Page 106 of The Retreat

“Where is Cassandra?” she counters. Good, Cassie hasn’t told her. “Cassandra is a good girl. I know you had something to do with her running off to god only knows where. You always were a bad influence.”

I get in her face. Finally able to let out the years of pent-up anger. “You allow that man to do whatever he wants. You allowed him to push her into marriage arrangements when she was underage. You allowed him to use her like an asset, like property, like a fucking show dog, to further his career. You are the reason she left. You didn’t protect her when she needed it, and you made damn sure I wasn’t here to do it for you.”

My chest is heaving when I’m done. Furious and hurt and scared.

“So, I’ll ask again. Where is Father?”

She rears back and slaps my cheek, but I don’t flinch. It’s her go-to. I’ve been slapped more times than I can count on my fingers. It stings like a bitch, but I don’t let it show. Honestly, the physical pain is easier than the one in my heart.

“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” My words are quiet. “But it doesn’t make it less true.” Spinning on my heel, I get to his office. If he’s here, that’s where I’ll find him.

I don’t bother to knock on the closed door. I just swing it wide open and walk in.

Father is at the desk as I suspected and glances up over his reading glasses at me.

“I was expecting you.” He takes the glasses off and stands.

“Why did you cancel my cards? You aren’t even paying them.” Owen has been.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” My father’s furious voice makes me pause and reassess. “Taking your inheritance wasn’t enough. You’ve left me no other choice.”

“What are you talking about?” I don’t step back when he walks toward me but only because of years of training to hold my ground.

My father rushes me, pinning me to the wall with an arm across my throat. He’s so much bigger than I am that I can’t get any leverage to get him off me. I dig my fingers into his arm, but the jacket protects his skin. Pushing on him gets me nowhere. My lungs are already screaming for air as the logical side of my brain shuts down, leaving me with only instincts.

“Not only do you continue to embarrass this family publicly, but you’ve absconded with your sister,” he seethes through his teeth.

Fear flares in my gut at the cold fury staring back at me, and I don’t see the hit coming. Pain explodes at my temple, and my knees buckle. I don’t know what he hit me with, but it wasn’t his hand. Light bursts behind my eyes, and for a second, I don’t know what’s happening.

“Ungrateful.”

I drop to the floor, and he kicks me in the stomach. Bile rises in my throat, but I can’t throw up, I don’t have time to react. All I can do is curl around myself.

“Disgusting.”

Something crashes into my nose. My eyes immediately start watering, and blood streams down my face to the floor.

“Useless.”

My body takes hit after hit. I don’t know how long it lasts; my mind is trying to protect me by blocking out what it can. There’s only pain. Sharp. Dull. Pounding.

Knowing my father hates me is nothing new. I’ve known most of my life. Since I started showing signs of being interested in men, voiced not wanting to be him, and getting between him and my sister, he’s made no secret of his revulsion.

In shows and movies, they show parents loving their children just as they are, but it’s a fucking fantasy because it’s never been true for anyone I know.

He keeps talking, but I’ve tuned it out. I can imagine the horrible things he’s said.

Eventually, the pummeling of my body stops long enough for me to start to relax. When his hand rips my head off the ground by my hair, I flinch and cry out.

“You may as well take your husband’s name because you’ll never be accepted as a Covington again.” He drops my head with a thunk and bursts of light explode behind my eyes again.

The door slams closed, the noise making me jump and curl in harder around myself. But everything is still and silent except me.

What the fuck am I going to do?

Cracking my eyes open, pain flares through my head at the brightness of the light. There’s blood pooling on the floor under my head, dripping down my face and drying around the edges.

I need to get up. Get out. Call…someone.

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