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Since I was only fifteen, it had been most of my life.
I walked toward the door, but his footsteps followed, and he overtook me. He stood against the door. “You’re not going anywhere tonight.”
I’d only lived with my father for a couple of months. So far, he’d given me an allowance. More money than I’d ever seen. He’d been good to me. He’d helped me get acclimated to my new home, the community, and had helped me make friends in the neighborhood. I was planning to meet one of those friends tonight for a shake.
“Dad.” The word fell from my lips in slow motion. It still didn’t feel right. The man was still a virtual stranger to me. But he’d been trying. At least up until now. “Dana’s expecting me. I won’t be late.” I reached for the doorknob.
“Not tonight, Ruby.” He brushed my hand from the knob.
I looked up at him. His eyes were so dark, almost black. He was a handsome man, olive complexion and dark hair, but something sinister lurked in his gaze tonight.
Something I hadn’t seen before.
Maybe I hadn’t been looking.
I was in danger.
I turned to run back into the kitchen and toward the back door, but he grabbed me by the arm and yanked me against his chest. Hard.
“What do you want? Why can’t I go meet Dana?”
“Because I need you here tonight.”
My heart thumped wildly. “Okay. What do you need?”
He yanked me over to the couch in the living room. “Take off your clothes.”
“No, Mom. Stop. Please.”
“I was wrong. She can’t take this, Ruby,” Dad soothes, “and neither can you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Ryan.” My mom inhales, steeling herself. “Have you forgotten how I grew up after that? How I was on my own for three years? Living on the streets and using a fake ID to get work?”
I drop my jaw. Mom lived on the streets? Did her father kick her out? Did—
“Ava has lived a sheltered life,” Dad says.
This time anger pulses through me, and I pound my fist on the table, nearly sending the plates flying. “Because you sheltered me! You sheltered all of us! You didn’t trust us with the truth of our history!”
“Put yourself in our shoes for a moment,” Dad says. “Would you want to tell a child of yours—an innocent child—about the horrific past of our family?”
I swallow, regard my father.
His brown eyes are sunken and sad, but then—
I look at my mother.
Her blue eyes are on fire.
“Speak for yourself, Ryan,” she chides. “Not everyone agreed it was best to stifle our past. Melanie and I wanted to tell them. Just bits and pieces as they could handle it. But no. You and Marjorie and your brothers wanted to bury it all. You thought it would all magically disappear. Life isn’t like that. Life isn’t one big Steel party!”
“Ruby, baby…”
Mom chokes back what may be a sob. Or it may just be anger. “I’m all in now. And my daughter is as strong as I was at that age, perhaps even stronger. I went out on my own because I had no choice. Ava had every resource available to her, and she went out and made a life for herself anyway. That’s strength, Ryan.” She turns to me. “Can you take it, Ava? The rest of my story?”
I see my mother’s strength, then. Truly see it. I never doubted it. Always knew, as a cop, she had to be strong. But I never actually saw it in action—not with the defiant look she’s giving Dad now.
And I know. I know I’m more like her than I ever realized.
“Yes, Mom. Yes. I can take it. Tell me your story. I want to know where I came from.”
“Are you sure? Because I haven’t told this story in nearly three decades, and I’m not about to mince words.”
I nod, swallowing back the last of my nausea. No more. No more getting sick over the past. It’s time to face it, deal with it, and learn from it.
“I’m sure.”
I jolted backward. “What?”
“You heard me. Take off your clothes. You’re beautiful. Let me see that body of yours.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “No. I won’t.”
I scrambled away, but he caught me again and then dragged me into his bedroom. I wrenched away, but he grabbed me and turned me around to face him.
“Come here. Show Daddy how much you love him.” His grasp was firm. “Now take off those clothes.”
“I won’t!”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“Are you crazy? I’m your daughter!”
“Makes no difference. Let me see that body.”
I gathered every ounce of strength and ran toward the door, but again he caught me.
“You asked for it now.” He punched me in the cheek, and a dull thud echoed in the room.
For a second, nothing happened, and then the pain hit. I cried out.
