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He onlysometimesraped her.
Got it.
“Were you an item?” I wonder. “Officially. Were you intending to create a family with him?”
“I have been infertile my entire life, Ms. Cannon.” Finally, she looks to me in challenge. “Perhaps that made me useless to the man? It could be what saved my life. All I know is, after a while, Tim no longer requested I join him in his bed. Countless other women were paraded through over the years, and though a small part of my heart turned bitter at the rejection, my sensible side knew I would live, when so many others did not.”
“And those women,” I push, ambling toward a patch of yellow rosebushes that draw my eye, “you knew them? You saw them?”
“Some of them. Many, I didn’t.”
“What about the boys’ mothers?” My heart thunders in my chest, anticipation making my head swim. But I stop by a rosebush and stroke the perfect yellow petals growing on it. “You would have knownthem, right?”
“I cared for many of them.”
When I turn to meet her eyes, she broadens her shoulders and opens her chest, almost like she’s readying for a fight.
“I was present during every single one of those births.”
“All of them?” My stomach roils.So close. So, so very close.“Even Cato?”
“Even Cato. But I did not know the women’s names. I’m not so foolish as to think your questions are the product of mild inquisitiveness. I know who you are, Ms. Cannon. I know the platform you control. And I donotwish to help you write more articles and bring pain to the hearts of boys who strive for better. But if you need anything else,” she tips her head in a kind of nod goodbye, “call for me. I will prepare your breakfast now. I expect you back inside the house momentarily.”
“Felix wants me to find the answers,” I implore at her back when she turns and walks away. “Mary! Hewantsme to figure this out. He gave me permission to do the research.”
She doesn’t spare a single glance over her shoulder. She doesn’t speak, or come back for me. She doesn’t take my guards with her. She merely… leaves.
When one of the guards—massive, beefy, no-necked, and flexing fingers—eyeballs me from twenty feet away, I spin and go back to studying the yellow rose.
She knows everything; or at least, she knows much more than anyone else. But she’s not giving up her secrets.
“God.” I bring a hand up and scrub it over my face.
Exhaustion tempts me to sit, and hunger makes my stomach rumble. I know I need to eat. To rest. To drink some electrolytes. But my mind still swirls with a million unanswered questions. Countless what-ifs.
So much of a painting, still left to be painted.
“Shit.”
“Ms. Cannon?” A masculine voice I don’t recognize floats on the gentle breeze. “It’s time to go inside. Mr. Malone has ordered it so.”
“Mr. Malone can choke on an eggplant.” I reach into the bush and snap off the pretty yellow rose so I can keep it for myself. “If he wishes for me to move from this spot, he can come here himself and move me.”
15
FELIX
PEOPLE ANNOY THE SHIT OUT OF ME
“What makes you think that not paying your bill is the appropriate course of action, Mr. Jameson?” I pace on cold, hard concrete and ignore the stone walls I’ve seen a million times before. The barred windows. The complete and utter isolation of our small building.
Some might call it a prison. Others, a bunker.
Another might call it a chamber, designed and constructed in such a way that, even when a man screams within it, society won’t hear him.
I merely call it a really fucking handy room to get answers.
“So?” I come to a stop in front of the man, his legs and arms bound to the chair Micah placed him in, and bend to look into his fearful eyes. “You owe me three million dollars, Clarke. Non-payment is a non-fucking-option.”
