Page 65 of Bishop

“I spent a lot of time at my aunt and uncle’s when I was a kid.” I focus on the facts. Nothing else. “She used to suffer from the same attacks.”

“Did you help her, too?”

“No. I was too young. But I’ll never forget how my uncle would rush to care for her. Most of the time he would drag her into the shower, fully clothed, where he would hold her under the water, whispering words I couldn’t hear. Other times he used ice.” I lower my attention to where my hands cradle her fingers, the melting cubes creating a puddle in her palm. “Don’t ask me how it works. I’m only replicating what I saw.”

“I don’t care how it works—just that it does.”

The fragile sweetness in her voice gets to me. She gets to me.

I look away, lobbing the remaining shrunken cubes into the sink before releasing her hand.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

“Don’t mention it.” I itch to drag a hand through my hair. To wipe a steadying palm over my face. She’s got her hooks in me and I fucking hate it. “You good to talk now?”

She inhales a long breath through her nose, then heaves the exhale. “There’s nothing to tell. I just need to find my mother.” She palms the counter, making to scoot to her feet.

“That’s not how this works.” I grab her hips, holding her in place, my possessive grip a warning. “You don’t fall apart in my arms—twice—then expect me to forget. We’re getting this out in the open, you hear me? Unless you’d prefer I call your brothers and have them take care of this for you.”

Her face falls.

“Do they know you have a daughter with the senator?” I ask.

She lowers her stare to my chest. “Nobody does. Nobody but my parents.”

“How is that possible?”

She turns quiet, the answer trapped behind tempting lips.

“Abri…” I raise a hand to her chin, inclining her face until she’s forced to meet my gaze. “How do they not know?”

Her brows knit as she silently begs me not to push. But I can’t stop myself.

I can’t fix what I don’t know. And I will fix this. Whatever the fuck it is.

“How do they not know?” I repeat, this time slower, as gentle as a man like me can possibly articulate.

She swallows. Licks her lips. “Because my father had me sent away during the pregnancy. Before I started to show.”

I scowl, trying to remember something Remy relayed a few days ago. Something about how Abri used to be the most vocal sibling against her father’s dictatorship. Only to vanish for months on end.

“One minute you were fighting over family dinner,” I paraphrase his explanation, “the next you were gone. Emmanuel sent you away, and when you returned you weren’t the same. He somehow made you compliant.”

Her nose scrunches, the pain potently evident. “I didn’t want her.” Her voice breaks. “I planned to have an abortion. But my father figured out how much a baby could earn him. What the secret would cost Joe.”

Rage runs hot through my veins. “Emmanuel forced you to have a child?”

She lowers her gaze again.

“Look at me, belladonna.” I hitch her chin, rubbing my thumb back and forth along her jaw. “I’m going to fix this for you. I’m going to make it right. But I need you to help me. You have to tell me everything.”

Waves of grief swim in her pretty eyes. She squares her shoulders and sits taller. “I didn’t want her…not to begin with. But then he sent me away and it was just me and her. Alone in a cabin in the mountains. A nurse and guard the only human interaction for months.”

Son of a goddamn fucking bitch.

“He trapped me there,” she continues, “out in the middle of nowhere. But in those six months, the only thing I had was my daughter.” Her lips curve in a tortured smile. “I sang to her. Cried to her. Fell in love with every flutter of her feet against my belly. I hated myself for thinking I could live without her and begged my keepers to tell my father about my change of heart. I even started to believe he’d done me a favor. That he’d saved me from making the biggest mistake of my life.”

“But?” I growl.

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