AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The girl.” An amused grin. “The art. Is that what you call her? You acquired her. You’ve got her in here. I know you do. Where did you hide her, Emerson?”
I raise my eyebrows. Turn down the corners of my mouth into an imitation of concern. “I’m afraid you’ve lost it, Dad. Have you been drinking?”
“I’m stone-cold sober,” he says, and his grin turns vicious. He might be sober, but he’s evil to the core, and I don’t want him to know that Daphne exists. That’s the part that makes me sick. “Oh, you boys thought you were so much better than your father, but look at you.” He steps forward and claps my shoulder. “Following in my footsteps.”
I brush at my sleeve where he touched me. “You’re delusional.”
Fuck that. I’m not following in his footsteps. And insofar as Daphne is in technical terms my captive, he didn’t just capture women. He hurt them. He sold them. He did not care for his acquisitions. He didn’t care for anything, including his sons.
My father strolls back out, headed toward the back of the house. Into the kitchen, with its windows looking out onto the ocean. There is no sign of breakfast here, or lunch. He doesn’t care about the kitchen island. He goes to the window and shoves his hands into his pockets.
The mechanism for survival is failing. My mind struggles with the vile subject. Difficult to turn my father into a flattened piece when I hate the sight of him in my house so much. Anger wells, threatening to overrun its frame. It bleeds to the edges like red paint bubbling out of the canvas. Guilt follows after, yellow and sharp. On some level, he’s right. I’m keeping Daphne here. I did hurt her. It hurts her now to be separated from her family. But I’d never damage her the way he damaged the women he trafficked.
The distinctions collapse. They don’t really matter, do they? It’s all evil in the end. Anyone who acquires another person is better off dead. My father is evil and so am I. I have succumbed to the force of gravity. An apple can’t fall far from the tree.
“What do you need?” I ask, managing at the last moment to wrestle my tone into something unaffected.
“I don’t need anything.” He shrugs, dark eyes coming back to mine. “I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“You’ve done that, and it didn’t end well. It ended with me throwing you out. Did you forget?”
“I forgave.” He taps a hand over his heart, mirroring my own false concern back at me. “I assumed you were not well. That you were having trouble with your mind, like always. It must have been a shock to see me. Sin didn’t prepare you well enough, I suppose. And people have strong reactions when they’re unprepared.”
“I didn’t have a strong reaction,” I comment. “I just hate you. A strong reaction would have been to kill you.”
“Oh, but you’re not a killer.” He chuckles. The light from my window attempts to soften his face and fails. “You’re too weak for that. A man who paints.”
“I don’t paint.”
“Collects art. Whatever.” He waves his hand in the air as if there’s no difference. “A man like you isn’t a murderer.”
I let out a sigh. “How much?”
If he has a price, I’ll pay it. From what little I could hear of Daphne’s phone call, her brother wanted much the same thing. There is no price I would accept to give Daphne up. I would pay any price to get my father to fuck off forever.
He cocks his head to the side, faux-confused. “How much for what?”
“How much for you to leave here and never come back? I have plenty of money. Name your price.”
“You have money,” he echoes. He looks around my kitchen in earnest now. Everything here is new. Fresh. It’s clean. “You certainly have plenty, Emerson. I can’t argue with that.”
Why would he? No doubt he’s done his research. He’ll know that I have money. That we are all wealthy. Wealthier, in fact, than he ever was.
“The number,” I press. “Tell me what it is and I’ll pay it.”
“No amount of money can keep me from my sons.”
My spine turns to ice. Out of anyone else’s mouth, it would be a promise. From him, it’s a threat. My father will never leave me alone. Not now that he knows where I live.
It was always a rigged game, wasn’t it? He made me this way. Shaped me into this person with his own two hands. And now he’s going to exploit the vulnerabilities I couldn’t hide from him.
It’s not possible for him to know everything. The work I’ve done over the years. The time I’ve spent trying to achieve some level of normalcy.
It’s possible for him to know enough to destroy it.
All my nerves are strung out now. My mind flashes a gallery of options at me. I could beat the shit out of him. I could kill him.
“Name it,” I demand. “Will and Sin want nothing to do with you, either. I’m not above paying you off.”
