"Because if I'd fought them, they would've come back angrier. And next time, maybe I wouldn't be here. Maybe it'd just be you." He bumped Marcus's shoulder gently. "My job wasn't to win. My job was to make sure you got home."
Marcus wiped his face with his sleeve.
"That's still corny," he whispered.
Blake laughed, and it hurt his lip, and he didn't care.
That night, Richard Bennett was waiting in the front hall of the mansion when his son came home.
He saw the bruise immediately.
"Blake. What happened? Who did this?"
For a moment, Blake almost gave the old answer. "Nothing. Don't worry about it." The answer he'd given his whole life, every time his father asked a question and wasn't really there to hear it.
Instead, he sat down on the bottom step of the grand staircase and told the truth. All of it.
Richard listened without interrupting. When Blake finished, the older man was quiet for a long time.
Then he did something he hadn't done since Blake was a little boy.
He sat down on the step next to his son.
"I spent your whole life teaching you to win," Richard said slowly. "Business, sports, karate. I paid for the best instructors. I came to the tournaments when I could. I told you never to let anyone push you around."
He shook his head.
"But I was never home. And I never taught you the thing that actually matters. Daniel did that. A man who lives three houses down in a place I used to call the ugliest house on the street."
His voice cracked.
"I'm proud of you, son. Not for the trophies. For tonight. I've never been prouder of you in my life."
Blake looked at his father. Really looked at him. And for the first time, he saw not the powerful businessman, but a tired man who was getting older and was afraid he'd run out of time to fix things.
"It's not too late, Dad," Blake said quietly.