His words hammered through me.
Handle. Manage. Report.
As if I were an object.
As if Tristian were a task.
The pain was unbearable. I tried to speak, tried to choke outsomething, but every last fiber of my being was desperate to be let out of my father’s hold.
“Your sister iswrong,” Papa grunted through gritted teeth. “Never,ever, have Iwhored out my daughters. I raised you to be useful. An asset. Something I could place in a room and have work in my favor, like the agreement with Mr. Locke… but I am not raisingprostitutes. I am not apimp, Ingrid: I am a businessman. And you are the businessman’s daughter. You are expected to show up, follow orders, behave—and that means that youare home when I tell you to be.”
His grip grew tighter still. My breath hitched. My head felt like it was on fire now—and that fire turned into an inferno as Papa not only squeezed butlifted, dragging me up onto my tiptoes, higher and higher as I fought to keep him from ripping the hair right from my head. I screamed in agony, wishing my mother would finally unlock whatever maternal part of her must have once existed inside of her to want children in the first place and come save me, or that Abuelita would barrel in, or even Camila, somehow she would return from wherever it was she’d gone to and save me—
But no one came. And so all I could do was scream and cry and claw at my father’s arm desperately as he hurt me for my indiscretion.
Gaze hateful and glinting, Papa leaned down until our noses were almost touching.
“From now on,” he began, voice low and lethal, “you will see the minimum of this Locke boy as you need to for my business deal. There will be no more late-night visits to whatever hole it is he lives in.” He yanked me up harder. “And if Ieverhear his Mercedes out on my drive before you walk through that door, I will break both your legs so you can’t walk out of this house again and cut the deal myself. Because you aremine, Ingrid Rodriguez.Mine.Do you understand me?”
“Yes, yes, I understand!!” I sobbed desperately. “Please, Papa, please let me go!”
He glared into my face for one long, awful moment.
Then he flung me down.
My head hit the floor, hard, skull cracking against wood as stars exploded in my gaze. When I blinked open my eyes again, a crimson streak marred half of my vision. Tentatively, I touched my forehead, expecting that a thick clot of hair and peeled scalp would be hanging across it. Fortunately, it did not; however a long gash was cut across my eyebrow. Blood poured from it.
Papa didn’t move at first.
He simply stood over me, the overhead light catching on the sharp planes of his face, that handsome, deceptive façade he wore like a tailored suit cracking as the monster showed its face. His forearms now corded with veins, evidence of his strength, proof that he was holding back despite the pain.
There was nothing paternal in his gaze. Nothing that resembled the charming businessman everyone loved. Only possession. Deadly, quiet possession.
He flexed his hand once, the tendons shifting beneath skin, and the movement alone made my stomach drop.
He crouched down, slow, deliberate, veined hands braced on his knees as he lowered himself to my level. He tilted his head slightly, studying me the way a predator studies its dying prey. Then, for a moment… a horrifying, surreal moment… he looked almost gentle. Beautiful, even. Like the kind of father little girls dream of.
But it faltered when he stood back up. His expression was back to hate and ice, everything a father should never be.
His phone began ringing. He retrieved it from his pocket, looked at the screen. Without even looking at me, he muttered, “Clean yourself up. Then the carpet.” He turned the lock, opened the door, and answered the call. The last I heard from him as his footsteps thumped down the hall was “Samuel speaking.”
I curled up on the floor, racked by heaving sobs. One hand clutched my forehead and the stream of blood running from it. The other clutched at the back of my neck, clawing in a blind panic.
At some point, when the flow of blood began to diminish, my phone buzzed weakly on my desk. When I crawled up, I saw it wasn’t the first time: Tristian had been video-calling again and again since I cut him off. In the chaos with my father and my agonized terror after, the vibration hadn’t reached me.
Wiping the tears from my cheeks and smearing as much blood from my face as I could, I answered the call. Fighting to steady my voice, and keeping the phone angled away as best I could, so Tristian could only catch a glimpse of the unmarked edge of my face, I murmured softly, “S-sorry, I think my data dropped out.”
Silence greeted me. Tristian’s face was dark.
“Tristian?” I breathed.
Something hard and dangerous sat behind his eyes, calculation in the lines of his jaw.
He seemed to be considering something.
Finally, he said abruptly,“Let’s spend the rest of the afternoon together. Just me and you.”His voice was different. It wasn’t soft or the teasing, dark tone from before. It was sharp and decisive.
My breath caught in my throat as Papa’s threats echoed.
