I watch Victor. He and Julian share another look. I narrow my eyes. I know Julian is not going to be a professor any longerand he’s starting his own private detective company.Are they working on something together and Victor hasn’t told me?I told him that was a hard limit for me if it involves Donovan.
Victor glances down at me like he feels my eyes on his. He sees the question in my eyes. He tips one side of his mouth up and his eyes tell me he will talk to me later.
Does that mean he wasn’t hiding anything from me? Maybe Julian told him something today?
Lincoln pats my hand, bringing me back to the conversation at hand. “Now you have a table full of men that will do what they can to protect you,” he says.
My eyes widen, and I smile at him. I wasn’t expecting something like that to come from him. He’s been my boss for a while, but he’s never struck me as the sentimental type. Victor runs his finger along the shell of my ear, causing goosebumps to break out along my arms and neck. I look up at him and the promise in his eyes tells me everything will be okay. I choose to trust him.
He turns back to Lincoln. “There’s no way to know for sure if your parents were involved unless we got a confession from Donovan.” Victor pauses, and I swear he’s fighting the urge to look at Julian again. Is that what they’re working on? “This brings me to the point of all this. Donovan controlled Olivia her whole life. She couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without him being present. She was only allowed out of the house when he’d let her come eat with us.”
Victor takes a deep breath and grips my hand. He beats himself up over that. I wish he would stop. “That’s just touching the surface.” He looks at Ansley and Lincoln. “Your parents may have been horrible, but Donovan is a monster. And the things Olivia had to endure were horrific.”
Caroline wipes at a stray tear and sniffs.I have to get this over with. I’m sick of talking about it.As I lean forward, every muscle in my body tense.
“So, I ran away. I was twenty-one. It shouldn’t have been looked at as me running away, but that’s exactly what it was to him. I changed my name to Liv, which is not original. I know that now. But I also changed my last name to my mom’s maiden name before she married my real dad.” I shift in my chair. If I only knew then what I know now.
“I didn’t go far. I’ve been right under his nose this entire time. But we didn’t live in this town. We lived an hour or so away. He’s such a narcissist he would never have thought to look in the very place he warned me against my entire childhood.” I wipe at my cheek, my leg bouncing. He always told me the only reason he let me come up here was because this was where Victor lived, so this is where we would come to see him and have lunch with him. “But he found me,” I whisper.
“He’s the one who sent you the flowers,” Caroline says. I nod.
“What flowers?” Ansley asks, her eyes darting between Caroline and me.
I feel bad for not telling Ansley, but this week has been hellish, and I could only talk about this once. Caroline looks at me, and I nod. We already talked about this and I told her I wasn’t talking to anyone else about it.
Caroline shifts around in her seat, trying to find a comfortable position. “Last week, Liv got a bouquet of Forget Me Nots. They were delivered in the middle of a meeting. She got distraught—”
“I think you had some kind of special radar,” Lincoln interrupts her. “Because I honestly had no idea what was happening until you told me later.”
Trying to play off how upset I was that day, I snort. “I’ve gotten better at holding myself together, but Caroline got me to the bathroom before I had a complete panic attack.” I avoidVictor’s eyes, knowing he’s not going to like I didn’t tell him this. Although I may not have had to tell him, I wasn’t completely put together when I called him. After I was able to be around people, Caroline quickly got me to my office so I could call Victor.
“How do you know they were from Donovan?” Connor asks me.
I run my fingers over the table and Victor squeezes my other hand as I take a steadying breath. “He used to get me Forget Me Nots, but they were always purple because that’s my favorite color. I knew they were from him even before I saw the card.” I stare at the table, unable to look at anyone.
“What did the card say?” Ansley asks.
I run a hand through my hair and inhale deeply. These words I burned into my brain. “Found you, and before you least expect, I will get you. You belong to me, after all.” Bile rises in my throat, but I swallow it down.
Julian sits forward, gritting his teeth. His muscles are so tight his shirt is straining against his chest and biceps. “How do you know he killed your mother?”
He had to ask that, didn’t he?“I overheard him talking to the sheriff. There’s this dumbwaiter in his house that I used to sneak in, and I’d use it to spy on him secretly.”
“He told the sheriff, and the sheriff didn’t do anything about it?” Bailey asks.
I glance at Bailey, not sure what to tell her. Bass and Connor share a look.
“Donovan had everyone in his pocket, even the sheriff. That’s why Connor worked so hard to get an election started,” Bass replies. “We were all surprised Donovan didn’t come after him when that happened.”
“I ran away. That’s why he didn’t. He was probably trying to look for me,” I say. I didn’t plan it that way. It was a happy coincidence.
“This is crazy,” Caroline whispers. “I remember parts of town were not in the best shape, but I didn’t think much of it. I just assumed every town had its bad apples. You know?”
“What exactly was Donovan the boss of?” Bailey asks.
“Drug and human trafficking,” Bec answers. “That’s what Connor and Bass saved me from.” I share a look with Bec. Everyone has their secrets.
Chapter fifty-two
