“Kane will act as your mirror image,” Rowan explains. “A reflection of you the world will see to protect you. He will be your armor, your shield. You, the head of the family.”
“What happens to Delilah?” Asher asks.
It is my caring, adoring father who answers, “Use her, abuse her. As long as she projects the happy family image on your reflection’s arm once you bear an heir, then you don’t need her.” He laughs on the audio clip, but glares at me in real life. “After all, you will have anything you need to satisfy your appetite at The D?—”
“Harkin,” Rowan says, low and deadly.
The clack of me hitting the space key, pausing the clip, is loud in the tense house as I lightly ask, “Would you like to hear more?”
As predicted, the rage begins. My father moves like an athlete, charging up the stairs while I run to hide the laptop. Islide it under my bed then quickly run into my closet, leaning up like I’m hiding it as he storms into my room.
Spinning around, I straighten my shoulders. “Get the charges dropped against Kane and no one will ever hear it. They won’t know you’re a sick fucking bastard who raped his own daughter!”
My mother is slower, no less angry as she stops behind him, her eyes drilling into the back of his head. Hope is such a stupid thing, yet it weaves through a childhood of neglect at finally having someone on my side.
“Mom, do you remember when we’d go to the office parties? The ones at the ballroom?”
She snaps her head to me. “Shut your mouth, Delilah.”
“Do you remember how I’d be sick after the parties? You thought I was drinking, remember?”
“Delilah,” she grits, nostrils flaring. “Shut. Up.”
That stupid hope dies, fracturing more pieces of me.
She doesn’t fucking believe me. I wouldn’t lie about this.
My mother has never been a good mother, but how can’t she believe me? I’m her daughter. She gave birth to me. She should protect me in this. If not anything else, then at least in this.
Grabbing the bastard’s arm, she asks, “I thought you said she wouldn’t remember?”
“That,” I spit, my face contorting, “is what you’re asking him? Why I remember, when he’s a fucking rapist!”
I slip my hand behind me, finding the knife I hid between my folded sweaters as they argue with each other like I’m not even here.
“She doesn’t remember,” my father says. “She’s going off the details Asher gave her. I told you that boy was too egotistical.”
“If Helene finds out you have allowed your little princess to ruin her twice over she will come for us all. Fix it, Harkin.”
She turns, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she walks out of my room, softly closing the door behind her. My mother—the one person who’s supposed to protect me, the person who is supposed to be connected to me before birth—walks out of my room, leaving me with her rapist, pedophile, piece of shit husband.
She chooses him.
She’s chosen her life with him over my safety.
All this time I thought there was a limit to her lack of care, but she already knew.
Fuck her.
Fuck them both.
I’m not a stupid girl, an idiot, or insolent. I’ve been forced to be around monsters, but I’m not going to let them touch me again, so I keep the knife at my back as I look into the eyes of my father—my first abuser. “If you touch me, I will fucking ruin you. All of the recordings will be sent to your associates, your board of directors, the press; every single person you’ve ever come into contact with will see what you really are.”
He laughs when I’ve never seen him be anything other than cold without an audience to perform for. When I was a child, I would tell him jokes to earn his affection, only to be pushed away. Now, he fucking laughs.
“Do you know why I call you princess?” He takes a step forward. I hold the knife tighter. “Considering you are the least intelligent of my children, I’ll spell it out for you. A princess’s role is to be seen, to play her part. You couldn’t even do that correctly.”
My legs tremble as he unbuckles his belt.
