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“Go on,” I whisper.
“He showed up at the house,” she continues after a deep breath. “And Mother hid me in the closet. I was there for . . . I don’t know. Hours. I came out, scared, because my father would be annoyed if I hadn’t done what I was told. I saw my uncle putting my father in his car. His body was floppy.”
“Bernard’s car?”
“My father’s car.”
“Drunk driving,” I breathe.
“Yeah.” Her eyes drop to the sheets. “He moved into our home after that. Said he needed to look after his brother’s family.” She laughs at her lap. “He didn’t look after us. He terrorized us. Treated my mother like a slave, hit her if she did things wrong, forced her . . .” She swallows.
“My love,” I whisper through gritted teeth, struggling to hold it together.
“She tried to run once. He broke her legs so she couldn’t run again.”
Fucking hell.
“He never touched me, though,” she goes on. “I think Mum hung on to that. Which is why she decided to leave this world too.” Her glassy eyes find mine. “She left me with him.”
“And his punching bag was gone.”
“So I became his . . .”
I cough over my shock, my sweat intensifying. “Oh Pearl.”
“He never…well, you know.”
Virgin. I reach for her mouth and put my finger across her lips, staring at her. And that's the part of her story she shared with me before today that’s true. Her mother chose death over her daughter. Uncle Carlo was an immoral man, granted, but he had my back. Guided me. Looked out for me. Loved me in his own fucked-up way. Pearl had a man who resented her. Despised her. Fuck me. What has she endured since she lost her parents? “You were thirteen,” I say. “When your mum died.”
“Thirteen and three months.”
“You didn’t try to get away?”
“Once. He made sure I couldn’t run again, but he didn’t break my legs like he did my mum’s.” She indicates the scar on her nape, and I move back in my chair.
“No,” I breathe. “He put a tracker in you?”
“I tried to dig it out.”
I withdraw. “Wait?—”
“The Polish men removed it. My uncle didn’t tell them about it. But I did.”
Jesus Christ, so even for a payday of one hundred million, he still couldn’t let her go? I can’t form any words. I also need a break from the horror movie playing in my mind. So I hold my hand up, and I feel like a complete asshole calling for a timeout. I get up and start walking around the room, trying to walk off the rising fury. I can’t wrap my twisted mind around such cruelty. Couldn’t if Pearl was a perfect stranger. But she’s not a perfect stranger. She’s mine, and knowing what her life was before I found her fucking kills me.
“So between the ages of thirteen and twenty, you were in his sole care?” I ask. Care. It’s the wrong word. “You were?—”
“His?”
My jaw twitches. “You were kept by him.”
She nods.
“And . . .”
She must see my struggle to ask the questions because she starts talking without me asking anything specific. “My father was a wealthy man, Brad. Our home was . . . impressive. I realize now his businesses weren’t legitimate, but when I was a kid, I thought he must have been the most powerful man in the world.” She smiles. “He looked after my mother. Adored me. When I found my mother?—”
“You found her?”
