“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
He’s already storming up the stairs.
I rush after him, reaching the landing in time to position my back to the open guest room door a few feet away. I keep my face neutral as I silently pray my stepdad doesn’t go into the guest suite.
I stand there the way my brothers and I used to with Dad when we didn’t want to draw his attention to something we didn’t want him to destroy. Like that mouse.
Thankfully, Frank takes the bait and heads to my bedroom.
I know the drill. He does this sometimes—especially since I started to really hit puberty, got taller than my mom. He was always checking my phone, tracking my whereabouts, trying to find any evidence of a lie. All it did was make me good enough at tech to outsmart the FBI. Which was more than enough to get rich.
Frank’s footfalls are heavy as he walks like a soldier down the hall and throws open the door to my bedroom.
“Hello?” Dani calls sleepily.
Lulu barks when Frank turns on the light, his eyes searching, searching.
I reach over to flick the light switch off.
“Nothing, darling.” I add, “Go back to sleep.”
“Okay. I had too many cinnamon rolls. Don’t let me do that again.”
“I really think it was the scotch,” I tell her and softly close the door.
“Happy?” I ask Frank in a low voice.
He stares at me for a long moment. It’s a tactic—people want to fill the silence and end up revealing something incriminating.
I keep my mouth shut.
“Kraig thinks you’re hiding something.”
“Since when did he work at Svensson Investment?”
“Stop trying to change the subject,” Frank snarls.
I shrug. “Fine. Go ahead and accuse me of whatever you’re going to.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” he spits.
“Really? Because it kind of feels like you want to ask me if I have any weird desires to chain her up and fuck her up the—”
“Don’t be crass.”
He’s furious. Looks like he wants to punch something. Instead he swallows his anger and adjusts his baseball cap.
“I’m warning you. I’m watching you. I won’t let you become your father and break your mother’s heart.”
I let him back into the private elevator lobby then rush back upstairs to Dani.
She’s propped up, scrolling on her phone when I step into the bedroom and lean my back against the closed door.
“Do you do anything other than scroll on that damn phone? I have a library here, you know.” I breathe heavily as she looks up at me.
“I didn’t know you were getting surprise houseguests in the middle of the night. And I thought my mom was bad about not knocking.”
