Page 11 of Vengeful

"No. I don't know." She glanced down at the sand. "I just…don't want to end up back in those rooms. I don't want to end up sold. I don't want to do anything that would hurt you guys."

"But you wish your father would explain what it is he wants so you can decide if that's something you're prepared to do. What if he did that and you weren't? What if he told you to put a gun to Chloe's head and pull the trigger?"

She didn't answer straight away. When she did, it was in a small voice.

"I have no idea. There were times, especially when I was on the back of that truck, I would happily have blown her brains out. What she did to me was…unforgivable."

"But now?" I prompted.

"Now I realised she's scared of the same thing I am. She's scared of not winning because in Dad's eyes, that's losing. And if we lose, we risk getting punished. Not in the good way either." She offered me a faint smile.

I flashed her one in return. "Would you get punished if you wanted to step aside in favour of your sister?"

"Probably," she said after another moment of hesitation. "Chloe would never believe I'd ever fully get out of her way. She'd assume it's some kind of trick. That the moment her back was turned, I'd try something."

"She'd assume that, or you'd assume it from her if she stepped aside?" I asked.

"Both," she replied. "You must think our family is a special kind of fucked up."

I smiled. "My family is pretty fucked up itself. My cousin plays American football for the Dusk Bay Sharks, of all things. It's a growing sport here in Australia, but still…"

She snorted softly. "That's terrible. Much worse than anything my family gets up to." A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"Exactly," I said with a laugh. "His parents have never recovered from the shame." Truthfully, they were just as proud of Walker as my parents were of me. Sometimes, I thought he was the lucky one, being as far from this crazy life as he was.

Lila sighed out her nose. "I'm sure being a professional athlete isn't easy, but at least you know what the expectations of you are. He probably has a coach yelling at him constantly, telling them to correct this or that."

I grinned. "Basically, yes. He seems to enjoy himself."

"Why did you become a teacher?" She asked. "Why business law?" She wrinkled her nose.

"Why not business law?" I shot back. "Who would suspect the business law professor is also an assassin? It's a near perfect cover."

"Near-perfect?" She glanced at me questioningly.

"The perfect cover would be one that involves making and eating more cake." I nodded decisively. "What?" I added when she gave me a funny look. "I like baking. There's something satisfying about turning a bunch of ingredients into something tasty."

"You don't do that fancy cake decorating shit, do you?" She poked me in the chest with a manicured, black fingernail.

"What if I do?" I asked teasingly. "Are you saying you don't want a birthday cake shaped as a teddy bear?"

She barked a laugh. "I definitely do not. But feel free to send one to my sister. Maybe throw in a bomb or some GHB for shits and giggles. I know, throw in both."

Suspecting she didn't really want her sister dead, no matter what her father might think, I said, "How about a cake that when it explodes, it sprays pink icing all around the room? Wait, pink icing and glitter. No one would ever wash all of that shit out as long as they lived."

She laughed. "And they call me wicked."

"Who calls you that?" I asked. That didn't seem especially accurate to me. Nicknames often weren't. Like the weird habit of calling a redhead Blue.

She shrugged. "Hunter and Parker are the evil twins, Chloe and I are the wicked sisters. I can't remember the first time anyone said that about us, but I can't say they're wrong."

"They're definitely wrong," I assured her. "You're not wicked. You're the victim of what your father did to you. The person he tried to make you become. But he didn't, because in spite of everything, you're not a bad person."

"I'm not a good person either," she said. "I'm not convinced I didn't deserve what he did."

Her expression was so troubled my heart ached for her. I shoved away the mental image of my hand sliding a knife between Samuel's ribs. That was a temptation I couldn't give into unless it was necessary. Right now, we needed him alive.

I stopped and turned her to face me. "There's nothing you could ever do that would justify what he did. Nothing that would make you deserve it. Punishment like that is for people who would buy women, or people who would lock children in a dungeon. You would never do either of those things."

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