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“He didn’t have to?”
I steel myself. I have to stand up to him. He’s a bully. “He didn’t rape me.”
“So you asked for it? Asked him to fuck you?”
“What do you want?” I ask, my words clipped.
“I’m going to lay things out for you. My bastard son did a number on you. I think he’s been playing at it for years, duping you when you were just a child. He’s got your head so turned around you’re willing to overlook the fact that he destroyed your home.”
“Why would he? He bought it for me.”
At that, he laughs outright. “Oh, my dear. I’m sorry. Oh, goodness.” He covers his mouth with his hand as he laughs at me, and I feel about two feet tall. “Do you know how much he would have gained from the insurance he took out on the house? Zero dollars now, of course, but I don’t think he anticipated getting caught. It’s about money, Phee. Life is about money.”
“That’s not true.”
“Believe what you want. The evidence is before your eyes.” He gestures to the screen. “So, here’s what’s going to happen now. You’re going to get up and get showered and you’re going to put on the beautiful dress Mira picked out for the big day.” I see it hanging on the closet door. “Then you and Ethan are going to go down to city hall, and you’re going to elope. I’llexplain it all to our friends, of course. After what happened at the gala, Silas raping you, well, my son did what he could to ease your pain.”
“Why do you even want this? I don’t understand how you could want me to marry Ethan.”
“I’m a romantic at heart, I suppose. Now, back to what I was saying. Should you choose not to go along with this of your own volition, well, you’ll be given another one of those shots to help you sleep and we’ll take care of it all. You’ll wake up Mrs. Ethan Fox. But when you do wake, you’ll have another reckoning—with me this time. Oh, and the restraining order against Silas Cruz? It will turn into that rape charge I mentioned. Clear?”
I stare up at him as he straightens, tucks his shirt sleeves out from under his jacket, and checks the time.
“Handle this, Ethan,” he says to his son, then, more cruelly: “Try not to fuck it up.”
23
OPHELIA
Iwatch Ethan, whose eyes are fixed on his father’s back, and the look inside them makes me shiver with cold. Once the door closes, he turns his gaze to me and I can see the moment he takes to rearrange his features, to show me the side of him he’s always shown me. Has he always been like this? Have I just never seen it? Never wanted to?
“You okay?” he asks and I have to wonder which face is the true face of Ethan Fox.
“You’re afraid of him,” I say.
His lip curls. “Was. I was afraid of him. He can’t touch me now.”
“He still controls you. You let him control you, Ethan.”
He walks toward the bathroom, turning his back to me. “Those days are coming to an end. Come on. Getshowered. You’re not doing either of us any good sitting there.”
“Do you hate him?”
He considers this and I wonder if that time he takes is for my benefit or if he’s really thinking about my question and how to answer it “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do. It’s wicked, isn’t it? To hate one’s father?”
I shudder and I’m not sure it’s the words themselves, his delivery of them, or him. The way he’s looking at me, the flatness in his eyes, the deadness inside them. It’s a deep, dark place.
He blinks, and it’s gone. The Ethan I recognize is back. I exhale, relieved, but I know it’s false. When he smiles, that dimple appears on his cheek, deceptive in its almost childlike innocence. “Don’t look at me like that,” he says. “Because if you knew the truth, you might hate yours too.”
A sick feeling settles in my stomach. I don’t know if it’s the drugs he’s been giving me or that sense of dread, that feeling of foreboding, that’s doing it. I pick up the glass of water beside the bed and drink the last of it, aware all the while of Ethan watching me. My heart is racing. I’m at a loss for what to do. How to act. And I’m not in control of what is coming. All I know for certain as I glance up at this man I’ve known for most of my life, is that I don’t know him at all.
“Get up, Phee. You heard Dad. Doesn’t want me fucking up.” He laughs an ugly laugh. “We have a schedule to keep.”
I get up out of the bed. I don’t know what else to do. I’m slowly shedding the weighted, drugged feeling. Keeping the sheet around me, I pad across the room, my tread as light as possible. I wince with each step. When I get to the bathroom, he lets me pass without touching me. I’m grateful for that as I close the door. His phone rings and he answers, moving away.
I lock the door and walk over to the large mirror over the vanity. What I see is scary. I look ghostly pale, my makeup from the gala mostly gone apart from my smeared eyeliner making me look ghoulish. The bruises across the fronts of my thighs and those spots where the belt wrapped around are purple and dotted with broken blood vessels, but it’s when I turn around that I see the true extent of the damage he did. I reach my hand back to touch a tender spot on my side, my back, ass and thighs marked with thick red welts, some of which opened and scabbed over. I’m swollen in places. Looking at this, feeling it, remembering when he beat me, when he put my legs up on that stool to whip the bottoms of my feet raw, I think Ethan hates me, too. He must.
“Phee?” he calls out, trying the door. “Unlock the door. You’ll need help.”
