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The door shuts, and I stare at my daughter as they start the car. I watch helplessly as I’m driven away, and she’s left in a parking lot with my friend’s dead body next to her.
“Livie!” I yell desperately. I’m hitting the window with all my strength, but there’s nothing to do.
A hand comes from behind me while he still holds me by the hair, and he presses a rag to my mouth and nose.
I try to shake him off, to no avail. The smell makes me gag, the product stinging my already watery eyes.
“Livie!” My scream is muffled anyway, and my lungs burn from whatever is on that rag.
As my eyes close slowly, the last vision I have is of my daughter staring back at me, the lemon popsicle dripping down her fingers.
44
NATHAN
Unstoppable - The Score
“Angelica,” I say flatly as I open the front door.
In the living room, Lia is dancing in front of the new screen I bought just a few days ago. She asked for a big TV, so I got her a big TV. Kay was mad. Every time I do something that improves her house, she’s mad. But I’m not going to have my daughters live in the same shitty house she grew up in, no matter how nice Caden tried to make it look. There will be improvements because I said so. Or because my daughters said so. And also, because I manage to do them behind my wife’s back before she can stop me.
Plus, Lia calls me Mr. Daddy now instead of Mr. Nate. The girl can ask anything she wants in the world. I’ll get it just to hear her little excited voice saying, “Thank you, Mr. Daddy.”
“I need money.”
For a second there, I was so lost in my thoughts, I almost forgot Kay’s mom was standing on the porch. If she thinks she’s going to be invited in, she’s about to get a brutal awakening.
“And you’re telling me that because? I thought you’d gone back to West Virginia already.”
She shakes her head. “I need money,” she repeats.
I narrow my eyes at her. This woman is incredibly irritating. I take a step outside, almost closing the door behind me to make sure Lia can’t hear anything.
“Angelica,” I say calmly. So calmly I make sure it’s threatening. “While I was in prison, I sent you five thousand dollars every single month for almost four years. You remember why, right?”
When she doesn’t answer, I explain it to her like I would to a child, since she’s got the mental capacity of one. “It was to spend on my daughters. To take care of them, and to keep your mouth shut. I did it when I wasn’t even sure they were mine. Just on the off chance that they were, I wanted them to have everything they needed. Where did that money go?”
She shrugs, looking away. “Spent’it,” she mumbles.
“Well, you didn’t spend it on my girls, evidently. Did you?”
“My boyfriend has problems. Debts. It’s an illness. I used it on that.”
I shake my head. “Tsk, tsk. Why would I pay for your boyfriend’s addiction?”
“I took care of them!” she shouts in my face, angry from not getting what she wants.
I straighten and roll my shoulders back. “You did the minimum you should have done. You never took care of your daughter. What do you want for finally acting like a decent person? A trophy? More money? You left your own daughter with the man who raped you. You left when you knew he hit her, hurt her.”
Rage rises within me. It’s so different from the usual void I feel that I can’t keep control of it. I step into her personal space, towering over her.
“You left hoping if he had her, he wouldn’t come for you.”
Her eyes widen, and she stumbles back. I’m going to assume I hit the jackpot there. So I keep going.
“You didn’t even tell her I knew about Lia and Livie. You should have been on her side, not mine, just because I gave you money. Now, how about you leave before I kill you and make it hurt. And if I see you in the vicinity of my wife or my children again, I will hurt you beyond repair. You’ll live, but it’ll be a pretty fucking miserable life.”
Her lips pinch, wrinkles creasing around her mouth. “I don’t know what she sees in you.”
