“Okay, Mum. How are you?”
She looked confused for a moment. For Mum, direct questions, let alone those asking her about herself, were a rarity.
“I’m fine. Don’t keep your dad waiting.”
I swallowed down my bitter response. This had been the pattern of my childhood.
Don’t keep your dad waiting.
Don’t run. Don’t make too much noise, your dad doesn’t like it.
Put those toys away, your dad likes a clean house.
Everything had centered around what my father liked or didn’t like. Nothing had been for us; nothing had been for Mum. It was all to please a cruel man who didn’t deserve to have a family.
I sighed. “Okay, let’s go through.”
Nobody acknowledged me when I entered the kitchen. Dad, Ruben and a man I knew as Pinky (so named because he had a penchant for chopping off people’s pinky fingers if they pissed him or my father off) were sitting at the large table.
“If they’ve lost the product,” Dad snapped, “then that’stheirfucking problem. They still have to pay, understand?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Pinky replied. “We’ll get it sorted.”
They talked business for a couple more minutes, and I stood stock still in the middle of the kitchen, hands clasped in front of me, waiting. I knew better than to interrupt my father or do anything that might piss him off. My mother, for her part, drifted into the kitchen, removing the empty beers from in front of the men and replacing them with new ones.
I hated this house, but I especially hated the kitchen. For some reason this seemed to be my father’s preferred area to conduct business, especially if he was “sending a message.” I’d accidentally walked in a few times as a child to those types of scenarios. Frank Mason liked people to kneel in front of him; he liked total submission before he did whatever sick, violent thing he was going to do to those he considered had “fucked him over.” More than once, I’d walked in on men kneeling in front of my father, shaking in fear. If I’d been lucky, I would escape before Dad saw me.
“Right, off you fuck, Pinky,” Dad finally said. “I’ve got to speak to the runt here.”
Pinky nodded to my dad and grabbed his beer, barely glancing at me as he strode out of the kitchen. I still didn’t move. It was better if I waited. Nobody took a seat in Frank Mason’s house without his express permission, not even his children.
“Little Mole,” Ruben said in a grumpy voice. “What the fuck are you doing here?” His tone was annoyed, but there was an edge of worry there too.
I wasn’t scared of Ruben. He’d never hurt me physically. Yes, he’d been cruel and dismissive, but, in a way, I felt sorry for him. He’d been groomed from a young age to be just like my father. But when Dad had caught me revising with Zach and punched me before throwing me down thestairs three months ago, it was Ruben who’d told him to back off. It was Ruben who’d driven me to hospital.
“I’m sorry, Little Mole,” he’d muttered when we pulled up outside the emergency department. “But you shouldn’t have come to the fucking house. Dad’s proper mental at the moment. The police are all over us after everything with Freddie. Just stay away, right?”
My father scowled at Ruben. “She’s here because I bloody well told her to be here,” he told him. “So you can fuck off an’ all, son.”
Ruben looked between me and Dad.
“You heard me, boy,” Dad said in a low, menacing voice. Pinky appeared in the doorway then, jerking his head to the side to indicate for Ruben to follow.
“We don’t need no more trouble, Dad,” Ruben said. “Not with Freddie banged up and his trial round the corner.”
Dad’s eyes flashed. “I’llsay what we need. Now piss off.”
Ruben’s jaw clenched before he let out a deep sigh, grabbed his beer and stalked out of the kitchen.
I flinched when Dad kicked out a chair from the other side of the table.
“Sit,” he barked. I moved then, darting to the chair and sitting down, my hands in fists on my lap to stop them from shaking. Dad, as usual, got right down to business. “Skinny Pete tells me you’re now fucking that barrister. Is that right, Clara?”
Cold fear trickled down the back of my spine as my eyes flew wide.
“N-n-no,” I forced myself to say, and saw a flash of annoyance in my father’s eyes at my stutter. Hehated my stutter. Never mind that he was the most likely culprit behind its development.
“Don’t lie to me, Runt,” Dad said in a low, dangerous voice.
