Jenna Black - Resistance

You did the right thing, he told himself, but he wished he felt more convinced. Getting that phone to Nadia had been vital, and if he hadn’t followed through and given the resistance the information he’d promised, he would have lost any chance of making them into allies when he needed them. But their haste to broadcast what he’d told them made him even more aware that he needed to tread cautiously. He couldn’t see how releasing the information to the public prematurely was going to help their cause if they were aiming for peaceful reform. Now, if they were hoping to destabilize the government to make it more vulnerable to a violent takeover …

Nate commanded his majordomo to intercept all phone calls and potential visitors—an order that Hartman accepted with one of his looks of long-suffering patience—and spent the day pretending he was in an Executive retreat himself. Once he switched off the net, he kept it off. He ignored phone calls that came through to his private line, and he didn’t even look out his windows, much less step outside. Perhaps it was childish of him to insist on living in the land of denial, but he would take whatever reprieve he could get.

He was able to keep his head buried in the sand until almost three o’clock. That was when Hartman told him his father had called and ordered Nate to appear in his office in fifteen minutes. If Nate dropped everything and ran, he might be able to make it to Headquarters in that amount of time, but he didn’t see much point in it. His father couldn’t get any more pissed off at him than he was now, and if he had figured out a way to punish Nate for his latest transgression, Nate didn’t want to know about it.

“You’re not going, sir?” Hartman asked when Nate made no response to the demand.

It was Nate’s turn to put on the long-suffering expression. “How long have you worked for me, Hartman?” It was a rhetorical question. Hartman had been with him since he’d moved into the apartment, the day after he’d turned eighteen. More than long enough to be intimately familiar with Nate’s propensity to shirk meetings.

“He’s not going to take no for an answer,” Hartman said grimly.

“Next time he calls, tell him he can send security to march me over there in chains if he wants to. That might give the press something new to drool over for a while.”

“Sir—”

“I said no,” Nate snapped, then mentally smacked himself for being an asshole. Not that it was the first time he had put Hartman in the unenviable position of being stuck between him and his father, but he was trying to be more considerate of other people, and this was a serious case of backsliding.

Nate huffed out a breath. “Sorry, Hartman. It’s not your fault my father and I are both pig-headed assholes. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

Hartman looked like he was about to faint with shock. Nate wondered guiltily how many other times he had carelessly snapped at the man without ever bothering to apologize.

“Next time he calls,” Nate said, “put him through to me. I’ll tell him no myself.”

“Yes, sir,” Hartman said in obvious relief. “Thank you, sir.”

“No, thank you for putting up with me.”

Hartman cracked a small smile. “I have two teenagers at home. Believe me, I’m used to it. Sir.”

Nate laughed and made a mental note to ask Hartman about his children sometime when things weren’t so … tense. He should at least know the names and ages of his staff’s kids.

Now all that was left for Nate to do was wait for the explosion and hope the shrapnel didn’t kill anybody.

Contraryto Nate’s expectations, the Chairman didn’t call when Nate failed to answer his summons. Nate had an uneasy feeling in his stomach when his father’s fifteen-minute deadline expired and the phone didn’t ring. The unease grew deeper as another fifteen minutes passed with no call. It wasn’t like Nate wanted him to call, of course, but he couldn’t help thinking the Chairman was up to something. Planning another way to make Nate’s life miserable.

The phone rang plenty of times in the next hour, Hartman diligently answering, but never was it the Chairman. Nate paced his apartment, the tension in his body making him feel like he’d drunk too much coffee.

At five, Nate was standing in front of his living room windows, staring out at the city while sipping from a glass of scotch, a fine single malt that Nate’s less-than-sophisticated palate couldn’t distinguish from the cheapest rotgut money could buy. He’d only gotten a couple of sips into his system—nowhere near enough to calm him—when there was a commotion in the vestibule, which was discreetly concealed from view so Nate didn’t have to feel like his guards were watching his every move.

It wasn’t the commotion of someone trying to get in without permission; it was more like a ripple of shock and uncertainty. The hairs on the back of his neck rising, Nate turned from the window in time to see his father clear the entryway. Both Hartman and Nate’s butler came running, no doubt summoned by the guards to see to the Chairman’s every need, but he waved them away. Nate fought a prickle of irritation that neither of his servants thought to look at him for confirmation that they could leave, but of course the Chairman outranked him in all things.

Nate took another sip of his scotch, hoping to moisten his dry mouth. His father almost never came to his apartment. Certainly Nate wouldn’t have expected him to show up in person to chew him out. When he wanted to see you, you came to him, not the other way around.

Nate searched the Chairman’s face as he entered the living room, expecting to see the fury and disdain his actions had triggered. Instead, he saw something that looked suspiciously like sadness. It was not an expression Nate could ever remember seeing on his father’s face before, and he gripped the tumbler more tightly as tension coursed through his body.

“I had meant to talk to you about the trouble you caused by leaking information that wasn’t ready for public consumption,” the Chairman said, with only a small spark of heat in his voice, as if the issue were of only minor importance. “But that will have to wait for another time. I’m afraid I’ve had some bad news.”

Nadia! Nate thought, his heart nearly stopping. Something’s happened to her. Nate swallowed hard, keeping his panicked thoughts to himself. If something had happened to Nadia, the Chairman wouldn’t look so sad. Hell, he’d probably be gloating—or worried about the recordings being released due to her death. So it wasn’t that. But Nate couldn’t imagine what could make a man who had murdered his own son sad.

“It’s your mother,” the Chairman said, and if Nate didn’t know better, he would swear his father was a little choked up. “I’m afraid she’s passed.”

The news was so unexpected it took Nate a few seconds to absorb what he’d just heard.

His mother was dead.

There was a tight feeling in his chest and in the back of his throat as he remembered the bright-eyed, laughing woman of his childhood. The woman who had always loved him unconditionally, or so he’d thought at the time. Many of his illusions about her had shattered when she’d abandoned him and his father to spend the rest of her days behind the walls of a retreat. Not once in all the years she’d been there had she ventured out. Not once since she’d entered the retreat had Nate seen her face in anything but a photograph or even heard her voice.

Ellie Hayes had effectively been dead to him for going on ten years now. So why did he feel like there were a thousand rubber bands constricting his chest, making it hard to breathe?