Chapter 57

HENRY'S POV

I stared at the clock on my desk… tick-tick-clock. The interior of my office was dark, but not so much that I couldn't see. In the grand room, it was stuffy. I looked at the deep mahogany desk with its tidy piles of paper and had to remind myself that I was not the most powerful man in North America, at least, not yet.

None of that mattered, however, tonight. Gazing out the large window, I saw the distant lights of a city flickering as memories from childhood — or so it seemed ages ago — washed over me.

I could nearly hear my father's voice as it reverberated in the hallways of his mind, cruel and condescending.

"You're not made for this, Henry. You’re weak. Just like your mother."

Those words had burned into my heart, boxing me in because this kind of hurt never really went away. When father said I was too old, too unwanted, needed no more, I was seven. A kid whose only sin was being born to a woman deemed unworthy by his father.

I remembered those early days. The tiny,