A muffled noise. I leave the last step, and his workbenches come into full view. My dad is sitting next to one, shoulders hunched, his face in his hands. I rush across to him in my high heels. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
“Daddy.” I crouch down in front of him, and he uncovers his face. His skin is blotchy, eyes red. “Are you okay?”
“I wanted funding for my project. That’s all.” His voice quavers, and my heart breaks again. How many times can it do that before I die? “I didn’t mean to do any harm. It’s a good project.”
A daughter should never see her father so desperate. “I know. I know.” I take his hands in mine and begin the hopeless task of finding the right thing to say. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Caroline sent her man to lock me down here. He says I can’t be trusted. Me. Untrustworthy. I’ve spent my life being trustworthy. All I’ve ever done is try to make things to help people. I can be trusted.” His voice rises, and I’m acutely conscious of Ronan standing at the top of the stairs.
“You’re right. You are. Aunt Caroline—” Ronan. Stairs. Close. “She sees things a different way. It’s a misunderstanding. We’ll smooth everything over.”
“What about my invention?” He’s so pale. So afraid. “It can’t die with me.”
“Daddy, you’re not going to die. Nobody is going to let that happen. Let’s let Caroline clear her head, and then we’ll find a way to make things right with her.” It makes me sick to think about appeasing her. “I’ll make things right. You can concentrate on your work, and everything will go back to how it was.”
Footsteps on the stairs. “Any trouble?” Ronan comes down into the workshop, and I hate him for it. I hate him so much.
“No trouble at all,” I tell him.
“Except that I ruined everything.” Dad’s eyes darken. His blue eyes match mine, but his are clouded with tears and frustration. “I’m so sorry, honey. I never should have made that deal with Leo. I never should have let you go to him.”
Ronan coughs behind me, covering up surprise. He didn’t know. Leo kept his secret. He and his sisters didn’t say a word about me to anyone. It’s my own family putting me in danger. Aunt Caroline’s hitman comes to stand closer. Of course he does. He wants to hear everything we say so he can take it back to his boss.
“You ruined things a little bit, yeah. But it’ll be okay, Daddy. I’ll fix everything.”
My dad doesn’t believe me. He drops his head, looking down at our hands. Ronan shouldn’t be here for this moment. There’s no need to humiliate my dad and make this harder than it has to be. I meet Ronan’s eyes, ready to tell him to leave us alone, but his expression stops the words dead.
Pity is etched in his face.
Pity.
For me.
It should give me a sense of hope, that Caroline’s man feels sympathy for us. But it scares me instead. Down to the bone. Down to the core of everything. Nothing but ice-coated fear, all the way down.
Ronan’s pity is more terrifying than his gun. It’s scarier than the violence he threatens just by being in the room. He’s a man with no mercy. He would not hesitate to kill both of us. Pity on his face means there’s a fate worse than death, if we don’t fall in line.
I squeeze my dad’s hand and let go, standing up before my knees protest the heels and the crouching. Ronan meets my eyes without flinching. He’s more than fine with this job. “Will you be staying with us, then?”
“Until I’m called away.”
Until we’re dead, he means. Or until some more pressing assignment comes along. Please, let something more important come along. I take my dad’s hand and pull him to standing with me. “Fine. When’s the last time you had something to eat?”
“I don’t remember.” Dad shakes his head. “Earlier.”
“Earlier today?”
“Could have been yesterday.” He waves a hand in the air, then swallows hard. “It was easier to keep time when your mother was alive.”
I meet Ronan’s eyes and lift my chin. “I’m taking him to the kitchen.”
Ronan has plenty of time to stop us. It’s also plenty of time to feel how I don’t fit in this house. I don’t fit here in the dress. I don’t fit here in this body. I don’t fit here in spirit, either. My heart wants to be with Leo Morelli.
We walk together to the stairs, and Dad hesitates. He looks back over his shoulder at Ronan.
“Go ahead,” he says. “I’ll be right up.”
22
Leo
I don’t sleep.
I haunt the halls of my mansion like a ghost, snapping at Gerard and scowling at Mrs. Page from what seems like a great distance. Some of my people are looking for Haley’s father. No word yet on whether they’ve found him. I shower in the gym, because I can’t bring myself to go back to my own bedroom. On a day like today even water on the scars is like acid.
Sometime toward afternoon I end up in my office. The den is impossible. Sleep is impossible. Thank god for pain, my constant companion. I’ll never be truly alone.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been glaring into space when Gerard comes in with soft footfalls and a very careful expression. “There’s a visitor here to see you.”
I have a moment of ecstatic, wild hope that it’s Haley. “No need to draw this out. Tell me who the fuck it is.”
“It’s Caroline Constantine, sir.”
A part of me blanches. That part is buried so deep that it won’t ever rise to the surface. No one will ever know how the sound of her name makes me ill. I no longer react to it. I will never react to it again. “Send her in.”
Gerard hesitates. “Are you sure?”
“Did I say to send her in or did I tell you to second-guess me like a man who’s begging to be blacklisted and hunted down for sport?”
He nods and leaves.
I wait.
I don’t wait long.
Caroline Constantine is dressed for the cold. All white. She looks like a twisted version of Haley. There’s no sweetness to her. No kindness. Only a plastic, cultivated beauty from years of subtle plastic surgery and an anti-aging regimen that probably involves worshipping Satan. She strides into my office on stilettos, disapproval in her eyes. “Leo. No need to belabor the discussion.”
As if we’ve been having a fucking discussion. “Hello, Caroline. It’s so lovely to see you.”
The words taste like ashes and lies.
“Yes, hello. I’ve come to dissolve the contract you’ve coerced my brother-in-law into signing.”
I sit back in my seat and put on an air of mild confusion. “Coerced? He was perfectly willing. You have my word.”
“I’m not sure your word is sufficient.”
“I’m not sure you care about consent.”
She frowns, her eyes flicking upward in a mimicry of a roll. “Don’t be difficult. You and I both know your contract is exploitative, and I want it dissolved.” Her tone grinds into my bones like pitted concrete. There was a time in my life when a hint of her haughty disapproval would have me scrambling to please her. Caroline lifts a hand and gestures vaguely in my direction. “I don’t find this attitude attractive.”