest in this silly small town in the middle of nowhere, south-western Illinois. Fucking Blackwell.”

“You fucking prick. Why would you even care?”

“Don’t act like you don’t enjoy power, Carter. You like the power. You’re fortunate. You get to feel power when you’re out on the court. Me? I didn’t get that power. Instead, I got into another sort of power: the power to control lives. You don’t know the feeling I have. To create lives; to destroy them; that’s true power.”

He swigs down the rest of his wine. “When Lacy’s mother refused to sleep with me one night, I decided I would get back at her. No one says no to me, and I get a little mad when I don’t get what I want. So, I burned down the plant, made sure her husband lost his job, and every subsequent job he had. I sent in little paid agents to turn him onto alcohol, too,” he looks at Lacy. “My little Katherines. I put them where they need to be to steer people to where I want them. In your father’s case, I made sure there was always a voice in his ear, encouraging him to drink.”

I feel as thought I just had a spike driven through my heart.

“You’re...responsible for Mr. Benson’s illness?”

He nods, pouring himself another glass of wine.

“I’m most proud of that one. He really tried hard to give up the drink, several times. But me--The Undertaker--wouldn’t allow that.” My father pulls on Lacy’s cheek. “It’s so cute how much he loved you and your sister.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Power is the most powerful drug ever created.”

I see Lacy straining against her restraints, seeming to want to say something.

“Aww. I’m sure you want to say how much you hate me, and that warms my heart,” my father continues.

His little henchman still sits in a chair to our side, pointing a gun at us.

Ready to shoot either of us if we make a move or do anything.

“This isn’t over. You’re not getting away with this.”

He laughs, then takes another swallow of wine.

The man is drunk on power, a power I’ve also experienced harnessing.

“Jeff Doonsbury. Billionaire. Drug dealer. Senator. And soon—president. That’s my end game. See, Carter, you threw off my plan by coming out with the story about you and Chandler. I didn’t think you would have the balls. Luckily, I smeared you good since I own half the media. And when you two turn up dead tomorrow in a murder suicide—done by yourself, Carter—your character will be totally tarnished. I’ll march on.”

“Fuck you,” I spit out.

“Do you believe in evolution?” he asks.

I don’t say anything.

“Your father is asking you a fucking question,” the man yells from the side.

“Fuck you, you piece of shit,” I yell at him. “How can you sit there and watch this? Are you even a real fucking person? How much is he paying you? Is the money worth it?”

My father’s boots sound on the floor, and he walks over and knocks my jaw with the butt of his gun.

I don’t care.

The pain feels good, even.

“Fuck you. I’ll never answer another question of yours, again.”

He clears his throat. “Survival of the fittest, Carter. It’s the keystone of life. I’ve bred much more than any other man, these days. Like a true modern day king.”

The way he says ‘bred’ chips away at my soul. Like I’m a piece of fucking cattle. Like all of us are.

“I’ve won. Power and winning are the only things that matter, in the end. And you’re the worst type of offspring. One who isn’t even grateful for the life I’ve given you. Sure, I could have told the truth to your mother, but then she wouldn’t have slept with me, and you wouldn’t be alive. A bit of a mindfuck, isn’t it?”

“You know what, why don’t you and your crony here, just shoot me and get it the fuck over with,” I say, standing up. “Shoot me, torture me, whatever you want to do. And let Lacy go. She’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Oh but she does. She’s got everything to do with this. I want to see you squirm. I thought you were like me, Carter. I thought you were heartless, and I liked that about you. You just fucked around, you were the MVP, you were on top of life and crushing it.” He chuckles. “And then you went and wrote Lacy Benson a fucking love letter every day for four months. The funny thing was, she blocked you so she didn’t read a single one.”

He lets out a maniacal laugh. “I can’t make this shit up. Lacy, ah, you didn’t trust Carter. I suppose that’s what made it so easy to have Katherine slip a few details in about Carter cheating. You were so primed for him to do that, you went right along with it. I wanted to watch you two really, truly hate each other. And lucky me, I got to see it...and Lacy’s last words to you will be telling you off. So perfect.”

“What. The fuck. Is the matter with you?” I belt out. Taking another step toward him.

I notice he’s left his gun on the dining room table, a few steps from each of us.

“If he takes another step, shoot him. Shoot to kill,” Jeff orders.

“Yes Sir,” his crony answers.

“Seriously, what’s in this for you?” I ask his accomplice.

“You wouldn’t get it,” he says. “I’m his son.”

My hair stands on end.

“Holy shit. This is your real son?”

I glance over at the man. “What’s your name?”

“Derrick.”

“Don’t tell him your fucking name, he doesn’t care about you.”

“Derrick. It’s fine, kill me. I don’t fucking care. I’ve probably done my share of sinning, but killing innocents? You’ve got to live with yourself.”

“Shut up,” he says, wiping the sweat off his face with his wrist.

Eyeing the gun, I lurch toward it and grab it with both of my handcuffed hands.

A shot rings out, and I feel something graze my left shoulder.

Screaming like a caveman. I dive toward my father, knocking Lacy’s chair over in the process. She hits the ground with a thud.

My father knocks the gun from my hands, and it lands on the ground. I throw my handcuffed arms around him, and use him as a body shield from Derrick.

“Don’t shoot,” my father says. “Wait until we’re in the clear. Get the girl, though.”

Looking over at Lacy, I see she’s undone her wrist tie like a modern Houdini.

I grunt again, feeling the pain from my wound worsen. Blood is all over me and my father.

Derrick moves around from his spot on the kitchen island to face us, and Lacy stands up to the side of us with a gun, too.

“I don’t want to fucking shoot you, but I will,” she says.

I put my father in a choke hold, pulling the chain metal of the handcuffs against his Adam’s apple so that he can’t breathe, let alone speak.

“Easy does it,” Derrick says, frantically pointing the gun between me and Lacy. “Easy.”

Lacy speaks. “I know this isn’t easy for you to realize. But your father—Carter’s father—is a monster. If anyone deserves to die, it’s him.”

“No. He’s right. Power. Winning,” Derrick echoes.

My father gasps. I want to pull harder, to just kill him right now.

But before I can, a shot rings out, and I hear a scream. My ears are ringing. Someone’s been shot, and I don’t know who.