"Damn it!" Colt yelled in his car.

He threw the stick back and reversed the car quickly. He switched gears and sped away.

Why did Dana always know the right buttons to push to totally piss him off? He actually, for a few minutes, was getting along with her and then she had to throw that in his face.

Oh, he knew Dana hadn't meant it the way he took it. But took it, he did. And when he did, it didn't matter whose fault it was. It just pissed him off.

Colt lit a cigarette while he drove. He still tasted the beer on his lips. His father's favorite. Colt knew he shouldn't drink. He did it to socialize. Everybody drank.

He watched it though. He knew when enough was enough. Not like his father.

Colt blew out another drag of smoke. Damn, he hated thinking of that man. And Dana always seemed to make him think of him. How his father abused his mother, raped her, killed her.

Dana scared him because he wanted her. Had his father wanted his mother how he wanted Dana? If Colt drank would he hit her? Kick her? Throw her on the bed, the floor, against a wall and have his way with her? God, it killed him to think about it.

He dreamed about his past. Lived it over and over again his entire life. It would always haunt him.

The scars across his chest were a constant reminder how close he'd been to death himself. How his father hated him so much that he was going to kill him as he did his mother.

Colt slammed the car door shut and climbed the stairs to his small house. His. No one else's. He earned it. He paid his own way to college. He wouldn't let his Uncle J.R and Aunt Jo pay for it even though they badgered him about it.

What were they? Third or fourth cousins? It never seemed to matter to them how distant he was of a relative. Nor Christian and Dorothy James, Jesse's grandparents that raised him since he was twelve, after his closer relatives couldn't handle him anymore.

He didn't hate the relatives that gave him up. It wasn't their fault they couldn't deal with the son of a rapist and murderer.

Colt earned his degree in architecture and became a registered architect a few years later. He worked for a large architectural firm and quickly rose through the ranks of the business.

He was good. He knew he was good. The best clients always requested him. Maybe he was cocky. Maybe it was all ego. But he didn't care. He started his own business. And he was doing well. Damn well.

Colt thought many times of going to see his father in prison and telling him where to stick all of the insults of how stupid and worthless he was. But he didn't.

He hated the man and would never ever see that bastard again. Colt prayed for the day the warden would call him and tell him that would be the day of his father's execution.

The day had yet to come, but it kept him going to think that one day it would. And in the meantime, the asshole was rotting in some tiny cell on Death Row.

"Buddy," Colt called as he headed inside and ran up the stairs. He pulled off his clothes and threw them on the bed. Colt pulled on some shorts and a t-shirt.

His faithful friend came running into the room and jumped up on him in a loving welcome.

"Hey, let's go for a run, huh?" he said, petting the tan Labrador.

Buddy slobbered his face in agreement.

"Ugh," Colt complained, wiping the slobber from his face, but he smiled.