Page 289 of Wicked Brutal

His eyes darken. Good. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”

I do. Just not in the way he thinks.

“Alison.” Dad.

I release Victor immediately. Not too quickly. Not enough to make it obvious. But the version of me Victor was enjoying disappears neatly behind the one Dad expects.

Victor notices Dad standing on the front steps. Amusement flickers across his face.

He leans down and kisses me once more. “Friday.”

He gets into the car. Dad walks past me without a word. Not inside — toward Victor. Victor lowers the window as Dad approaches, and I don’t wait to hear what they say. I go inside.

The front door barely closes before someone grabs my wrist. I nearly scream. Mom.

“Mom—“

“Quiet.” Her face is pale. She pulls me down the hall.

“What are you doing?”

“Come with me.” She doesn’t wait for an answer. She drags me into the laundry room and locks the door behind us.

“Mom.” She crosses to the built-in cabinets above the counter and opens one. Detergent. Dryer sheets. Cleaning supplies. Nothing else. Then she starts pulling everything out.

“What are you—“

“Your father doesn’t do laundry.”

I stare at her. “I’m aware.”

“He doesn’t come in here, either.”

She reaches behind the last container and presses against the back of the cabinet. The panel moves. I stop breathing. Mom pulls it forward. Behind it is a narrow space, and inside that space is a box. Just a box. Old cardboard, worn edges, nothing remarkable about it. She lifts it out with both hands and sets it on top of the washing machine. Then she opens it.

It’s full. Folders. Envelopes. Photocopies. Statements. Receipts. Printed emails. Travel paperwork. Photographs. Years of paper, packed down and layered like she’s been adding to it a page at a time for longer than I’ve been alive.

I look at her. Really look at her. The bruise from Thursday is still there under her collar. Her hands are shaking. And she’s standing over a hidden box she built inside the one room in this house her husband would never think to search — the room he considers beneath him — because some part of her decided, a long time ago, that someday one of us would need this.

“How long—“

“Take pictures.” Her voice cracks on it.

“Mom, how long have you—“

“Alison.” Her eyes come up to mine, and there’s something in them I’ve never seen before. Not fear. Not the careful, flinching blankness she wears around him. This is the opposite of that. This is a woman handing over the only weapon she’s ever managed to keep. “We don’t have time. Please.”

Please. My mother, who has spent my whole life making herself small enough to survive, is asking me to help her set this house on fire. My throat closes. I pull out my phone.

I open my thread with Arthur — because these need to go to the person who can actually use them, and every second they sit in this room is a second Dad could walk in. Mom hands me the first page. I see Pennington before I understand anything else on it. My pulse jumps. I take the picture. Send.

Another page. Another name. Send. Another. Lucien. My hands start shaking. Send. Hartley. Send. A company Iz found months ago — the one nobody could connect to anything. It’s connected to everything. Send. Travel. Hotels. Payments. Roman O’Toole. Send. Victor Tremblay. Send.

Arthur answers.

Arthur: Where did you get these?

My mom.