Page 79 of Reckoning

“And what have you done? A couple of public appearances, making her look like she’s living in the lap of luxury.”

“It’s killing her mother.”

“How the hell would you know?” Conrad sneered

“Because she told me!”

We both stared at him. They’d spoken? I assumed he must have gotten those letters through a drop or delivery of some sort—not that she would have come to him in person.

Conrad snapped out of his stupor first. “When the fuck did you see her? Why didn’t you bring her to me?”

“I don’t answer to you!” Meyer raised his arm to point, but it caused his entire body to tremble. “We kidnapped one person. I wasn’t about to take another.” He reached into his jacket pocket with his left hand, pulling out a piece of paper that looked like it had been folded a dozen times. “She gave me this.”

My eyes widened as his father opened the letter. “But you—”

“For God’s sake, for once in your life, shut up.” I cowered beneath his icy gaze. His fingernails dug into my arm.

“Jesus, that woman is a piece of work.” We looked back at Conrad, shaking his head and laughing as he crumpled the piece of paper in his hands and threw it in the corner. “Maybe I underestimated you, Meyer. You’re clearly doing better than I expected you to.” His eyes flicked to me. “Did he show you this? He did, didn’t he? That’s why you’ve been so compliant recently.” He laughed deeply, shaking his head. “Very well, Meyer. Carry on. Have some fun tonight; I’ll take care of this little kerfuffle.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Meyer’s voice was a low hiss as the door swung shut behind his father. He broke away from me to lock the door before remembering it was broken. I rubbed my shoulder gratefully—he hadn’t held back on me. But I froze as he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing a deep red bruise on his forearm.

Seeing my gaze, he dropped his arm and reached to grab me again, but I jumped out of the way. I couldn’t forget what had started this.

“Don’t fucking put this on me. Every time, Meyer. Every fucking time, you cave to him. Your sadistic father is the one nursing a nearly thirty-year-old grudge against his former kidnapped slave, and you’re enabling him.”

The way he ran at me I thought he was going to follow through on his father’s punch, and I flinched. He stopped about an inch from my face. I could smell his aftershave mixed with rage and … fear. He was afraid.

I’m always afraid.

“Don’t you ever say that. I know my father is a menace toward me, but this bullshit about her being some poor child kidnapped and forced to lie down for him has to stop. Your mother—”

“Was nineteen when she had me. Younger than I am now. You were eight when she left, and you knew her”—I spit at his feet—“for four years before that. Do the math.”

I saw a hundred emotions flicker across his face in under a second.

“I don’t believe you.”

“How fucking hard is it to believe, Meyer? I’m twenty-two. She’s forty-one. And she escaped your father on his thirtieth birthday, twenty-two years ago. Am I wrong?”

He was frozen. Without really thinking about it, my hand shot out and wrapped around his bruise. He stifled a groan as I squeezed.

“Am I fucking wrong?”

He jerked back, pushing me so hard I fell to the ground. “Get the fuck off me.”

I crawled to my feet. He stood in front of the door for a few seconds, then slammed his fist into the wall. When he pulled back his fist, there was a hole in the drywall.

“God-fucking-dammit!” He wheeled on me now, walking back toward me with purpose. I scrambled backward and tried to run to the bathroom, but he caught up to me. He pushed me against the wall, pinning me with his body.

I screamed in his face. It was the only way I knew how to communicate with him. “Tell me I’m wrong!”

“You’re wrong!” He was screaming too, voice too high and laced with fury.

I laughed, and it sounded harsh even to my own ears. “Your dad likes to fuck little girls, Meyer. Nothing you can do will change that. Didn’t your own mother die in childbirth? Kids who have barely started puberty aren’t supposed to have babies. And you can’t take a girl to the hospital when you’ve been raping her for years on end.”

“She left me here!” he screamed, slamming his fist into the wall next to my head once, twice, three times. The drywall cracked around his hand and fell like fine snow onto my shoulder and the floor. “She said she’d never leave me, and she did! She left me alone with him!” I braced myself to feel that fist against the back of my head, to feel the drywall crack against my face. But the blow never came. He fell back.

I turned slowly, but Meyer was ignoring me. He was on his knees, cradling his hand against his belly.

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