Page 34 of Reckoning

“How did you find us, Eva? Tell me, or I’ll break his hand.”

Eva choked as she spoke. “Her phone. It was on for a little bit earlier today.”

Conrad looked at me, but he didn’t ask for details. That interrogation would come later. “What an oversight on my son’s part. I can assure you no similar mistakes will happen again.”

“Just let us take her, Conrad. Please. Don’t destroy our family.”

“Why shouldn’t I? You destroyed mine.”

“Take me. I’ll stay.” My breath caught at her words. “Let Madeline go.”

I looked over at Joseph, frozen on the ground. Blood dripped down his face from several cuts, but he didn’t notice. He was staring at his wife with a level of fear echoing my own

“No.” I looked back at Conrad the second he spoke. The vise around my heart relaxed.

“Conrad, please, I’ll be good. I—”

“I said no, Eva. The good thing about this little trespass is it’s showing me exactly how well the current arrangement is working. It’s definitely having the desired effect.”

Eva broke free from Joshua and fell to her knees. Joshua moved to grab her again, but my father held up his hand, halting him. Eva was prostrate on the ground before him, her hands clasped in prayer.

“Please, Conrad, let her go. Don’t punish her for my sins. I’ll never fight you again.” Dirt clung to her face, trapped in her tears.

Conrad tipped up her head with his shoe. “No, I don’t think you will.”

I felt a sudden wave of relief—because I knew that tone. The tone that said he had made up his mind and was completely immovable.

It meant Madeline wasn’t going anywhere. She was still mine.

*

Less than five minutes later, they were gone, loaded into the back of a van. One of our men drove their car out after them. There were ineffectual threats of police action, futile when someone “donated” as much money to the local force as our family did. We were untouchable, and Eva and Joseph knew it. They would never see their daughter again unless we willed it.

Unless I willed it.

I pulled Joshua to the side as the dust kicked up by the retreating vehicles.

“Take care of her,” I ground out as quietly as I could, then shoved him toward the door. He looked at me over his shoulder, something akin to concern on his face, but closed the door behind him. I heard the deadbolt slide home.

I was trapped. Conrad and I faced each other, alone in the yard.

“You gave her, her phone, Meyer?”

My tongue was dry as a desert. “We made a deal. She cooperated last night, and I let her make a call today.”

His fist caught my jaw hard enough to loosen the crown that I had already replaced three times, but I didn’t go down. I resisted the knee-jerk reaction to cover the place I had been struck—to defuse the pain—knowing it would only bring on another more brutal blow.

I thought of Madeline, spitting back blood into my father’s face fearlessly.

“Do I even need to explain to you how incredibly stupid you have been? Why in the fuck would you let her have her phone for even a second?”

I didn’t answer. There was nothing I could say. Sometimes silence made the blows land just a little softer.

His foot in the back of my knee forced me to the ground. My suit pants shredded on the rough gravel, grinding stones into my skin.

Madeline on the ground in the loading bay, struggling to stand despite her bound hands and bruised ribs, unashamed to be nearly naked and beaten in front of so many strange men.

“I can’t even begin to express how disappointed I am in you. I should have known you weren’t able to handle this responsibility.”

The next kick to my side sent me the rest of the way to the ground. Conrad put his foot on my ribs and leaned down with most of his weight, and I heard a rib snap out of place.

Madeline being so brave, demanding an explanation for her treatment as bruises bloomed across her perfect skin.

“If you fuck this up again, I will show you the true meaning of pain. I will torture both of you until not one inch of skin is left unbruised or unbroken to show you exactly how to hurt someone. Of all the things I’ve tried to teach you, I would have thought you would have learned that one lesson.”

I would never be half the person she would be.

And Conrad reminded me of that as blow after blow rained up on me, my blood mixing with Joseph’s in the dirt. I didn’t possess an ounce of courage to fight back.

Somewhere, I thought I heard Madeline cry my name.

---