Van Doren: (Double Deception Series: PREQUEL) by Charles Elliot

Author:Charles Elliot [Elliot, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-07-07T04:00:00+00:00

Part 3

H

igh school had been a chapter that both twins were surprisingly keen to close. It had been a schizophrenic concussion of teenage confusion, shifting loyalties, and a test of true grit. Even Cory was exhausted from living up to the demands as the high school heartthrob and overall hero.

College lay ahead, opening the door to different possibilities. People directed their attention to their own futures, instead of being overly concerned about the choices others made. Even the twins felt as though they were allowed to finally determine their own courses.

At least, in part.

Duke van Doren still had some sway over their choices. In his view, his sons’ careers needed to give them both upstanding and respectable positions in society. They needed to assume roles that true men could take pride in. Something that would keep them ambitious, and something that would keep them tough and hardened for whatever life had to throw at them.

His old rhetoric never changed, but Duke himself did. At first, the change had been imperceptible. Yet, within their last year of high school, the twin’s father appeared far older to them than he had been. It was as simple as noticing his stooped demeanor whenever he walked into a room, or even the long spells of quiet that followed when his opinion was not forthcoming on topics that he normally had a pertinent view on. Though he held onto the ideal that his sons should be icons of manhood, he appeared to share the thoughts with less conviction. It was as though Duke was weighed down by the consideration of something else. Something separate from the pride of his own family.

Joshua merely thought it was the ravages of time exacting their slow yet natural revenge on his father as he aged. Yet Cassandra had mentioned once that the twins’ father was tangled in difficult business dealings that had taken a toll on him. Those business affairs had always been mysterious to his sons.

Neither would, of course, dare to snoop around to uncover the things Duke appeared to want to keep hidden. Yet, they couldn’t help but notice the marked impact that the outside developments had on him. Joshua was far quicker to snatch the freedom he and Cory had been given by the reprieve. He seized his father’s lack of interest to make his decisions about what to study at college and where he’d like to best apply his talents.

Cory, for his part, was left dazed by what his choices needed to be. He had convinced himself for quite some time that he would be the inheritor of Duke’s business, going so far as preparing himself by emulating his father’s qualities of leadership. But Duke left his son dejected at the notion. He was long from stepping down from power, even in the more demure season of his life. In hindsight, Cory realized how stupid he himself had been in pinning his ideas on running a business he knew nothing about. Or on hoping that his father would give him anything in life for free, aside from a lesson.

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