Turning around, I caught my mother still watching me, waiting for an entirely different decision. She wanted me to call Runo, to tell him to take his kid but I had seen what that man was capable of. He shouldneverbe around kids. And yet, he might be one of the only people who could help me wade through this bullshit with Echo.
He was the only one who could understand her mind if she was like him.
My mother handed me the phone and I quickly dialed his number, hating that I had to take this step. Echo slowly slipped the device from my hand and just as the call picked up, whispered the one word that would ruin me.
“Daddy?”
Silence met her question for several seconds and then a honeyed voice I had been trying to forget slipped through. “I had a baby girl?”
“Echo. You had Echo,” My daughter said. I didn’t even know how Echo connected the dots to who we were calling.
Runo hummed into the earpiece, a deceptively delicious voice that reminded me of the good moments, moments where I was his and he was mine—even if it didn’t mean anything. “Well, Echo. I’m pretty sure that your mother must have called me. She said I wasn’t to meet you. So, what changed?”
I went to answer but it was like Echo has picked up everything we’d been saying over the last few months. Her articulation was perfect, the smoothness of her voice mirroring her father’s.
“Mom thinks I might be like you. She wants help and the doctors don’t believe her.”
I should hang up and yet, I was curious. Morbidly curious, some would say, considering that I was calling a fucking serial killer I used to have sex with to see if his daughter was just as crooked as he was.
“Is that right?” Runo purred through the earpiece. “Do you hear voices, Echo?”
Her little nose scrunched up and she shook her head. “No.” A three-year old shouldn’t have even know what he meant by the question but Echo was… different. Smarter, more deviant, just…evil.
I cut in. “Runo, I didn’t call for you to connect with my daughter. I called you because she’s violent. She doesn’t listen and her eyes are mismatched like yours—well, like the contacts you used to wear. The doctors can’t tell me anything, just that she’s too young to diagnose. I just want to know what your parents did when you were younger. That’s it.”
“Hmmm, well, do I get to meet her?”
“No! That’s not what this is for. If you won’t help me, fine. I just thought…”
Runo chuckled. “Jade, you thought I would have some compassion? Some afterthought because you had my child? You used your pregnancy to save you and then told me I would never be allowed to meet her.”
“You’re not capable of emotions.”
“I never said I was. After all, I had my boyfriend killed to spite my father.” He cackled, a heavy sound in the back reminding me of the cop Runo ran around with. There was no fucking way Runo had faked all of that shit and the chief of policewasstillbehind bars. There were so many loose ends with that investigation, several other people being arrested but nothing concrete. Runo tsked, grabbing my attention again. “Now, you said something about violence. Let me just tell you, that’s only the beginning.”
“Beginning ofwhat?”
“Beginning of her choosing who to hate.”
“That doesn’t… that doesn’t make sense.”
He snorted, the man no more mature than he had been three years ago. “Sure it is. I did the same thing to my father and then to all of the people who wronged me. It’s not rocket science.”
“What am I supposed to do with her?” My anxiety flared at the thought that I would never truly be able to help Echo and that she would turn out just like her father.
“Why are you asking me? You didn’t want my help, Jade. Have fun with her. Echo, my baby girl, come meet me when you’re old enough. I’d love to see what I created.”
And then he just hung up. That wasn’t even the worst part. It was when Echo started cackling just like her goddamn father.
Check out Echo all grown up in the new spin off series – Wicked Quartet – coming 2026!
The Later Years
There's several little excerpts set in the future as Killian/Runo and his men grow old together! From hilariously awkward moments, to Runo switching alters just for the fun of it, and Runo finally meeting his daughter.
Excerpt One: Just after the phone call with Jade
RUNO
