Page 87 of If You Fight

“Unfortunately, that would probably leave you as his main obsession again, wouldn’t it?” my mother asked in a sad voice. “He always did have an unhealthy need to control everything you did, Serena.”

“Why is that?” I wondered aloud.

Shaking her head, she shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s who he is, I guess. He became obsessed with me the minute he met me, and he pursued me like a demon. Then when Janelle was born, he seemed to lose interest in me and become fixated on her. But when you were born, it actually scared me a little to see how obsessed he was with everything about you. I had hoped it would diminish over time, but it never seemed to. What about when Ryder came to the house? Did he become less interested in you and your sister then?”

I thought back to those days when he was so hell-bent on marrying the two of us off. Part of that had been to benefit him, but I knew another part was his bid to control our lives through who we married.

“No. It just changed a little to forcing us to marry men we didn’t love but who could help him. Janelle seems to have found some way to live with it, but I couldn’t.”

My mother stood from her chair and leaned across the bed to hug me. “I’m sorry he did that. He had no right. I’m happy to hear your sister has been able to make her peace with it, though. I just wish she could do the same with me.”

I did too, but I didn’t trust Janelle to keep my secret. “I’m sorry I can’t let her know I’ve found you, Mom, but she’ll tell Daddy. I know she will. She believes all the lies he told us about you.”

The disappointment showed in her expression, and she looked away, frowning. “Maybe someday, right?”

Taking her hand in mine, I squeezed it gently. “I hope so. I hope someday the three of us can all get together and we don’t have to hide it from anyone.”

She turned back and smiled sweetly at me. “Promise me you’ll be careful, Serena. From what you’ve told me, nothing about your father has changed, and his need to control you and Ryder frightens me. I know you may not see it because it’s all you’ve ever known, but I can tell you it’s not normal, honey. Not at all.”

“I know. We want to get away. We had even planned on doing it sometime soon, but…”

I let my sentence trail off, not knowing how to explain what had happened with Ryder. But I didn’t want her to think I liked living the life my father had forced upon me.

Cradling my face in her hands, she nodded, even if she didn’t understand what I struggled to say. Her dark eyes filled with sympathy I knew came from living the life I had to endure now.

“I just want you to remember that you don’t need your father’s blessing to live the life you want. You or Ryder. You’re still young, so go out and make your own way in the world, okay?”

“We will. It won’t always be like this. I promise. Someday soon we’ll be free of him. All of us.”

“I hope so. I’ve gotten used to my life, but I don’t want you to be like me, a bird stuck in a gilded cage. I wanted more for you and your sister than that.”

Covering her hands with mine, I kissed her. “I promise you I won’t let that happen.”

She had no idea how long I’d told myself those exact words. I meant them from the first moment they came into my head long before Ryder came into my life, and until the day I escaped my father’s world with him, they’d be my mantra.

***

By the timeI got back to the house, Ryder was waiting for me. He sat on the couch with a bottle of whisky on the coffee table in front of him, his near constant companion since returning to work for my father.

“You’re home early. I thought I’d get here before you,” I said as I sat down next to him.

“He had me doing my stand guard thing in his office all day, which amounted to doing nothing for nearly eight hours, and then he said he had somewhere to be and let me go,” Ryder said in a low voice.

I put my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. “You were tossing and turning all night last night. You must be exhausted. Why don’t you go lie down for a while?”

Picking the bottle up from the table, he lifted it to his lips and drank a mouthful. “I can’t sleep, even when I’m tired.”

I wished I knew what was troubling him. Ever since that night, he’d seemed lost in his own thoughts. Nothing I said helped, and more and more, I felt like he was sliding into something I recognized all too well.

I’d seen depression firsthand, and everything about Ryder now said whatever my father had done was killing him inside. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know what to do, and every minute he was back around my father only made things worse.

If only we could find a way to leave this place and everything that came with it.

Gently, I turned his face so he had to look at me. I searched his eyes for any sign of that wonderful intensity I’d seen in them so many times, but all I found was sadness.

“I’m worried about you. It feels like you’re slipping away ever since you went back to work for my father, and I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do, Ryder. Tell me, and I’ll do it.”

All he did was shake his head.

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