Prologue
Greed is a
strange, strange sin.
All you
want to do is acquire. Acquire money, acquire material, acquire time, acquire
energy, acquire attention. The running mantra is “I want, I want, I want” but
that quickly turns to “I need, I need, I need.”
Suddenly there just isn’t
enough time for friends, for family, for anyone. Your goal is to acquire and to
make sure what you acquire stays acquired. Your life depends on it. You don’t
see truth because the truth is shadowed by enormous homes, incredibly fast
cars, in lavish spending. Your life no longer belongs to you, but you are blind
to it all because those around you are seeking the same.
So you
shuffle along at an impossible rate, and you pass the real world around you.
But what
you’ll come to realize, altogether too late, is that it’s never enough. It’s
simply never enough.
Chapter One
“It’s confirmed. Peter Knight of Evergreen won’t approve the
acquisition. You know what to do,” my snake of a father told me, not two steps
into his front door.
“I just got off a seven-hour flight. You can’t let me settle in?
Possibly say hello?”
He stood, watching me, a slight tick in his square jaw. He tucked his
hands into his Italian silk pants. His six-foot frame followed the steps up to
the foyer and stopped a few inches away from my own. We were face to face.
Although I fell an inch shorter, he no longer intimidated me. I knew if I had
to, I could kick his ass.
“Hello, Spencer,” he said, a serpent’s smile spread wide across his
mouth before falling flat. “Get to work. I don’t pay you to sit around. I don’t
care if it is your Christmas break.”
We stayed where we were, each waiting on the other to back down. The
tension was palpable. In the end, his face relaxed and he began to chuckle,
stepping aside and making way for me.
I picked up my bags and headed for my room, giving myself plenty of space to
pass him without touching him.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I
changed my mind and threw my bags on the second to last step, intending to pick
them up later. I stretched my muscles, loving the feel of my back popping, and
started for the kitchen.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he asked, still standing
in the foyer, watching my every move.
“If I don’t say hi to Mom and Bridge, they’ll think something’s up,” I
told him and continued on.
He didn’t
respond, but I felt his stare burning into the back of my head.
No comments:
Post a Comment