Chapter 4

After they threw me out, I didn't leave. I stood there like a fool, waiting to see if any of them would feel a flicker of guilt and come out to bring me back in.

But no one came looking for me. Instead, I heard Nathan pick up a call from his boss.

"What? I've been promoted?"

"Yes, yes, of course. You're putting me in Lucas's position?"

"Thank you, sir! Thank you so much!"

My mother was overjoyed. She said she'd go grocery shopping tomorrow and cook a celebration for Nathan's promotion.

Bernice stroked her belly and leaned into his arms to kiss him.

My son bounced around, saying how wonderful it was, how wonderful.

Every single one of them was happy for Nathan's promotion. Only I was left forgotten at the door, swallowing every drop of the humiliation.

That was when it hit me why my mother had tucked gold bars into that gift basket. She'd been paving the road for Nathan all along.

My chest ached, truly ached, as if a hand had closed hard around my heart and refused to let go.

I walked out into the night. It was very late.

Ten thousand windows glowed out there, and not one of those lights was lit for me.

I'd just finished checking into a hotel when Nathan's taunting call came in.

"Lucas, are you crouched in some corner crying right now?"

"Does it hurt? You had a wife, a kid, a home, and they threw you out to make room for me."

"Just thinking about it feels so satisfying. You were always better than me, always one step ahead of me in everything."

"But at home? At home you crawled like a dog, and I had my foot on you at every turn."

The hand around my phone went tight, the veins standing out, and my voice dropped a few degrees.

"That's exactly why you're a small man."

"And small men usually end up eating what they've cooked."

Nathan gave a dismissive snort. "Fine, I admit I'm a small man. So what?"

"Your mother degrades herself to protect me with her dying breath. Your wife is even lower, she climbed into my bed in the middle of the night to spite you. And your son? He believed every word I told him. He hates you now."

"You want to know something? The gold bar thing was my idea too. I steered them into doing it for me."

"And who was the one who actually planted it? Your precious, beloved son. Hahaha!"

"I told you. I'd never let you get that promotion, that raise."

"Oh, right. Bernice is carrying my child. You knew that, didn't you?"

"Looks like you get to play the sucker father all over again!"

My chest clenched, a knot of fire burning there that I couldn't shake off.

After a long, painful struggle in my own head, I decided I was going to live for myself.

"Nathan, mock me all you want. It won't change anything."

"They've all chosen you. So I'll step back and let you have them."

I ended the call and didn't sleep the whole night. At dawn the next day, the company told me to come in and pack up my things.

The moment I walked in, coworkers were whispering and pointing behind my back. They'd given me a name: Bribe-Man!

I ignored the filth they were muttering and just packed my own things.

Carrying the box out, I saw Nathan from a distance, surrounded by coworkers like a star at the center of the sky.

He was chatting with them wearing a look of lofty virtue.

When he saw me, his face twisted into scorn and contempt.

When I reached the lobby, I threw the whole box into the trash.

No one knew that box held our family photo, and my wedding ring.

I made a call to a lawyer. First, to deliver a divorce agreement to Bernice and handle the divorce proceedings for me.

Second, to take the surveillance footage and audio recordings I'd sent him and sue Nathan for slandering me.

Then I blocked Bernice and my mother everywhere — their numbers, their messages, all of it.

I walked out of the company, got into a taxi, and rode straight to the airport.

From this day on, there would be no one in this world to care for my mother, no one to love Bernice with his whole heart, no one to rush my son to the hospital the moment his fever spiked.

Their world had lost Lucas Dickerson completely.