Page 30
Here is Chapter 30 of "Tempting Venom": āIām afraid I donāt see the correlation.āāNo? Funny, because the man who fathered me couldnāt... Donāt miss it!
āIām afraid I donāt see the correlation.ā
āNo? Funny, because the man who fathered me couldnāt have cared less about my existence my whole life. Now that heās lost his male heirs, Iām some sort of a messiah? I find that extremely entertaining. Donāt you?ā
She clears her throat. āPlease consider this very carefully, Mr. Osborn. The family is providing you with generous incentives. Your mother will have her own villa in Graystone Ridge, and youāll have a penthouse, as well as a substantial number of shares in Osborn Corporation and its subsidiaries. Naturally, your student debts will be paid off, and all of your motherās debts will also be taken care of.ā
āIām afraid thatās not enough for me to sell my soul tothe devil.ā I push past the men. āSend Dad my condolences for the pending death of his legacy.ā
āYou canāt run away from who you are forever, Mr. Osborn.ā Her voice echoes behind me.
āWatch me,ā I say without looking over my shoulder.
āI regret to inform you that we might have to resort to drastic measures in the future.ā
I donāt reply. They donāt deserve my words.
They canāt hurt me now that Iām their only option for survival. They canāt hurt my mom either, because thatāll be a sure as hell way to make me go completely berserk on their miserable lives.
Dad lacks any form of a fatherly bone in his body, but heās not an idiot. Besides, heās a businessman. Heāll keep trying to find the best solution to recruit me to his side. Whether it takes a year or ten or twenty, heāll keep trying.
And Iāll keep crushing his hopes every time. Just like he crushed mine every time I waited for him and he never showed up.
Itāll be my sweet revenge against the man who has only ever been a problem in mine and Momās lives.
The moment I step into the club, it eruptsācheers tangled with alcohol and slurred words. Eager hands hit my back, sweaty bodies press in, everyone trying to get a piece of me.
I pull on my public smile like a second skin, raising my glass, returning praise with the usual lines: āIt was a team effort,ā or āGive it up for my guys, Richardson and OāConnor.ā
My attempts at modesty donāt really work. The guys carry me and toss me in the air, making the whole club chant, āCaptain! Captain! Captain!ā
Itāsā¦inconvenient, to say the least.
But I put up with it. They killed themselves for this game, and winning against the Vipers is a championship in and of itself. We have dust compared to their funding, equipment, and fancy coaches.
The only reason we won was due to pure determination.
And well, I did manage to cripple their wild card left wing, Armstrong.
Not that I didnāt try during last yearās games or the ones before that, but heās always been slippery and like a chameleon who changes personalities in a fraction of a second.
Heās also barely given me the time of day, preferring to go for defensemen instead.
Did that make me work harder on my defense? Possibly. Iām more of an offense-type centerāor was. Over these past couple of years, Iāve been playing defense like nobodyās business.
I perfected it to the point that even Richardson canāt keep up, and heās one of the best defensemen in the league.
And it was all worth it because tonight, I finally gothim.
A jolt of electricity sparks through me at the memory of the contempt rolling off him in waves when he checked me into the board.
It was so violent, the board shattered and he fell on top of me, his eyes wild, his teeth bared as he panted like an injured animal.
Acorneredanimal.
Even though he was the one crushing me to the ground.
I reached out a hand to him then. No idea why.
Even as I think of it now, I donāt know what I wanted to do. Remove his helmet? Touch his face?