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Grayson’s eyes find mine. “Do you want me to drop the knife?” he asks.
I nod, and he lowers the knife but holds Charlotte to him, not letting her run off. I step in front of her, the men who walked in with me let me go. I reach out and touch her face.
“Why didn’t you hurt her?” I ask in a small voice.
“She is my daughter,” Marcus answers simply.
“I was someone’s daughter once,” I tell him. “You hated scars, yet you gave them to me anyway,” I muse as Charlotte cries harder. “How did it feel fucking someone the same age as your daughter?”
“Don’t act like it was a punishment for you. On the contrary, I gave you a better life than the one you had before,” he spits, pushing my nerves to the very edge.
I reach for Grayson’s hand and take the knife from him. He looks at me, puzzled before I focus on Charlotte.
“This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with your father. We are a product of our parents, after all, and as your father used to tell me, I had to pay for their sins.”
“I—” Marcus starts but stops himself.
That was the excuse I used to get when he would speak to me. ‘Your parents gave you up, so you have to pay. No one wants you, so you should be thankful for me.’
I wasn’t.
“He sold you to someone. I never wanted that. I sent you to him because you ran away again,” Marcus says, trying to justify what he did.
“Wrong. You sold me because I was scarred. But you never gave him permission to sell me, which he did anyway. Thankfully, to a great man, one I could never have dreamed of being near.” I smile, thinking of Jake.
“Jake is as much of a monster as I am. He buys more women than I do.” He scoffs.
“To save them,” I whisper.
It’s not known in that dark circle what Jake does with the women he buys. But that’s okay.
“You tried looking for me, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I even found you, but you ran again.”
“How did you find me?” I question.
“Police report,” Marcus says, and I raise a brow at Grayson.
“I told you,” I tell him. Then I smile before he can say anything and reach up and stick the knife into Charlotte’s stomach. She buckles over, but Grayson’s hold on her waist is the only thing keeping her from crumpling to the floor.
“Fuck, we like her,” I hear someone mutter.
And I know it’s one of the men who came in with me.
