Awakening (Book 2 in the Original BOC Series) ✔

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"Holy crap, Ben! Why are you getting so worked up about this?!" Nathan shouted in annoyance and raked his fingers through the front of his hair with a scrunched look on his face.

Ben stood across from Nathan, unaffected by the growling frustration his son was exerting, watched as the twenty-six year old had started pacing around explaining that he wasn't sixteen and that he was careful the whole time that he had taken Mara into the city.

The older man noticed Nathan did that a lot. Pacing, that is.

He wasn't sure when Nathan started doing this, but it was usually when he was frustrated and trying to keep the rage contained. The young man needed anger management.

Severely.

He could go from zero to a hundred in a matter of seconds. It worried Ben that Nathan would get so angry all the time. No one could tell him anything because then Nathan was ready to crack skulls. Then again, Ben reminded himself, for over a year Nathan had been bottling up a secret that damn well deserved to be rampaged over.

And still Nathan was stubborn on holding onto this secret from the one person that deserved to know.

Nathan frowned, staring at Ben after standing still in the middle of the living room. Ben blinked a few times and cleared his throat. He hadn't heard a thing Nathan said. But the young man didn't seem too bothered with this. Instead, Nathan groaned with his hands over his face and leaned his head back.

"Nothing bad happened, Ben... I was careful, alright?" Nathan lowered his head back to face Ben. He had an offended expression when he shook his head, "Do you honestly think that I'd be so careless with Mara—knowing damn well that Travosky is after her again?!" He scoffed, looking away to return to his pacing.

"Nathan, I know that you wouldn't let anything bad happen to her. I know that. But you and the rest of the team were given specific orders to not let any of the others leave this house! And when you are given orders you are expected to obey them!" Ben frowned, his eyes following Nathan from side-to-side. He crossed his arms, straightening up more to keep reprimanding Nathan for his disobedience.

Stopping again, Nathan turned and his jaw slacked to the side. He narrowed his eyes, giving Ben a hard stare. "I'm not going to apologize, Ben." he raised his brows, shaking his head and placed a hand on his chest. "And I don't see the point of punishing me since I did nothing wrong—"

"You put Mara in danger, Nathan! You deliberately put her out like fucking bait! Only a few seconds ago you said that you knew Travosky is behind all this... is behind both kidnap attempts on Marshall and Mara! And you still—you still!—took Mara out in the open! God damn it, Nathan! You say that she means something to you and yet you--," Ben blinked, reeling his head back when Nathan's eyes darkened and widened in fury.

Nathan growled, advancing on Ben with a finger in the man's face, "Mara means everything to me, Ben!" Nathan's chest was heaving to keep control. But Ben had said the words that were making Nathan snap. "You have no fucking idea how much she means to me and the lengths I had to go through to finally get her back! This isn't Mrs. James front porch, Ben. I'm not that same moron that wasn't going to own up to feeling exactly as she does!"

Of all people, aside from Mara, Ben was the only other person who was not afraid to get in Nathan's face. He knew that there was a part of Nathan that would still submit—even if it was smidge—to Ben's fatherly role. Ben smacked Nathan's hand out of the way and replaced it with his own finger pointing at Nathan.

"No. Instead you are the moron who is completely, utterly, and irrevocably in love with her that you forget your priorities! No one is telling you that you can't love her, Nathan, but for you to realize that you get so caught up in that head of yours and it always leads to some kind of endangerment!" Ben narrowed his eyes, shoving Nathan backwards as he stepped forwards.