Page 57 of Shatter

"He wanted you." Hakon's voice has gone very flat.

"He wanted a Carrow." My throat locks around the name, and my eyes fly to his face.

Too late.

It's out, hanging in the air between us.

He doesn't pounce on it or lean forward.

He waits, the same way he waited in the walk-in, with his hands open on his thighs.

"He wanted my father's daughter." I swallow hard. "A wife would keep my father in line. Make the debt a family matter. And I kept the books, so I knew where every dollar went, and a wife can't testify against her husband."

"Kept the books." His brows draw together. "For your father?"

"For the company." I pull the drive out from under the pillow and hold it up between two fingers, the plastic bag catching the light. "Every shipment, every account my father ever moved money through for Desmond, for nine years."

Hakon looks at the drive.

He doesn't reach for it.

His hands curl slowly into fists on his thighs, and the split skin across his knuckles pulls tight and white.

"He sold you." His voice is barely louder than the fan. "Your father sold you to pay off a debt."

My eyes burn.

It sounds so much worse out loud, in his voice, in his flattened, careful vowels.

At home, nobody ever said it like this.

They called it an alliance.

They called it a good match and a fresh start for the family.

My mother cried at the engagement party and told everyone how happy she was.

"Yes." It comes out cracked. "He did."

Hakon closes his eyes.

His jaw works, once, twice, and the muscles in his forearms stand out like cables under his skin.

When he opens his eyes again, they've gone pale and hard, the way they went in the diner kitchen when Aren's voice came over the phone.

"Tor needs to know what's on it." He doesn't look away from the drive.

My fingers close around the drive.

"No." I pull it back against my chest. "Not yet."

"Katie—" He leans forward.

"You said you wouldn't take it." My voice climbs. "In the walk-in. You didn't even ask."

"I'm not taking it." He doesn't move from the chair. "I'm telling you there's a man named Laurent out there who saw our patches, and a man in Vancouver who's going to find out where you are, and my president wants to know what's coming for his club. He's got a right to that."

"Then tell him what I told you." I'm shaking again, fine tremors in my hands. "Tell him it's money. Tell him it's Desmond's. That's all anybody needs to know until I decide."