Page 28 of Claim Her
“I love you, Zara. We love you. You know that, right?”
“I do. I love you too, Mom. You and Dad.”
The call ends, and I lie back on the floor, the carpet fibers rough against my skin. I don’t know where to go from here.
13
ALEC
The door closes behind her, and I can hear my heart breaking into pieces. Every step she takes farther from me cuts deep, leaving behind a raw and gaping wound that I know will take forever to heal … if at all.
I slept last night thinking of all the things I wanted to do with her—live life to the fullest mostly. The last thing I expected to wake up to was her sobbing on the living room floor with Daisy’s hair clip.
Daisy.
My mind still refuses to reconcile the girl I met with the woman I was just with. I’ve always wanted to find her—not to introduce myself or anything but to see if she’s doing well. If she’s thriving. If she’s not haunted by memories of that island with its gothic chateau.
Memories flood me, a torrent of images and emotions crashing into me.
When I met Daisy, I was the only one left in the chateau. My brothers were all shipped to boarding school, but I still had a few weeks before I turned 12. We had our suspicions, but nothing so concrete because as kids, we didn’t know human’s capacity for evil. We just knew our uncle was a monster.
Living with Jackson for years was hard. We only had each other, but it was better than nothing. We suspected something was going on, and Jackson had one rule for us—no wandering around.
Of course, we didn’t listen. We had an island and a massive chateau entirely to ourselves … or that was what we thought.
The first beating we experienced was after we discovered a small cottage by the sea. It had a cot and nothing else. Jackson could have shrugged it off and said it was for one of his men.
But no. He smacked each of us in the face, which only fueled our curiosity.
Eventually, he no longer needed an excuse to hit us. We’d sit there drinking soup loudly, and he’d hurl a ceramic bowl at us. It didn’t take long before it became clear he was not the uncle we thought he was.
I saw them shoving Daisy into a cell because Jackson was busy on the phone and I was bored playing alone. It was my first time seeing the basement, and the horror of what I witnessed never left me. Not even now.
The fact that Zara and Daisy are one and the same makes barbed wires coil in my belly. I was so worried about two parts of my life colliding, but I found out they had always been connected.
What a fucking joke.
Were her and my suffering not enough? Were both the physical and mental scars lacking?
Each time I remember the look on her face, it’s like a hot knife twisting in my gut. Jackson still has power over us, even though he’s probably half the world away. He’s still very much capable of inflicting wounds that cut deeper than any physical pain he’s caused.
A part of me went with Zara when she left. I will never be whole again. And the sad thing is, I understand why.
For years, I fought with the darkness. Most of the time, it won. I spent days, months, weeks floating, like a drowning man clutching at straws. Reaching out and grabbing nothing. My hands coming up empty.
The only thing that helped me face the demons was the single-minded goal of destroying Jackson. Killing him? No. He doesn’t deserve that kind of mercy. A quick death won’t do. He has to suffer like the rest of us, like the rest of his victims. Slow, long, drawn-out torture is more like it.
Thinking of that used to calm me down and clear my head.
It doesn’t work today.
Not the next day.
Not the next week.
Zara occupies my mind. As I work. As I sit in the conference room, going over our final plans for Seine House. As I mindlessly eat, not tasting anything. As I go through the motions of existing every day. Existing, no longer living.
She doesn’t want me to remind her, so I purposely avoid bumping into her … only to find out that she’s moved.