“Where is she?” I demanded, leaning against the wall for support. “Where’s Mama?”
Papa snorted. “Why don’t you start by explaining how you fucked up?”
“Where is my mother!” I wasn’t playing this game.
I pulled out the gun. Although I couldn’t hear past the blood pumping through my veins, even as my vision tunneled, my hands were steady.
I could do this.
You’ve done it before.
A soft, strained whisper moaned. That sound was powerful enough to snap me out of the killing rage. My gaze cut to thelounge chair. Two small feet in kitten heels poked out from behind the desk.
“You had one job.” Papa walked leisurely around the room, taking a swig from the brandy. “One simple thing I ask of you, and you can’t even do that.”
“Mama,” I croaked.
She was barely visible. Her slight frame was wedged in an awkward position. Her Sunday dress was askew as if—
O, dio.
Bile rose up my throat. No,no….
“Don’t you have enough children?” I spat, swiveling to keep the gun trained on my father.
He crossed his arms, decanter dangling from his fingertips. “You have no right to discuss what happens between a man and his wife.”
I was going to be sick.
Latching onto the rage in my chest, I fired at the far wall. The bullet whistled past my father’s head.
Watching the bastard duck was priceless.
“The next one goes between your eyes,” I snarled.
Papa looked at me. Really, truly looked. It was as if he finally realized I had a gun. That I was capable of unleashing twenty-two years of pent-up anger on him, and I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep.
Fortunately for him, the door crashed open.
Ella stood there, kitchen knife in her hand.
“No,” I wheezed. “Get back! Ella—no!”
But Papa was too fast.
He batted the weapon away, snatching my sister by the hair. I was a fair shot when the target was alone, but this? Him holding her? I was going to miss.
My body couldn’t channel the adrenaline.
Air wouldn’t fill my lungs.
“Lower that gun,” Papa boomed.
Before I could react, a lilting voice, filled with a deadly calm, interrupted.
“Gabriella, are you alright?”
It took three painful heartbeats before I could look away from my father and sister to face Connor. The shadow who’d been tailing me every time I left his master’s fortress.
