Page 27 of Daughter of a Monster

“May I please be excused?” Ette pipes up.

“Of course,” Gideon replies at the same time as Jericho says, “Eat your spinach first.”

Ette frowns and shoves an entire fork load of the wilted greens into her mouth. She gags as she chews but keeps going until the mouthful is gone. Then she turns pleading eyes back to Jericho.

“Fine.” He nods his permission and she scurries away without a backward glance.

Gideon lifts himself from the table and strolls over to the bar in the corner. Holding up the decanter, he lifts his brows in question.

“Oh,” I say. “Not for me thanks. I should probably head back—”

“Nonsense.” A glass is dumped before me. “I feel like we’ve barely started to get to know each other.” He grins lazily.

“If Miss—if Berkley would like to head back to her room, she can,” Jericho says.

Gideon ignores him, sliding his elbow over the table and resting his head on his fist. “Tell me more about yourself, Not-Miss-Berkley.” He takes a sip of his whiskey.

“I’d prefer to hear about Ette,” I reply, diverting the conversation. “May I ask what happened to her parents?”

“Her father is dead,” Gideon says bluntly.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No need.” He shrugs. “I didn’t know him.” His detachment is clear.

“I just assumed—”

“So…” He allows his elbow to slide further over the table, closer to me and tilts his head to the side with a mischievous grin. “How old are you, dancer girl?”

For some reason, his question comes across as accusatory. I lift my chin and meet his eye. “Nineteen. And you?”

He lets out a snort. “So you’re legal, at least.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m twenty-one. Almost.” He winks, lifts his head off his hand and then slides his fingers into his hair. There are a number of years between us.” He flashes a grin at Jericho. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” he says, taking another sip of his drink. “The old man caught mother dearest swallowing birth control pills and wham!” He whacks the table and I jump, startled. “Nine months later I came along, much to everyone’s delight.”

“You’ll have to excuse my brother,” Jericho says pointedly. “We don’t have company often, which you can probably tell. It also doesn’t help that this won’t be his first glass of whiskey for the evening.”

Gideon makes a mouth-flapping motion with his hand and gets to his feet. “Ah, dear old Dad,” he says, walking behind Jericho and flopping himself onto the chair beside me. Jericho wasn’t joking about the drinking. His breath reeks. “He’s not with us anymore.” Gideon pulls an exaggerated frown.

“That’s enough,” Jericho warns. There’s an underlying tension in the room between the two men, but Gideon is either too drunk to notice, or he simply doesn’t care.

“Do you know why not, Not-Miss-Berkley?”

“Enough!” Jericho yells, getting to his feet. “Can’t you ever just—”

“Because Jericho here,” Gideon talks loudly over his brother, “he killed him.”

To say I’m shocked is an understatement. At first, I think he’s just talking drunken drivel, but by the way Jericho narrows his eyes and doesn’t contradict him, I’m beginning to think this drunken rant might have some truth to it.

“Yup. Teenaged Jericho Priest killed a fully-grown man. Went to juvenile detention and all for it. Probably helped that he was as drunk as I am right now, am I right, Jer?” Gideon turns to me. “Dad was drunk, I mean. Not Jericho. No, Mr Jericho Priest would never let himself lose control like that.” He takes a sip of his drink. “Not unless you count killing your own father. Or maybe you were in control, brother? He cocks an eyebrow. “Maybe it wasn’t an ‘isolated incident’ like your lawyers claimed?”

Jericho sits rigidly straight, his eyes boring into his brother in some sort of unspoken stand-off. The muscles of his jaw twitch.

Gideon clamps my shoulder. “Just thought you should probably know a little of the history of what you’re getting yourself involved in with this household.”

I get to my feet and shrug off his touch, uncomfortable with the tension. “I should probably go. Thank you for…” I was going to say a lovely dinner but considering the table conversation, I can’t quite bring myself to say it. I’m stunned. Unsure of what to say or how to act. “Thank you for dinner.”

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