Page 98 of Cherry Auction

“That’s not what she thinks. She feels like a twenty-two or twenty-three year old woman.”

I roll my eyes. “She’ll always be a child who needs my protection.”

His eyebrows rise and he purses his lips like he doesn’t believe me. Which pisses me off. “What the fuck do you know, anyway?”

“I think she went and grew up when you were busy dealing with difficult things.”

“Don’t try that doctor shit with me,” I warn, huffing and rearranging myself on the couch. I sit up straighter and lift my chin, looking away from the doctor. The girl growing up! Ha! This man’s obviously a quack. I huff again, fury buildingin my guts.

My head snaps back to him. “She’s not a grown-up because she can’thandlethe real world. The real world is brutal and she’s a child. She’s fragile and she’d break at the slightest?—”

“Are you sure she’s so fragile? Are you sure she hasn’t been stronger lately? Moira Callaghan told me she’s been a very strong-willed person since she was released from the hospital with amnesia. Or was that you?”

I suck in a breath and stare at him.

But it’s not him I’m seeing.

It was the girl who slayed the monster. Not me.

I was… I was doing what I always do. I was protecting her by obeying. And getting my father away from Donny. Both of us wanted to protect Donny.

It’s why I took over at the club. I saw our father and I knew the girl would want what was best for Donny. Which was to go and get our father away from him.

… And I did it because… because I’m the one who obeys.

“I protect her,” I gasp, my fingers grasping the fabric of the soft pajama pants I’m wearing. “She’s fragile and I protect her.”

“I’m sure you do,” Dr. Ezra says in a soothing voice. He’s patronizing me. I hate it when people patronize me. Thinking they’re smarter. Thinking they can outwit me.

“Can you tell me more about her mother?”

I breathe out hard and cross my arms over my chest. “Hermother was a dumb bitch who couldn’t figure her way out of a trap.”

“Oh?” Finally, the all-wise, all-knowing doctor looks surprised.

“Oh,” I say back snottily, giving him another thin smile.

“Would you like to elaborate?”

Ugh. This is all such a fucking waste of time. “I know you think this will help the girl, but digging up her tragic childhood past? Really? That’s so cliché, doctor.”

“Humor me,” he says with an amused smile. At least it’s better than his patronizing smile.

I sigh, not even caring that I’m being dramatic. “It’s not a big deal. My father set a trap for Mom, and she fell for it like a big, dumb idiot.”

“What was the trap?”

I roll my eyes. “It wasn’t even that inventive on his part. I mean really, the man could get inventive with his tortures.” Then I tilt my head, considering. “But maybe sometimes the simplest ones do cut the deepest, because the girl was deeply wounded by it. After all,” I hold out my arms with a grin. “It was around then that I showed up.”

“The trap?” Dr. Ezra prods.

I shrug. “Classic Sophie’s choice.”

“Care to expound?”

He’s going to keep me on this couch until I spill the details of the girl’s maudlin past, isn’t he?

“He wouldn’t let our mother leave him. I mean, shecould leave the house. But she could only take one of us with her.” I stare the doctor in the eye. “Either me or my brother. Never both at the same time, in case she ever tried to run. Family’s the only thing we’re really given in this life, right?” I give a sarcastic smile. “And he knew he was such an evil, unbearable monster that one day shewouldleave him.”

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