Page 71 of Paper Coffins

“I betyou think you’re right where you need to be.”

“Alistair.” I sigh. “What do you want?”

“I think that’s more for me to ask, don’t you?” He steps into the room, hands firmly in the pockets of his trousers. “What are you doing back?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions, Ali. It isn’t very becoming of you.”

“You know no one wants you here, right?” he asks in complete disregard of my prior comment. “You were forgotten by everyone. There is no legitimate reason you should be here.”

“My father died.” I keep my voice soft, deliberately innocent. “How could I stay away in the wake of that?”

“I bet you took every penny of the inheritance he left you.”

“Of course I did,” I quip, grinning.

Actually, I readily accepted my father’s money on the basis of a cash-based apology for being an absolute piece of shit. When he died, I knew how quickly this would all happen. It’s how it’s always been set up to happen, and it went without a hitch apart from one tiny part.

My inauguration.

“I took it because, as my birthright, I’m still an Abernathy.” I step forward, unwilling to back down to Alistair. “No one can deny that.”

“No, but you weren’t his heir enough to inherit The Company.”

“If I know you, Ali, you had a good deal to do with that.”

The small tug on his mouth tells me I’m correct.

“Now, if you have an issue with me being here, you’d better take that up with the boss.”

“Oh.” He chuckles as he rubs his jaw. “I have already. My grievance over you is one of a few. Before long, there will be larger issues. It’s only a matter of time before someone gives a helping hand in getting rid of you. And let’s be real here, Natalia. No one wants a pathetic, powerless whore like yourself in The Company.”

I huff on laughter. I knew Alistair and I would spar at some point, but is this the best he can hit me with?

“You never saw how relieved your father was that night he left you. It was like a weight lifted from his shoulders and he could breathe for the first time since his wife and son died. You were nothing but a burden on him after their deaths. For seven years, he lived the life he wanted without you dragging the name.”

Sticks and stones could break my bones, but the venom in Alistair’s words were always meant to do far more damage.

Time hasn’t changed that about him.

Nor does it change the way he grips my bicep.

“And now you’re here. Where you were told never to come back to.”

He was deluded if he thought I would shrink and disappear into the background.

“I thought I told you to never show your face again?”

I snigger. “Yeah, see, like I just told your son, Ali, I’m not one to listen.” I tilt my head and grin softly at him. “And you’re nothing to me, so whyever would I listen to you?”

“I wasn’t nothing to you once upon a time.”

I jerk against him. He enjoys my fight, and I hate myself for giving it to him.

“Remember how it felt?”

How could you forget, Tally?My mind snipes at me from a dark, forgotten recess.

“And what have I told you about that name?”