Page 92

Three days after I brought Matilda to the Workshop, she appears in my private rooms without warning. Even for a defense attorney, that’s ballsy. I saw her face when she realized what the stains in the concrete were. I apologized that night. It hasn’t erased the look on her face, or the fact that I put it there.

When the door creaks open, I look up from my desk. She stands in the doorway barefoot, shoulders straight, expression carefully blank. This is slightly worrisome. It means the staff have gotten used to her. Maybe too used to her. It’s almost as if she has free rein here.

“I want to see my father.”

For several seconds, I say nothing because I’m so caught off guard by the pronouncement.

She didn’t say talk to him; she said see him. There’s a very distinct difference between the two, and my eyes narrow. Why one and not the other?

I can tell from the way Matty’s fingers curl against her palm that she’s fighting to keep herself composed.

“Why?”

Her eyes flick away.

“Because I need to.”

It’s not an answer, but I wait her out. One thing I’ve learned in running this empire is that most people aren’t comfortable with silence. Matilda would be, but then she’s never met a man like me.

I’ve waited years, decades, for some men to break.

She finally exhales.

“I spent twenty-eight years trying not to know anything about him. I knew only his first name. I didn’t want details. I didn’t want any piece of information about him following me around for the rest of my life. It was easier to pretend he never existed in the first place.” She swallows, the movement so vulnerable that I almost stand and go to her.

“But now I know who he is and what he’s doing. I can’t ignore him anymore.”

I lean back in my chair. There’s something revelatory in her wide eyes; not in a holy way, but in the way of watching someone break with realization. That stirs a feeling deep inside me that I try hard to push away and ignore.

Three days ago I was willing to pull her teeth out if I had to. If it meant I’d learn more about who had hurt Kevin, and who was coming after me.

Now that I’m sure she isn’t involved, that willingness sickens me. Certainty afterward doesn’t excuse what I was ready to do before I had it. I gave her my word that she would never go back into that room. Keeping it is the least I owe her.

This is what my world is made of.

Cruelty. Crime. A hidden, dark undertow.

“I need to see the past and the present at the same time. I need to reconcile the man who is my biological father with the criminal he actually is. I don’t want to…” Matilda’s voice almost breaks, and she steels herself, fingers flexing. “I don’t want to leave here when it’s all over and wonder about him.”

Something tightens in my chest.

She isn’t asking because she suddenly wants a relationship with him. She’s asking because she needs to understand.

I know that feeling better than most.

“You understand what you’re asking?”

“Yes.”

“It may not give you what you want. Semiyon is…” I didn’t know him well. He wasn’t on my radar, and maybe he should have been. “He’s not going to redeem himself, whatever we find.”

“I know.”

I study her for another moment. Then I nod.

“All right.”

Her shoulders loosen slightly.