Gentry ignored his little joke as she looked down at her father. Her confidence he was so used to seeing gone. His elation from completing the Favor vanished as he looked down at the skinny, pathetic man at their feet, who was moaning as if Kit had roughed him up.
Sure, he hadn’t been gentle, but this man had no pride.
“Get up,” Gentry told the man, her voice hard.
The man raised his head, and Kit wasn’t surprised to see that he had yellow bruising around one eye along with a split lip.Someone must’ve found him before us.The father and daughter looked at each other. One with a lot more emotion than the other.
“Who are you,” the gambler croaked, “and what do you want?”
eighteen
Gentry
Gentry stared at her dad in open shock. In five years, she’d imagined a million different ways to confront her father. Dramatically from a courtroom as she testified, a sea of sympathetic listeners nodding their heads along as a judge sentenced him to a gazillion years in prison. Stabbing a sword through his chest. Selling him to the very witches he’d sold her out to, only, for every day she’d been locked up, he was cursed to spend in solitary confinement. Alone. No one to impress or manipulate. A powerless conman.
But those daydreams all had one thing in common — Maxwell Greenbriar looked the same as the day he’d betrayed her. Slicked-back hair, same shifty clever gaze, and a crazy laugh that drew too much attention during cons. After all, it’d only been five years and her father was too vain to look anything but his very best.
The man in front of her only resembled Maxwell Greenbriar in superficial ways. Grey stubble littered his jaw, his normally sharp cheekbones sunken, and his dark hair was unkempt. His eyes didn’t even shine with fear like she’d expected them to afterbeing subdued and dragged by a far more powerful witch. He simply looked hollow and beaten down by the world.
And she didn’t know what to think. Was this a trick? Back in the day, she knew all her father’s tells. But then again, he hadn’t given a single sign the day he sold her to the Nethertons.
“Dad, it’s me, Gentry.” She didn’t like how gentle her words sounded.
He paled as if she were the ghost. “No, you’re not. I left Gentry with her mother. She’s safe.”
“My mother,” she repeated blankly, her brain racing to keep up with his games, “I only get to see her when she visits. You sold me out to the Nethertons to be their little puppet, remember?”
“You’re not Gentry”—Maxwell shook his head vehemently—“I made sure they wouldn’t get you. They promised. I did terrible, terrible things so they wouldn’t.”
His blank eyes. The way he’d been acting strangely that day.The few memories she had from the warehouse rose to the surface and Gentry hated the hope unfurling in her chest. Whichever coven the Nethertons had hired, it was possible they’d played with Maxwell Greenbriar’s mind just like they had hers.
He’ s a witch, not as weak as you, she reminded herself,he could’ve said no.
She must’ve frozen up, because Kit spoke up, his voice hard, “You say that you did terrible things to protect your daughter. Does that mean you sold out other girls?”
Maxwell dragged himself up, his head shaking from side to side as he hugged himself, “They said that they’d take my girls if I didn’t help. One of my bookies gave my information to them for not paying on time. Knew where me and Gentry ran jobs, had where my wife and other baby lived. Had ways to track us. I had no choice. They’d give me the candidates’ names. They were all girls about Gentry’s age”—his voice hitched—“but I tried to makeit painless. Slipped them potion to keep them calm. They didn’t like that I did that. That’s when—” Maxwell stopped talking as his eyes went glassy again.
Gentry’s stomach dropped, recognizing that look. She’d seen it in the mirror while she’d kept trying to recover her own memory.
It’s real. He’ s not lying.His mind had been played with too. Her father hadn’t purposely sold her out. It made her heart thunder in her chest and she found herself reaching for the man sitting on the ground, kneeling so she could look at him clearer. He refused to look at her.
“Dad,” she said softly as she touched his shoulder, “it’s me. Gentry. My life is tied to Drayer Netherton’s life because of that curse when they made you hand me over. They’ve kept me imprisoned at Mage Headquarters for the last five years. But we’re here together now. I am here so that we can figure all this out. It’s not too late. But for that, I need you to tell me everything you remember.”
Maxwell shook his head, but managed to look at her. His eyes were red. “I don’t want to remember,” he whispered, “please don’t make me. Those girls…” He hid his head in his hands. “If I didn’t even protect you, who did I do it for?”
Her heart broke into a million pieces at that, at the idea of there being other girls. Had they been tethered to other rich families? Or had they been failures at the same curse before they had found Gentry? “Hiding doesn’t erase what happened, Dad. But we can at least make sure it won’t happen to anyone else ever again.”
Maxwell rubbed at his face. “You won’t think that once you know the truth. You should get your mother and sister and run. It’s too dangerous for you here. If they find you, they’ll lock you up again, only they’ll make sure you won’t be able to escape again.”
Gentry gripped her father’s shoulder harder. “Then tell me the truth.” Frustration made her voice sharper, harsher.
“I—” Maxwell cut himself off, his eyes wide as he looked down the corridor. “They’ve found us.” He shoved her into the hole in the wall, his face frantic.
“Fuck, he’s right,” Kit said. “Stay in there.” From over her father’s shoulder, Gentry could see the tall witch was looking side to side before he crammed himself into the impossibly small shelter with her and her father. “Looks like there are five of them. One vamp, four witches,” he breathed. “Three on the right, two on the left.”
“We’re doomed,” her father whispered as he shook his head frantically, “that’s too many.”
“Don’t get in my way,” Kit told her father, “stay here. Protect your daughter.” Then he was gone.
