When we got inside, everyone was ready. My dad wasn’t there, but he was coming. I hoped. There weren’t a lot of times when I needed him, but I did for these moments. My jaw hardened, thinking about needing my father. I hated it, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

“Mr. Kade.” A woman in a business skirt opened the boardroom doors.

I recognized her from the last time I’d been called in there. That meeting was eerily similar. It was after Sebastian and his buddies jumped me, but instead of questioning if only one of us should be expelled, they decided to suspend both of us.

Some anger grew in me, but I nodded, my entire body tense.

Sam squeezed my hand once more, and I skimmed a soft kiss to her forehead, hugging her to my side. As we stood there, the lady went back inside. Right before the door closed behind her, I got a glimpse of Sebastian. He was sitting at the same table as before, wearing a business suit, with two others beside him. He’d brought a lawyer.

I growled, “This isn’t supposed to be a trial.”

“Mason?”

Sam hadn’t seen him, and I didn’t want her to.

My hand found her hip, and I gently moved her back. “I’ll be back. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I heard a small wonder in her voice as she said those two words, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I turned abruptly and went inside. She sensed my anger, and I knew she wanted to help, but she couldn’t.

This was my mess to clean up. The first step to do that was going into the boardroom and sitting at the table.

“Thank you for coming in, Mason.”

There were six board members. All of them sat across from me with their stern asshole faces. It’d been the same after my fight with Sebastian and his buddies. I hadn’t struck first with my altercation. Logan had. That was a big difference in their eyes, but they were stuck-up pricks. They weren’t taking the common factor into account—the dick sitting at the table on my right, Park Sebastian. His crew, his fault.

“Mason,” the spokeswoman prompted me again.

I scowled. “Am I going to be able to have my say in here?”

Surprise flitted across her face. Her lips mashed together. Her eyes blinked a few times, and her head moved back an inch. She cleared her throat. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because you’ve deemed my brother guilty already.”

“Well.” She looked up and down her table.

The other members all gave varying motions of support. One nodded. Another moved his head down. A third gave her a slight grin. The fourth lifted his finger in the air.

She was reassured and said further, “Guilt goes to the first aggressor. In your situation, it was Mr. Sebastian and his friends. In your brother’s case, it was your brother. He struck first. We have witness testimonies and a video clip that speaks to that.”

I snorted, cursing. “The video clip didn’t show my brother hitting Sebastian first. The clip showed him on the ground while Sebastian and four of his friends ganged up on him. The rest of the clip is where my girlfriend and her friend waded in to save him. And why did you bring up the video clip? You threw it out, said it wasn’t helpful.”

“Mason,” she spoke in that pretentious and condescending manner that my mom used.

I was gritting my teeth. I interrupted her, “Stop, lady.”

The other members sat upright.

One pointed at me, leaning forward from his seat. “You’ll show respect, son.”

“I’m not your son,” I whipped back to him. “Can we just drop the fucking act here? You want to expel my brother, but you don’t want to piss off Sebastian by suspending him. Sorry. Anytime there’s one against five, the one guy isn’t kicked out.”

“There wouldn’t have been an altercation if your brother hadn’t started it.”

“Bullshit.” I jerked a finger in Sebastian’s direction. “There was an altercation last year with me. Same guy. Same scenario. I took on six of his friends.”

“Yes, and you were both suspended for that.”

“Both of us, even though they hit me first.”

“Mason,” the spokeswoman started to say again.

I shook my head. “No. No. I’m not your friend. I’m not your son. You don’t know me. The only things you care about is my record on the football field and if I go pro next year or not. That’s the only reason you brought me in here. Own up to that. You don’t want to piss me off either.”

They were quiet. I was right, and the slight guilt on their faces told me that.

“Who do you think I am? You think you can pull me in here, and what? Brainwash me to sell out my brother? Manipulate me? Is that what this is about?”

“Mr. Kade,” the guy on the end spoke up. He sat forward, placing his folded hands on the table. His striped business suit looked like it was bursting at the seams. He was the type who was pissed that this meeting was cutting into his time with his mistress before going to see his second mistress while his wife got drunk and ordered a new mare for their neglected teenage daughter.

I said before he could continue, “You all are forgetting some things. I don’t push my weight around like Sebastian does, but that doesn’t mean I don’t live in your world. None of you scare me. I grew up throwing water balloons filled with piss on people like you while you attended my father’s sleazy parties. You’re that type of people. The money in here can’t push me around because—sorry, Sebastian, but I’m pretty sure your father’s not in my dad’s league—if that’s what this is about, be prepared for me to push back.”

“Mr. Kade—”

“Mason.” A new voice filled the room.

My football coach came in. He stopped inside the door and stared at me, his chest heaving up and down. He jerked out the chair beside me and sat down. His breathing was ragged. “I’ve never heard you speak like that.”

“This is what you’re playing?” I ignored him, addressing the board. “The football card? You think my coach is going to make me heel?”

“Mason!”

I started to shove back my chair. This was enough. They were putting me in a corner, and I wouldn’t go there. I wouldn’t make it okay for them to expel my brother while Sebastian got away, scot-free.

The second woman snapped her fingers at me and pointed to the chair. “Stay there.”