I think one of the biggest power fantasies, certainly one of the most cathartic, in fiction is the ability to win an argument. Real-life arguments are messy, angry, complicated things and they never end up the way we hope they will.
But in fiction, you can control both sides.
You can decide which side actually gets through to the other.
.
Sitting across from Henry St. Vincent, the most powerful man in this little city, Seto couldn't help but feel something like pity. With one move, one gesture, he'd earned more goodwill and obedience from the children of this family than Henry would ever have. He could ask the St. Vincent kids to wash his car, and they'd fight each other for the privilege to grab the hose.
Seto decided that it would be best to cut to the heart of the matter.
"Your daughter," Seto said, quietly, gently, irrevocably, "is quite possibly the loneliest woman I have ever met." He met Henry's eyes unwaveringly, without a trace of arrogance or humility. "She has been grieving, for a long time, the loss of a family that isn't hers." He paused. Adjusted his weight. "I understand, better than you might guess, how difficult it is to juggle a high-stress career and the raising of children. I've been my brother's legal guardian since the day I was emancipated. I came here, and I've taken you aside privately, so that you will know: you are very close to losing your relationship with Kisara. Whether or not she ever speaks to you again . . . depends entirely on how you respond to two things: first, the information I am giving you right now, and second: a question she intends to ask you once I have finished."
He leaned back in his seat and placed his hands in his lap.
"I hope that I have your attention, sir."
Henry St. Vincent's face was purposefully blank. "I'm not sure I appreciate your tone, young man."
Seto stared back, dispassionately. "What you don't like," he said, "is what I'm telling you. I know what's going to happen now. Permit me to make a guess. Paint a picture, so to speak. You are going to say that I have insulted you. Then, you are going to stand up from that chair and storm into your big farmhouse. You are going to inform your family that I am a disrespectful, out-of-touch, arrogant son of a bitch, and I'd better skip town if I know what's good for me. Your mother is going to gasp at your use of a curse she taught you never to use. You are going to pay lip service to an apology and then, in the same breath, justify yourself by claiming it's the only thing you could possibly call me after the abhorrent way I've treated you. No one will question you, because you are your family's patriarch and they have no reason to trust me. I have a reputation for being mean-spirited and narcissistic. It will be easy to paint me as the villain, especially since I won't be trying to defend myself. I know the truth. But that won't matter in that house."
Seto's eyes flared, and Henry's face twitched.
"In six months," Seto went on, "you are going to use me as an example of the youth culture in today's world being entirely too unreachable. Foolish, entitled, disrespectful. You're going to invoke that old mainstay about sparing the rod to whip your constituents into a frenzy, and you're going to ride that wave of indignant fury into a thunderously successful reelection campaign. You're going to come home after your victory, to this big farmhouse. You're going to hug your wife, talk about how it's a good day for the righteous and goodhearted, everything is turning right in the world again. But the only thing that's going to stay in your mind, that night as you try to sleep, is the fact that your eldest daughter's room is empty. And it's going to stay that way for the rest of your sad, angry life."
Silence reigned.
Seto kept his momentum: "If I am wrong . . . and I hope I am, then you can prove it. Right now. You can listen to your daughter. Disregard everything I'm saying right now. I don't care. I'm not relevant here. Give Kisara the respect she's earned. She is petrified of upsetting you. She wants nothing more than to love you, and to have you love her. It's you who gets to decide things now. So, which one will it be? Will you listen, or will you storm off? I don't like being in this chair any more than you like being in that one. I am here, today, as a favor to a good, proud, strong woman who asked for my help. That, and that alone, guides my actions today. Ask yourself, before you do anything, what's guiding yours."
