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Afew minutes after she heard Minerva’s door close, April padded out to the kitchen to make some tea.
She hadn’t been trying to spy, but she was very curious about how the conversation had gone. Though it was surely a surprise to him, she suspected that Khall must have been delighted that his daughter wanted to follow in his footsteps.
And really, she kind of wanted an excuse to see him. Things seemed so much better tonight. Maybe he had put his frustration behind him.
As she stepped out of the hallway and into the kitchen, she spotted Khall sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands.
His skin was the palest green she had ever seen it.
“Is everything okay?” she asked softly, abandoning her plans for tea to check on him.
When she reached the sofa, he held something up.
It was Vlax D’agryx’s horrible costume.
Icy panic spread through her chest.
“I just sat down here, trying to comprehend why you would encourage my daughter to join the military,” he said in a terrible flat voice. “And I found this sticking out of the cushions. I was gone, and you were right here with Zyr. You didn’t even go somewhere private. My kids could have walked in.”
“I shoved that into the cushions the other morning,” she said quickly. “Bo was walking in, and I didn’t know what else to do with it. Then I just forgot about it. I was never with him.”
“Bullshit,” he said.
“It’s not even from him,” she admitted, sinking to the couch herself.
“Don’t try to make a fool of me, April,” he said. “I know I’m an old man and you’re a pretty young girl, but that doesn’t make me stupid. You just got here. You don’t even know anyone else.”
That hurt, a lot.
But he wasn’t wrong. This looked very bad.
And she was so flustered by it that she couldn’t even absorb what he was saying about Minerva.
“I’m going to tell you everything,” she heard herself say quietly. “And then you’ll understand.”
He didn’t speak, so she had no choice but to go on.
“I’m the youngest out of a lot of kids,” she told him before she could lose her nerve. “There wasn’t a lot of money for school, but I was able to get a work contract for my dancing. I thought it was with a legitimate theater, but it was with a gentleman’s club. Do you have those here?”
He didn’t respond.
“Anyway, my family basically disowned me when they found out,” she said sadly. “And I had to work, or I would go to debtor’s prison for violating my contract. One of the two owners, the nicer one, let me adjust my terms so that I could serve and clean instead of dancing.”
She waited for him to react, but he didn’t.
“But the other one discovered that I had dance training and decided he wanted to force me to dance,” she said. “He threatened me, and said I owed him money for a photo shoot he arranged without my consent and a costume he had made without my permission. That thing you’re holding is supposed to be my costume. If you try to tear it, you’ll see it’s practically indestructible. That’s how you’ll know it’s a professional piece, and not a gift from a shop.”
She waited, but he didn’t move.
“Anyway, I started looking for a way out. And then I got the nanny job, and I came here, thinking I was safe, and he wouldn’t be able to find me,” she said. “But he must have found out somehow where I’d gone. He came here and he left that for me, as a warning, I think. He wanted me to know that he knew where I was. That I couldn’t run from him.”
She saw Khall’s shoulders tense.
“But, the instant my signing bonus came through, I sent a portion of it to the club, to buy out my contract,” she told him. “And I sent all the rest of it to Vlax D’agryx, to pay him off. It’s far more than the value of a costume and some pictures. He won’t come back again. I’m safe now. We all are.”
She waited for him to respond, but again he did nothing.
“I sacrificed everything I had to protect your family,” she said softly. “All I wanted was a chance at a fresh start, a new life with you and your children, away from the mess I was entangled in.”
She prayed for some sort of reaction, but he only sat silently.
“Say something, please,” she begged, tears rolling down her cheeks.
