Page 100 of Inflict

“Evelyn, you’re confusing me here.”

She nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

Connor reached out to take the sketch, though she hadn’t offered it to him, but she didn’t refuse to hand it over. He glanced quickly at the image, taking in what had to be one of her most frightening memories. A man looming over her bed, his face half-covered by a bandana of sorts, and his hands reaching for her. He couldn’t see her, not entirely, but he could see her wee, child-like hands clenching into the blanket, as if it might keep her safe and secure.

He knew it hadn’t.

Yet, it wasn’t the major details or the story of the image that she had been talking about, he quickly realized. It was the parts of the man’s face that she had drawn—his eyes, the shape of his cheekbones above the bandana, and even the way his brows knotted together.

It was like looking into a mirror.

It could have been him.

Except Connor knew it wasn’t him at all. He was only a young lad when Evelyn had been stolen from her bed, but obviously, her memories had taken what she had seen, and what she knew, and made the picture.

He knew it then, without a doubt, Sean had done all of this. From the very beginning, to the very end, his father had his hand in Evelyn’s past, her present, and he wanted her future, too. Connor didn’t know why, exactly. Although the image of his mother, bound and dead on a bed wouldn’t leave his mind, nor the many slaves and things he had witnessed as a child, and it was all beginning to make a very … terrifying reality.

Connor handed the sketch back. “Breakfast tomorrow at a diner?”

He didn’t want to worry her.

He didn’t want to explain what was happening.

Evelyn let out a sigh. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Let’s get your back cleaned up before I need to leave.”

• • •

By the time Connor had gotten his stuff together, and taken care of Evelyn’s immediate needs, he didn’t arrive in front of his father’s Jersey home until nearly dinnertime. The house looked quiet from the outside, but it always did, and since Sean had added the attached garage a few years ago, he could no longer tell if the man was home by what car was in the driveway.

Connor got off his Harley, hung his helmet up, and headed for the front door. He had no plans of hiding the fact he was there, or what he planned to do to his father once he got inside. He had never been so blatant and uncaring about his presence or actions during a kill, but there was always a first time for everything.

He figured it was fitting that this first belonged to his father, considering everything.

Connor found the front door locked, but if Sean was up to something inside, that wouldn’t be unusual. He no longer had a key for his childhood home, not that he had cared when his father demanded he hand it over years earlier.

He didn’t need a feckin’ key to get in, anyway.

Picking locks was kind of child’s play for Connor, but he didn’t even care to mess around with that today. He wanted Sean to know he was there, and exactly what he was going to do before he left.

Connor kicked the damn door in, watching the wood splinter under the force as it flew open and crashed into the wall. As quiet as the house had seemed from the outside, it was just as quiet inside. More so, actually.

No signs of life.

For a long while, Connor simply stood in the entryway, listening for anything that might give away the fact that someone was inside the house. Even his father’s slave, as she was often locked inside, likely too afraid to run, should she ever be given the chance to do so.

He heard nothing.

Connor called out Sean’s name, and then the girl’s.

Nothing again.

Feck.

Sean had been gone that morning; Connor knew this only because of Killian, but that said nothing about why the man wasn’t home now. His father had routines that he liked to keep no matter what, and he had been that way for as long as Connor could remember. Dinner was at five sharp, whether he ordered in, cooked it himself, or had one of his girls do the cooking. He rarely ate at restaurants, despite having owned several over the years, because he didn’t trust someone to prepare food where he couldn’t watch them.

His father should have been home.