Page 6 of Cruel Riches

My eyes widened. I didn’t expect this meeting to go perfectly, but I didn’t expect our grandparents to reject us so quickly either.

“I’m sorry… what?” Sascha said, just as taken aback as me.

Edward’s nostrils flared, and he cleared his throat. “Do either of you have any idea what it was like ten years ago? Do you know how hard we had to work to keep our names out of everyone’s mouths?”

My brows creased. “No, I don’t.”

“Your father slaughtered thirteen people and hung their bodies all over Blackthorne,” he said in a stony voice. “I know you were young when it happened, but the scandal… you can’t even imagine it.”

I narrowed my eyes. I didn’t have to imagine it. I remembered it all very clearly.

In the early winter of 2009, thirteen bodies were found hanging from tree branches on the Blackthorne University campus. Every single one of them had been gutted with surgical precision and almost completely drained of blood. Their eyes were gone too, gouged right out of their heads.

My father, who was working as a journalism professor at Blackthorne at the time, happened to be the first to come across the macabre scene. Horrified, he alerted the police and campus security immediately, and after that, the case blew up all over the media. A mass murder at one of the world’s most prestigious colleges… it was heaven for crime writers and rubberneckers who loved reading about gory stuff.

Six days after my father found the bodies, he was arrested. Someone had called in a tip about him, claiming that he only pretended to find the bodies in order to escape suspicion. After that, his university office was searched, along with our garage at home.

Evidence was found. Lots of it. He was arrested, very publicly, and the rest was history.

“Your mother left us when she was only fifteen,” Edward said. “She wanted nothing to do with us. Not even our name. Even before she married Peter, she was already using the Covington surname. Those people practically adopted her.”

Sascha frowned. “So?”

“My point is, by the time the murders happened, no one associated the Blackthorne Butcher’s wife with the Paxton name. She was just Susan Covington to the media. But we knew that could change with the blink of an eye. One phone call from a curious reporter would be all it took to make everyone realize that we were technically the Butcher’s in-laws.”

Deborah cut in. “I used to have nightmares that people would show up at our door, screaming at us and threatening us because of that disgusting man, even though we never met him and had nothing to do with him.”

My stomach lurched at her description of my father. He wasn’t disgusting, and he wasn’t a murderer.

He was innocent.

“We were fortunate,” Edward went on, taking over from his wife. “No one looked into your mother’s distant past, and the stink of the scandal never wafted anywhere near us. But if we start spending time with you two, that could change.”

My heart sank. Of course. It was all about their precious reputation.

“We have different names now,” Sascha said, eyes pleadingly wide. “No one will know it’s us.”

Deborah bristled. “It’s far too risky. What if people saw us together? They could put two and two together somehow, couldn’t they?” she said. “After all, people our age don’t often socialize with young women. It would look strange.”

“No, it wouldn’t. You could say that we’re the daughters of some distant cousins, or something like that. Or we could just meet up and spend time together in private, like we’re doing today.”

I cringed internally on my sister’s behalf. She was so sweet and so desperate to include these people in our lives that she didn’t realize they’d already made up their minds about us.

“It’s out of the question,” Edward said. “There will be no relationship between us.”

Sascha looked like she was about to cry now. Furious at them for upsetting her, I leapt to my feet. “Why did you bother coming here today if you don’t want anything to do with us?” I asked.

Edward stood up too, eyes flashing with irritation. “To be frank, we hoped you’d agree to accept some money in return for leaving the island. We’re happy to offer you five hundred thousand dollars. Each. All you have to do is pack up, go back to wherever you came from, and never return.”

Sascha’s jaw dropped. “You thought we wanted money from you?”

“We hoped so, yes.”

I scoffed. “We aren’t leaving, and we don’t want your money, either. That’s not what this is about at all.”

Deborah nudged her husband, and his lips twisted into a discourteous smirk. “Oh, that’s right. You already have money because of that distasteful incident,” he said.

I wanted to fly across the room and beat his face in with a lamp.

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