Chapter 1

This file isn’t the one I asked for.

“Willard!” I yelled, already angry at the prospect of having to wait another two minutes to get something that should have been so fucking simpleto find. It defied the imagination.

“Yes, sir?” the timid little man said when he entered my office.

“Did I, or did I not ask for the Templeton file?”

He swallowed. “You did, Mr. Wesley.”

“Then, why do I have the Tempertonfile on my desk?” I roared. One of my eyelids twitched, and a vein throbbed on my forehead.

Willard trembled. “I’m sorry, sir. Must have been a slip of the fingers. Won’t happen again.”

“It better not,” I said, growling at him. I picked up the folder and shoved it at him. “You have two minutes to get me that file…or you’re fired.”

Without responding, Willard scurried away to get me what I should have received the first time. Why did I put up with mediocrity? The man had so much potential.

By five o’clock that evening, I’d shouted at two more people, had a frustrating meeting with the CEO, and realized I’d have to work straight through the night to meet my deadline. Again.

Fuck.

At two o’clock in the morning, I was finally finished. Completely exhausted, the prospect of a warm bed was the only thing keeping me on my feet. I waved to the security officer, Donald, as I headed to the parking deck.

Five minutes later, I was on my way home. As I drove, I yawned, cracking my face wide open. I’d been doing late nights and seven-day-a-week shifts for so long that I’d forgotten what it was like notto be this way. I scratched my cheek, fingers grazing stubble and the scars my father had given me one night when he was totally wasted, three sheets to the wind, and in a towering rage. I’d never forget that incident.

* * * *

“You fucking cunt!” Dad advanced on Louise, who was cowering under the table in the kitchen. “You’re just like your useless bitch of a mother, with her sniveling, whining ways. Good riddance to her. Now get out here, you little shit!”

Dad reached under the table and grabbed my sister by the wrist, yanking her out so hard I heard her shoulder pop. She screamed in pain, and as Dad lifted a hand to smack her, I held onto his arm.

“Stop, Dad. Please! Why are you doing this?” I said, my scrawny, eleven-year-old body no match for his height and strength. But I had to try. “You’re hurting her. You’re hurting us!”

He shoved me away, but at least he’d stopped harassing Louise. Dad picked up the beer he’d been drinking and swallowed the remains of the bottle. He wiped his mouth on a dirty sleeve, then grabbed the neck of it. “You think you can talk to me like that? Goddamn pansy. I’ll show you how to be a man.”

Dad hauled me to him with one fist in my shirt and pushed me into the wall by the fridge. “I’ll teach you to interfere in things that don’t concern you, boy.” And then he took his first swing at me with the bottle.

* * * *

It was as clear as if it had happened yesterday. Dad hadn’t cut my face the first time, but the blow to my cheek had still hurt and I’d writhed in agony. No, it was the second, third, and fourth swings which had done it. The sound of my screams, and those of my sister, had eventually gotten a neighbor to call the cops. When they came and busted down the door, Dad had been standing over me, breathing heavily, and yelling at me to stop bleeding. As if that would have been possible.

I remembered that there was blood everywhere and seven-year-old Louise had been whimpering and rocking herself where she had lain on the floor. When the police arrived, the floor had been red and one of the cops had gasped at the scene. Dad had been kicking me in the ribs by then, having thrown the bottle in a corner somewhere. He’d called me names I’d rather not recall. They had taken him away, and my sister and I went to stay with an uncle.

Louise and I never talked about that time, but the memory of that encounter was always with us—and on my face. As the years went by, I’d heard that Dad had died in prison, but I didn’t care. It was bad enough to have had him as a father. But to see his ugly mug staring back at me in the mirror, along with the scars he’d left behind, was much, much worse.