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“I-I just assumed you wouldn’t come back. You said you didn’t want to hear from him ever again.”
“Well, I’m still really pissed off, and I want the opportunity to tell him how pissed off I am. And that motherfucker is going to sit there and listen to every goddamn word I have to say.” I lifted my arm. “Look at this.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“Look.”
He dropped his gaze and looked at the horrible scar.
“That’s why I’m here.”
My father entered the room, wearing a sport coat despite the unbearable heat outside. His eyes locked on mine.
Mine locked on his.
It was a silent standoff, both of us testing the other, the silence growing in intensity with every second that passed. Victor left the room without being dismissed, and then it was just the two of us.
My father studied me from the door, keeping the space between us, as if he didn’t know how to approach me.
As if he was afraid of me.
As he should be.
He finally entered the room, choosing the chair Victor had just vacated.
The rage was indescribable. It was hard to look at his face and just sit there instead of getting out a knife and slicing his nose clean off. The blood boiled in my veins, the pressure so great, they were about to pop. It took all my strength to maintain a calm composure, to stay in my chair instead of launching myself right at him. “Fuck. You.” It was all I could manage. The only coherent thing I could get out.
He took it with indifference, as if he’d expected this reaction.
“You…fucking…shot me.” It was hard to get the words out, because every time I spoke a syllable, I was brought back to that night when the barrel of the gun was pressed right to my skull. It was cold as ice.
“Laura—”
“Yourdaughter.” My eyes filled with tears, angry ones. “How could you do that to me?”
His eyes shifted away.
Good. He had no right to look at me.
“I had no other option—”
“There’salwaysanother option. You could have killed me.”
“I was careful with my aim—”
“And what if Bartholomew didn’t cave? You would have just kept shooting me?”
“Of course not.” He looked at me again. “I knew he would cave.”
I didn’t believe him. Not one bit.
“And I had to make it look real. I had to convince him I wasn’t bluffing.”
And you weren’t.
“I-I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“It had to look real, Laura.”
