Page 328 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

I gape openly at him.

His clients’s…?

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Four digits.

I thought it was the front door, that night.

It wasn’t.

It was the entry code for my father’s study.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

How many times had he tried a different combination over the years? I know he never asked me about it, and I’ve neveronce been inside with him there. Dumb luck, or years and years of patient determination?

I stagger back shaking my head, doing my best to reign in a thousand abrupt thoughts tumbling over themselves in their rush to be acknowledged.

That’s why Marcus chose that room. It’s closest to the study.

Was that why he was okay living with me? Why he was so pissed off when I said my Dad had said no?

He must have accessed my father’s computer. Copied his files.

But when? Why? What use?—?

“Dad, do you keep their addresses on file?” I bark out, my eyes wide and my hands already curling into fists.

Dad lets out a rough bark of a laugh, shaking his head. “Just admit you’ve fucked up, Son. Admit it, and we?—”

“No, you don’t—” I cut off, grabbing my lips and twisting them in an effort to work through my thoughts before my father thinks I’ve lost my fucking mind.

But then something else trips me up.

“How did you know it was him?” I step closer to my dad, lifting my hands when his eyes narrow to wary slits. “Marcus. And you called him a deviant. Why?” I spit out the words as fast as I can, and my father’s suspicious glare slowly changes into a confused frown.

“The cat,” he says. “He killed the cat.”

I shake my head, laugh. “What fucking cat?”

“When you were six,” Dad says, staring at me like I’ve just told him the sky is green and we’re standing on air. “He killed your mother’s cat.”

I can’t even. Blood sings through my ears, and my heart’s pounding along to a 155 BPM track as I try to understand what the fuck my father’s telling me.

Then I remember.

It’s just a fragment of a faded memory, but it’s there.

Natalie’s white Persian, the one I always thought looked like it had run headfirst into a wall. Ugly as sin, but she loved that thing to death.

“You told me it ran away.”

Father shakes his head. “Because that’s what I thought. But when Baker tendered for one of my client’s security upgrades, I went to his house for a meeting.” Father waves his hand. “Brandon Baker, Marcus’s dad.”

I nod, but it’s not with understanding. I’m not getting any of this shit.

“I saw its collar. That—” he snaps his fingers. “Diana? Deena? Can’t remember what your mother called the thing. I designed it a collar.” My father brings a hand to his throat as if he’s about to strangle himself. “Beautiful thing. Put me on the map for pet couture.”

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