My father shakes me, and pain collides in shocking ways, ricocheting throughout my skull. The dull throb from the knockout hit melds with this new sting. There’s a strong iron taste of blood in my mouth. Seems my tooth caught my lip in the wrong way during his blow.
I shouldn’t do it. I know I shouldn’t.
But I’ve never been able to fully stifle irresponsible, knee-jerk urges around my father.
I spit a glob of blood into his face.
Bill drops me, and I land hard on my hip. Stumbling backward, he curses my name and tugs off his shirt to wipe the drool and gore off his cheek.
With him in front of me, shirtless, I acknowledge the one department my father hasn’t been lazy in is his workout routine. Mid-forties, and he’s still roped in wiry muscle. If only he’d set up my old bedroom as his weight room, I’d have a lot more to work with once I got time alone to search for weapons.
“You’re disgusting,” he hisses at me.
“And you’re pathetic, jelly bean.”
Never antagonize your captors, I often tell my clients. Why can’t I listen to my own advice and keep my mouth shut?
Do as I say, not as I do.
“Bill!”
My mother’s voice gives him pause in the act of kicking my rib cage. We both look to the room’s open door.
And there she is. The woman whose face I always wish I could never see in my own. She stares back and forth between us, shock in the sky-high set of her brows. Because even for our family, a tied-up beating isn’t normal.
“What did she do?” my mom asks.
Of course. Briefly, I let myself hope my mother would be some kind of ally. That she’d let a little bit of selflessness into her heart.
Naive.
I should have known she’d never truly question my father. That the idea of her daughter deserving this treatment only requires a simple explanation before her sign-off.
“She’s been keeping secrets from us. Trying to steal from us.” My father has the confidence of a man with no conscience.
“What do you mean?”
Did I hear a quiver in her voice? Probably at the fear of losing money.
“I mean, your mother’s money. We’re going to get it.” His words ring with triumph. The hero saving the day. “Enough to set us up for a long while. As long as your daughter stops lying.”
Funny how it’stheirmoney, but I’mherdaughter.
My dad retrieves a slip of folded paper from his back pocket, handing it over to his wife.
“It’s all there. Luna only gets the cash if she’s married by her birthday and stays hitched for a year.”
With hesitant hands, my mother takes the papers.
I can’t help smirking at the man looming over me. “Do you carry that around like a baby blanket? Does it keep you warm and safe at night?”
This time, my father does kick me, and I curse both him and myself.
When am I going to learn to shut up?
“What does this matter?” Vivian glances between the two of us. “Luna isn’t married.”
“Seems we didn’t get an invite to the nuptials. Our little girl found herself a sucker, and she’s going to use him to steal the money right from under our noses. Or she was, before I found out.”
