Page 64 of Faking the Goal

"Wow," I say flatly. "I'm touched."

His eyes flash, but he plows ahead.

"If you accept, your mother and sister would come back to Japan with you. We can all be together again. We can repair what has been broken." He pauses, as if he's just offered me the most generous thing in the world. "Wouldn't that be better for our family?"

For a second I just look at him.

Then I actually shake my head, because I don't trust myself to do anything else.

"You really don't hear yourself, do you?"

His brow furrows.

"You keep talking about family like it's some card you can pull out when the business angle stops working." My laugh comes out bitter. "You're the one who broke this family in the first place."

His face goes still.

I don't stop.

"Mom didn't leave because she was bored, or ungrateful, or because Japan suddenly stopped appealing to her. She left because you made it clear, over and over again, that the company would always come first." I step closer, every word sharper than the last. "You wanted to be number one so badly you forgot you had a wife. Kids. A life outside those fucking boardrooms."

"Kentaro—"

"No." My voice cuts over his, louder now. "You don't get to stand here and act like this is about bringing us back together. You don't get to pretend you're doing this for the family when you don't even know what that word means."

His eyes narrow.

I don't care.

"Family means they come first," I say. "It means you protect them because you love them, not because they're useful leverage. It means you don't use a mother's medical bills and a kid's education as bargaining chips just to force your son into doing what you want."

The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on.

My father's face doesn't change, but the air around him somehow turns colder.

For one second, I think he might say something real.

Something honest.

Something that isn't polished and strategic and calculated within an inch of its life.

He doesn't.

He just looks at me with that same unreadable expression, as if I'm the one being difficult.

As if I'm the one who's made this ugly.

I'm done.

I turn away, yank open my truck door, and slide into the driver's seat before he can say another word. My hands are shaking with anger as I shove the key into the ignition.

The engine roars to life. Outside, he hasn't moved. He just stands there under the parking lot lights, watching me through the windshield like he expects me to come to my senses and roll the window down and apologize for speaking to him like that.

I don't.

I slam the truck into reverse, peel out of the lot, and leave him standing there.

My chest is so tight it hurts.