Vanessa’s hands shook violently as she dialed Ryan.
Deep in his downtown office, Ryan answered on the first ring. “Hey babe, what’s up?”
“Ryan! You need to come home right now!” Vanessa screamed, her voice cracking with hysteria. “There are men here! They’re taking everything! They’re saying your dad sold the house!”
“What? That’s impossible! The old man doesn’t have the guts!” Ryan laughed nervously, but fear was already creeping into his throat. “He’s just trying to scare us. Let me call him.”
Ryan slammed his phone down and dialed my number.
I let it ring three times before I answered. I was sitting in a diner down the street from his office, eating a plate of eggs.
“Dad! What the hell are you doing?!” Ryan roared through the line. “There are people at my house! Tell them to leave before I come down there and finish what I started last night!”
“You won’t finish anything, Ryan,” I said, my voice as calm as a frozen lake. “And it’s not your house. It never was. I bought it. I owned it. And at 9:45 today, I sold it.”
“You can’t do that! I live here! I’m your son!”
“A son doesn’t beat his father thirty times while his wife smiles,” I replied. “Yesterday, you told me you were sick of acting like you owed me something. You told me the house had nothing to do with me. So, I took your advice. It has nothing to do with you anymore, either.”
“Dad, please! Vanessa is packing her bags in trash bags! We have nowhere to go! All my money is tied up in my car leases and clothes!” Ryan was begging now, the arrogance completely draining from his voice.
“You’re a big boy, Ryan. You’re thirty-two. You can sleep in one of your leased luxury cars,” I said.
“Dad, I’m sorry! I was drunk! I didn’t mean it!” he sobbed openly into the phone.
“I counted thirty slaps, Ryan. That’s thirty opportunities to stop. Thirty opportunities to remember I was your father. But you didn’t. And today, I have ten million cash in my account, and you have forty minutes to get your wife off another man’s property.”
“Please, Dad! Don’t do this to us!”
“Oh, and one more thing,” I added quietly. “Check your wrist.”
Ryan paused, confused. “What?”
“The antique Rolex I gave you last night? The one you threw on the floor? I picked it back up. It’s on my wrist right now. It was meant for a man who understands the value of hard work and respect. You’re just a boy who got lucky because of my empire.”
“The test is over, Ryan. You failed.”
I hung up the phone. I blocked his number, Vanessa’s number, and everyone associated with them.
I finished my coffee, looked at the beautiful, restored 1960s Rolex on my wrist, and smiled. It was a beautiful day in California, and for the first time in thirty-two years, I was completely free.
