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commanded. He didn’t ask. He glared at her. There was no fatherly interest in his eyes. She had the feeling she was just a thing he had to deal with.
    “What?” He barked at her.
    Denby turned once more to the car. “Who are you?” What was this about? He didn’t care for her.
    Why track her down now?
    “I’m someone you do not want to thwart.”
    His eyes had a wild, intense gleam she only saw in the fanatical or junkies. “Thwart? Who do you think you are? Master of the universe?”
    His laugh was hard and arrogant. “Yes. I do and I am.”
    “Whatever.” It sounded like something one of those creepy Jacobson Committee members would say. She heard those pompous assholes on the television all the time with their proposed rules designed to crush women’s rights. Undoubtedly, because he was in their car, he had to be one of them. “Why are you tracking me down after all these years?”
    “Because you’re my daughter and I need to bring you to heel.”
    “You need to what?” Denby was agog at his words. It made her sound like a mongrel dog who had to be taught a lesson.
    “You see, it makes it very hard for me to carry on the Jacobson Committee work if my daughter is openly defiant. If my followers know that, as their leader I’m found wanting, then that lack of power annoys me.”
    A sudden surge of fear rushed up Denby’s spine at his words. Their leader? Followers? Defiant?
    Power? The car? “Who the fuck are you?”
    “Stop swearing!” he commanded.
    “Fuck off,” she retaliated just because she could.
    “I’m the last person you want to mess with because I promise I will crush you if you refuse to obey me.”
    His words shocked her and that in itself was strange because Denby had seen too much to be surprised anymore. But this? No normal person spoke as he did. His words replayed in her mind. …
    it makes it very hard for me to carry on the Jacobson Committee work if my daughter is openly defiant. She stared at the hard, angry features of the man before her. A terrible, sick thought came to her. “No…” It couldn’t be. Her father was an asshole but even he couldn’t be that evil. Like a film on rewind, her mind sped back over the horrible years of her childhood. She looked him in the eye.
    They were dark, cold eyes that held no interest or fatherly affection for her. “Who is Jacobson?”
    Even as she said the words, in her heart Denby knew the answer. I am the devil’s spawn .
    “Why?” Her father asked.
    “Because.” I need to have reality smack me in the face so I can deal with it and move on.
    “I don’t have time for this.” He made a grab for her arm.
    Denby stepped back before he could touch her. Coldness was coming in waves off him. “Answer me! Or are you scared of the truth coming out? Is it easier to hide behind dragon symbols and archaic laws?” I won’t be my father’s daughter in name or character.
    “You want the truth, you little bitch?”
    “Stick and stones old man.” Denby no longer felt any pain from him. She stood her ground, not flinching.
    “I am Jacob’s son.”
    “Jacob’s son.” She repeated the words. She didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand his meaning. Denby looked at him. He appeared pleased with himself. The twisted smile on his face made her stomach lurch. He wanted her to be shocked. There was no way Denby was going to show that. What he just told her sickened her but she wasn’t going to allow him to terrify her as he did other women. She swallowed the nausea she felt down. “You’re Jacobson.” Of all the times not to have a gun.
    “Yes. My father, your grandfather, was called Jacob. My bitch of a mother dumped me, her baby, when she was a teenager into a foster home. It took me a while but I tracked down who my parents were.”
    “And now, because you feel inadequate that your childhood wasn’t what you wanted, every woman has to pay for it?” Her childhood was hardly a walk in the park but Denby didn’t