He huffs and puffs a bit, but to my surprise, starts talking. “My dad got diagnosed with cancer when I was sixteen. He died when I was seventeen. While he was sick, my mom got it into her head that since she was losing him, she needed more kids. I wasn’t enough, I guess. So, after he died, she started IVF. She was already forty-three by then, so it was hard. The stress…the stress affected her badly. The girls were born when I was nineteen. I’m sure you know what happened after that.”
I know what’s been written about it and yes, I saw various doctor’s reports, but I want to hear it from him. “What happened?”
“My mom became unwell after the birth. Very unwell. Postpartum Psychosis. She hasn’t been well ever since. You know that.”
“Are the girls your father’s?”
“Yes.” He gives me a filthy look. “You know that too. It’s well documented. He donated sperm and signed some sort of waiver giving my mom permission to use it after he died.”
“You couldn’t have been too happy about it. I can’t see you being the type who’d enjoy having to share his inheritance three ways.”
“I don’thaveto share anything, Asshole. It’s all mine. I’m the only child named in the will. I guess it was an oversight on my dad's part, or he didn’t think the IVF would work. He left a lot of assets to my mother, but he left BeckIT to me. All of it. My uncle’s been running the company since he died, but when I turn twenty-five in June, I’ll officially own one hundred percent of BeckIT. I’ll share what I have with my sisters because I want to. Not because I have to.”
“You must love them a lot.”
“I hated them when they were born. I hated them while my mom was pregnant, too. I wished she’d have a miscarriage. I hated them even more when she got sick when they were a few days old. I blamed them. I’d moved out of the house by then and lived on my own, but every day I’d go over to my mom’s place. I used to go to the nursery and stand over their cribs and stare at them. They were so fucking small. So fucking tiny and weak. I couldn’t stop looking at them. One day I dragged Lacey along. I did it ‘cause she really hates babies and I knew they’d freak her out big time.” He gives me an evil smile that’s startling in its beauty. “She was a bit freaked out, but not as much as I thought she’d be. She looked at them for a while and then she said, ‘Just think, Boo. You could be the person in their lives that you needed in yours.’ So, yeah. Strangely enough, they ended up being the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Until you brought me on this fucked up little vacay, I’ve seen them or spoken to them every single day of their lives.”
“I’ve uh, been sending them regular messages from you.”
“That’s not the same and you know it. They’re six. They need me.”
“It won’t be much longer. The drop-off is arranged for tomorrow.”
I don’t usually tell marks this type of thing. It’s bad form. It’s terribly stupid. The last thing you want to do is get a mark rattled this close to the exchange. I console myself with the fact that given all the other stupid things I’ve done on this job; this doesn’t even make the top ten.
He looks angry. He’s trying not to, but there’s a slight downward curl at the corners of his mouth that would have devolved into a snarl if he wasn’t trying to hide it. He scans my face, reading it, searching it for something he can use to hurt me.
“So,” he says when he finds it, “what about your dad?”
“I didn’t know him.” Good. Good answer. Short and sweet. I should stop talking there, but I don’t. I must be into some weird form of masochism or self-sabotage, because for some unknown reason, I want to talk. I want him to know. “I had no idea who he was, until I tracked him down when I was thirteen.”
That’s true, by the way. My father was the very first person I ever stalked. At the time I wasn’t sure why I was doing it. I didn’t like him. It was obvious he was a shit. A different kind of shit than my mom, but still, a shit nonetheless. I started out just walking by, seeing how close I could get without him noticing me. I followed him everywhere. I learned his habits and routines. It became like an obsession. I got closer and closer to him until I knew everything about him. I loved it. It was like an internal dare. A challenge. I read his mail. I broke into his house and touched his things. I was scared shitless, but I did it. I had to. I had to prove to myself that I could.
“What happened when you met him? Did you go and live with him?”
“Ha! No, he wasn’t that kind of dad, believe me.” I stalked him for almost four months before he caught me. He cornered me in an alley and asked why I was following him. When I didn’t answer, he went for his knife. I’d been watching him long enough to have seen him use it before. I knew what he could do with that knife. I knew I was in danger. Real danger. So, I told him I was his son. I hadn’t been planning on it, but I had to think on my feet. He didn’t say a word. He looked at me in disgust, and then he swung his fist. “The day we officially met,” I say, pointing to my nose, “he gave me this.”
He doesn’t waiver. He scarcely reacts. “Did you kill him?”
The answer is yes. I killed him. He was the first person I stalked. The first person who threatened my life and the first person I killed. I guess you could say my dear old dad was my first everything.
Obviously, I don’t answer. As much as being in Damon’s presence turns me into the dumbest fuck of all time, even I’m not dumb enough to answer a question like that. So, I’m silent, but when he searches my face again, I let him look. His eyes trace lightly along my brow and down the bridge of my nose. They move to the right and then the left, as they follow the jagged line of the profile my father gave me. They settle on my eyes. I know I should blink. I should look away, or close my eyes at least, but I don’t. I stay open. Not for long, but long enough. I don’t look away until he gives a slight nod and a soft, sweet smile that wraps up what he says next like a gift complete with a bow.
“Good.”
“Okay, let’s wrap this up.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, “I’m getting bored and hungry. That breakfast was shit. What were you thinking feeding me that? My sugar levels are crashing.”
Dealing with a Demon on a sugar crash is the last thing I want. “I’ll make you a sandwich.” I say, as I start moving to get out of bed.
“No, not yet.” He catches my arm. “I have one more question.”
“If you get a question, I get one too.”
“Fine, but you can’t ask anything you already know the answer to. You have to ask something you couldn’t find out online.”
I wrack my brain. I know so much about him, it’s hard to think of something I truly don’t know the answer to. “Hmm, okay, I’ve got one.” It’s not a great question, but it’s all I can come up with that meets his stipulation. “Why do you sell your Adderall to your friends? You don’t need the money and you don’t need the Adderall. Why don’t you just give it to them?”
