Page 75 of React
“Wow, I’m thinking we both got our self-destructive tendencies from Mommy Dearest.” He swiped away a tear I hadn’t even known I’d dropped. It was probably from the relief of stealing his attention more than the soul chilling fear that came from being bound in front of a man so unhinged he plotted my demise since I was 13 years old.
“What I don’t get,” he said, straightening and moving to stand behind Robert. “Is why you care about this man.” He gripped a handful of gray hair and yanked the man’s head back until there was a gasp of pain from Robert. “Do you know how easy it was to turn him against you? He was never loyal to the daughter who was too much like his poor wife. Looking at you was looking at her. Blah blah blah.” He shoved Robert’s head down as he paced behind the bound man. “You know in the beginning it was actually hard work. He couldn’t focus on his career; he just wanted to be there for his baby girl. I had to sacrifice my life to keep him in check. Always reminding him how hard it would be to look into the face of the little girl he couldn’t raise. I actually spent entire nights working to make sure he didn’t cave and retire to be a fucking stay-at-home dad!
After a few months, you turned into the little shit I knew you were and it was smooth sailing after that. Make him focus his disappointment outwardly. Remind him how good he’d done by you and how ungrateful you were. After a few years, his resentment was automatic and I just got to sit back and watch you both fall apart. Which you did. Beautifully.”
He stopped his pacing and pulled a terrifyingly familiar knife from behind him and held it in front of Robert’s throat. I watched my father’s eyes widen then set into a hard look as he trained his dull green gaze on me. I saw it in him. The regret and apology. He’d been manipulated for so long by the man bent on destroying him. He stared unblinkingly at me, and I blinked rapidly myself to clear the tears filling my eyes and making him go blurry.
“The thing is Lake, I don’t need him anymore. He was my tool to fuck with you. He was my loaded gun and I aimed him at you. Bang!” The last word was a shout that had both me and my father jumping at the sudden burst of sound amid such calm conversation. “Anyway, I regret to inform you Robert, that after all these years of service to you… I quit.” He jerked the knife quickly across Robert’s throat and I closed my eyes as something wet sprayed over me.
I wanted to scream and rage and rip my arms from their sockets in an attempt to get free, but I was frozen in place, unwilling to react to any more evil he could throw at me. I stayed motionless, eyes squeezed shut as I heard my father struggle against his bindings. The seconds felt like hours before there was no sound other than the shuffling of those damn loafers toward me.
“Still wondering what my damage is, Lake?” He asked smoothly, his voice so close to my ear that I pulled my head back instinctively. “Aw, don't be that way. Both of my parents are dead, now so are yours. We’ve got so much in common.” I felt his fingers dig into my scalp as he fisted my hair and forced my head up and in his direction. I opened my eyes and glared into his. “You were never fucking special, Lake!”
“I never said I was,” I whispered, eyes still drilling into his. I couldn’t cower in front of him. He wanted to destroy me. Well I wasn’t going to let him see the breaks.
“No, but you see, it just wasn’t fair.” He stood up and I fought to keep my eyes on him and not the body slumped in front of me. “I got booted into the system. I was neglected, beaten, molested, starved, and passed around my entire fucking life! I hadn’t done a thing to deserve it. But I finally got free and when I did I found my birth mother. I wanted to know how bad her life was that she could have abandoned me to that life.”
I didn’t care about any of this. My heart broke for a little boy forced to survive the hell he had described but people survived horrors every day without turning into a serial killer. He wanted to justify his deeds by blaming everyone else instead of admitting he was just fucked in the head. There was no point in listening to his warped sense of reality.
“I showed up at her door and begged her to talk to me. To explain how she could move on with her life and fuck, I don’t know, to see if she even thought about me. You know what she said to me?”
I turned my head and stared at the ceiling, refusing to even show feigned interest. “I’m sure it was something so triggering to your frail ego that you hatched a plan of revenge and murder right on the very spot.” I was actually pretty proud that my sass still went strong even when I was starving, bruised, half-naked and cut open.
Since my attention was fixed on the ceiling, I didn’t see Dominic round toward me, but I certainly felt his fist as it connected with my cheekbone. Stars exploded from my vision as my brain knocked against my skull on impact. The world seemed to shift in and out of focus as my eyes turned back to the man fuming next to my bed.
“This is why the other women had to die. You’re such an infuriating cunt, and I couldn’t ruin my mission by killing you. I had to take them to get out the rage you fucking cause!” He was screaming in my face, his voice to the decibel that my hearing went out a few times through his little tirade.
With my ears still ringing, I looked at him and blinked slowly. “Is anything everyourfault?” I hadn’t even meant to ask the question. I was willing to blame the punch for knocking the good sense to keep my mouth shut right out of me.
“When you’re choking on your own blood, watching me as your life drains from you, that will be allmyfault.”
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DECKER
“Hey, Ave. Can you check on Ellie?” Fitz's voice seemed to ring out among the hum of lower conversation that had been lulling me into a daze. I watched more and more information pile on as we learned more about the aliases used by Dominic Parker.
I turned to see Avery nodding and standing, ready to walk out the door. I wasn’t leaving her to wander around when I’d already lost sight of one important woman in my life. I crossed the room and stood in front of the door causing my sister to stop abruptly.
“What are you doing, Deck?”
“Who is Ellie?” I asked Fitz instead of answering her question.
“Evan’s sister,” he responded, shooting me an unimpressed look over his shoulders as he sorted through the evidence slapped in front of him as more information was collected. The computer nerds could collect all the information, but Fitz was the one who could sort it into the story we needed to find Lake. When he saw that my blank expression hadn’t changed, he turned toward me completely. “The blonde woman who came in here crying.”
“Oh,” I said, vaguely remembering a tear streaked face in the midst of our chaos. “Send someone else. Avery is staying here.”
“I can go, Deck. I’ve met her a few times before. It might help her to see a familiar face while she waits for Evan to wake up.”
I turned my eyes to her and growled, “I’m not letting another woman I love out of my fucking sight.” Tension vibrated through my body with every breath. I wanted to tear the entire building apart to just get some answers. I was crawling out of my skin as the hours ticked away and I could only sit here.
Avery pressed a gentle hand to my chest, her hand landing over the shrapnel scar and I flinched. Not from the pain but by the way Lake has so reverently placed her hand over it the night I told her about Remy. My body shuddered with true fear for the first time in so long that I didn’t even recognize it. But it was there, thick and dark, squeezing the air from my lungs as I pulled my sister into a hug that was probably too tight, but she didn’t complain. Avery held onto me for long minutes trying to give me strength through the contact almost as much as I was trying to leech strength from it.
“I’ll check on her,” Scout said, standing and twisting her back from one side to the other as a series of cracks worked their way up her spine.
“You’re working on information about Parker,” I said quickly, pausing her move for the door. I’d released Avery instantly in panic when Scout stopped her work.
“Easy there, killer, I gave everything I could to Fitz to work out. I gotta go meet my dad soon anyway. He’s about 20 minutes out which gives me time to pee, check on Ellie, then bring my dad up here so you can keep your mind off worrying by interrogating him.” She leveled a glare on me and it looked so much like one from Lake that I both wanted to laugh and cry. “Interrogate him politely. Just because he is friends with Harrington doesn’t mean he’s friends with Dominic.”