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I get it now: there was no shame in his voice a moment ago because he’slivid.Whatever this man has been through, he is pissed that he doesn’t get to know his daughter.
Now,thatI can work with.
“If that’s what you think, then I’m glad you agreed to sit down with us,” I say. “Your daughter is not doing well, Marcus. She’s not doing well at all.”
His brow lowers. He looks from me to Yasha, suddenly tense. “What are you talking about?”
“We don’t work for Alexander,” Yasha explains. “I told you that we wanted to talk to you regarding Cora and Alexander, but—”
“Cora?” He frowns. “Who is that?”
“Your daughter,” I explain. “She changed her name after she ran away from Alexander the first time.”
“I didn’t know she—Hold on. The first time? She ran away more than once?” He blinks, processing. Then his eyes go wide. “Is she alive?”
“She’s alive,” I reassure him. “And she ran away once before, but I’m hoping she’ll do it again. Because as of now, Alexander has her back.”
Marcus leans forward. His nostrils flare as anger burbles out of him. “What has he done?”
Oh, yeah. I can definitely work with this.
“Cora is set to be married off to a psychopath in the criminal underworld against her will,” I tell him coolly. “It’s why she ran away the first time. Alexander is using her to form alliances for his own benefit.”
“That isn’t—for God’s fucking sake, that isn’t legal! That can’t be—Why didn’t she come to me?” It seems more like a question he’s asking himself than one he expects an answer to.
“Because you abandoned her and her mother.”
Marcus turns on me, eyes narrowed as he hisses, “Ineverabandoned her. Ever. Evaline ran around behind my back and hooked up with Alexander. I was willing to make things work for Cordelia’s sake, but Evaline divorced me. Then she took my daughter and ran.”
“Cora thinks you hung them out to dry.”
He chuckles darkly. “Yeah. Evaline and Alexander made sure to paint that picture of me. But he’s the one who abandoned them. He told Evaline that he’d never speak to her again if she didn’t pack up Cordelia and leave me. So she did. But Alexander didn’t give her anywhere to go.”
Cora told me about the months she and her mom spent on the streets. How desperate they were to find shelter and food.
I frown. “Cora thinks that Evaline met Alexander later on. After they were already homeless. She told me that they met and then he took them in.”
Marcus shakes his head. “No. Alexander wanted her dependent on him. He wanted to make sure she burned every other bridge in her life before he finally let her move into his house. She chose living in the fucking gutter over being with me. She stole my family away in the dead of the goddamn night.” He blows out a breath.
“Why would Evaline do that to her daughter? Things must have bad between you for her to—”
“They weren’t,” he bites out. “We weren’t always the happiest, but I took care of her. And Cordelia, too. She left because Alexander is a snake who knows how to prey on weak people.”
“Did you try to get them back?”
“I fought for custody. I tried, anyway.” He shakes his head, a shadow falling over his face as the memories roll back. “Alexander has friends in high places. When I tried to take them to court, men showed up at my house with documents saying that I gave up my rights to Cordelia. I never signed them, but it was my signature forged right there at the bottom of the papers. And if I tried to fight it, I knew how I’d end up. The threats were vague, but they were clear enough.”
I know Alexander is a political fixer, but it sounds like he had a lot of power even a decade ago. How much more powerful is he now?
“What have you been doing since the last time you spoke to her? Haven’t you wondered what is going on in her life?”
He drags a hand over the back of his head, ruffling hair the same shade of chestnut as his daughter’s. “Of course I did. But I didn’t feel like I had an option to know anything about her. So I tried to move on. I got remarried. I lived the best life I could and hoped, since I couldn’t look for Cordelia, that she would look for me.”
I can’t think of a single threat that would ever keep me away from Cora. There is nothing anyone could say or do to make me stop chasing her. To make me let her go.
As if he can read my mind, Marcus leans forward. His eyes—Cora’s eyes—bore into mine. “If I’d had any idea what Alexander had planned for Cordelia, I never would have stopped fighting. I truly thought she was happy there.”
Marcus isn’t perfect, but he cares. On some level, he cares about Cora and what happens to her.
