“You think that just because I have the last name Sartor, I can’t be trusted?” I said. “My father has done many terrible things, but he didn’t raise me to be like him. If anything, he tried as hard as hell to raise me to be the opposite of him. He sheltered me and closed me off from the world to a fault. He’s not…”
I could see Cole’s anger rising, and while he didn’t seem violent, I still had too many concerns warning me about the violent and sadistic tendencies—real or not—of the Black Reapers. I bit my lip and shut the hell up.
“I am trying to be calm and rational here,” he said. “But your father, let’s see, killed my brother’s fiancée, our club chaplain, multiple others, incited action that led to the death of another Black Reapers officer, has been a malicious, evil thorn in the side of the Carters for years… With all respect to you, Lilly, you are presumed guilty until you prove yourself innocent.”
“I know.”
Cole recoiled, leaning his head back in surprise.
“Why do you think I ran away? It wasn’t to run to you or anyone else in this town. It was to go somewhere where the name ‘Sartor’ didn’t elicit fear.”
Cole folded his arms and drew a deep breath.
“I guess it sucks to grow up in a household like that, huh? Where your own name…”
There was something about Cole’s words, something in his face that told me there was more to this story than he was letting on.
“Tell me something,” he said. “Tell me about your father. Tell me what we don’t know. Maybe it’ll help all of us.”
I nodded. Cole walked over and sat on the opposite end of the couch from me. I scooted back to make room, but there was definitely a part of me—the lustful side I’d never let free—that wanted to scoot forward and just see what happened. Fear prevented me from doing that, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some desire there.
“Well, my father has always been doting and caring, but for the first, say, half of my life, my mother was around to balance him out,” I said. “Well, that’s a bit of a misnomer. Dad was controlling wherever he went, but he wasn’t around the house that often, so Mom got to take care of things. But it was so stressful whenever he was around. I always worried he would hit her or get into loud arguments with her. And then, ten years ago, Mom died.”
Cole genuinely looked sad for me. It was kind of sweet. It didn’t erase that he’d gone through my stuff, but I could probably—probably—put aside the idea of him being a cold-blooded killer.
“Once my Mom died, Dad became unpredictable. One moment, he would be affectionate and give me anything I wanted, no questions asked; the next, he could be cruel and say that I would never live up to the standards he had set. In such a weird way, I got everything I wanted and nothing I needed. I had a Tesla at the house, I had the opportunity to travel, but I never had the freedom to do things on my own. Even when I got away for a bit, it was with the understanding that... I was like a leashed dog, that I could wander out some, but I’d get yanked back if I got too far away.”
I didn’t say this part out loud, but it was also true that I was so controlled and sheltered that I hadn’t even had this conversation with anyone before. I guess I just felt a sort of ease with Cole that was, frankly, completely unexpected.
“I never even considered college. My father would try and justify it by saying I had all the money and care I ever needed, so why would I need college? But my father... I just wished he recognized that I needed some struggle and some challenges in my life.”
Cole nodded, scratched his beard, and sighed. Something about the story seemed to have registered with him—but what?
“Well, I appreciate you sharing that with me, and I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said. “What else can you tell me about him? Anything at all.”
I opened my mouth but paused.
He wasn’t asking because he was concerned about me, at least not as his primary motive.
He was asking so he could use that knowledge to kill my father.
My father was not a good man. In fact, he probably deserved significant jail time for what he had done. But to be killed? In cold blood? That... something about that would never sit right with me. Even if it was proven that my father had murdered dozens or even hundreds of people... maybe I was too much of a pacifist for my own good, but I could not be OK with Cole murdering my father.
“Why do you ask?” I said.
Cole fidgeted on his side of the couch.
“If you want the truth…”
But he didn’t finish, not immediately. I got tired of this waiting game.
“I’m not going to give you anything that you can use to kill my father.”
“I understand,” Cole said. “But part of the deal with keeping you here and giving you a plane ticket to anywhere you want in the country is that you would tell us information. And…”
Cole looked so pained having to speak like this. So why did he?
“If you’re not going to tell me anything that I can use in our mission, then I can’t let you stay here. I can’t protect you.”
