Franklin took a sip from his mug, his throat working to swallow the liquid down as his eyes held mine from across the room. Our silence meant nothing at that point. We both knew what the other was thinking.
“I told her she could return tonight. Apparently, she had nowhere else to go and was hopeful I would extend the courtesy of a rushed decision.”
“It won’t be easy for her here. Did you tell her that?”
His eyes glimmered. “I’d hate to have burdened her with the truth while she was so very desperate for help. I thought you could be the one to let her know.”
It was just like Franklin to think ahead. He knew me well enough. Knew exactly what I wanted. Hell, the man had practically raised me to become what I am, so it wasn’t surprising he’d saved that pleasure for me.
“That’s fine. Let her come here, and for the first few days I’ll remain scarce in order to let her get settled.”
In truth, I hoped to watch her from the shadows like I’d always done as a kid. It would be interesting to judge her behavior after ten years hidden away. I was sure she expected to return to her pampered position within the family. It was unfortunate for her that wouldn’t be happening.
“What will you do to her? I know you still blame Lisbeth for your mother’s death.”
While we’d never discovered exactly what happened the night of the ball, the fallout from the slaughter of so many esteemed members of society hadn’t been easy. Investigations were made, accusations were tossed across networks, and nobody was certain how it was possible for so many to be killed when many were armed and could have fought back.
Hell, I still wasn’t sure how I’d ended up asleep but alive within all the chaos.
All we knew was that over a hundred people were dead, many families entirely wiped out because none of them had young children who would have been watched somewhere else, and the only people missing were Lisbeth and her mother.
We’d assumed it was an abduction, possibly a ploy to earn money through a high dollar ransom, but when no demands were received, we weren’t entirely sure what Lisbeth’s disappearance meant.
But I knew she had something to do with what occurred that night, and if not for her, my mother would still be alive.
For that, the bitch had a world of hurt coming.
“I’m not sure yet. Let me think on it. I have a few days to decide what I want to do.”
I moved to stand, but Franklin’s voice stopped me.
“Will you throw her to the fighters? Make her a whore for the pit?”
My jaw clenched at the thought. It would be so easy to toss her to the wolves and laugh while her body was used and her spirit broken, but the thought of it forced my hands to clench into fists. For so many years, she had been the pinnacle of beauty in my world, even if her behavior never matched the fairness of her skin.
I wasn’t willing to toss her anywhere until I knew for sure what she’d become in the ten years since I’d last seen her.
“It’s an option,” I stated matter of fact, my refusal to commit to a decision causing Franklin to laugh.
“Perhaps you should be the one to break her in.”
I pushed to my feet, finished with the conversation. “Perhaps,” was all I said in response.
Leaving Franklin to his newspaper and whatever else he had planned for the day, I left the room and wove a few more halls to change clothes and get ready for a workout that would be much more brutal now that I knew Lisbeth was returning.
Lisbeth
“Where would you like these suitcases to be stored? We can secure them in a closet near the lobby while you wait.”
Glancing up at the hotel concierge, I forced a smile on my face even though I felt nothing but shame. It was impossible to say how I’d ended up at this point, impossible to understand how I’d been born into a life with no worries of the future only to find myself at twenty-seven with less than fifty dollars to my name and nothing to show for it.
“The closet will be fine. Thank you. My uncle said someone would be here within the hour to pick me up.”
Never in my life had I been so washed up and desperate. If my mother weren’t already dead, I would kill her myself for the mess she left me in: Penniless with no hope of earning money on my own. My mother had bled our accounts before leaving this life, had continued to live lavishly while we were on the run. And for what? To save my life? To escape the man my father had promised me to on my seventeenth birthday?
I never understood how my mother knew I’d be sent off or why my father would have done such a thing. It wasn’t like he needed money or would owe somebody a favor so large he could only pay it with his daughter’s body.
But mom had insisted what she did was for the best. She never told me the man’s name or why he was so dangerous, just kept shuttling me around from place to place until there was nothing left for us to live on. She pointed to the death of so many people at the party as proof that the man to whom my father sold me was a psychopath. She claimed he’d lost his mind to learn that I was gone.
I didn’t know how she’d managed to pull me from the party. In one minute, I was talking with Eleanor about her plans for school, and in the next, I was waking up in a room I didn’t recognize with my mother pacing near a window.
And then, after ten years of hiding me away, mom had died and left me to manage her mess on my own.
If not for my uncle, I would be on the streets tonight. The hotel manager had been kind when he came to my room. He hadn’t laughed or smiled to tell me he could no longer allow me to stay here without some form of payment. He’d looked embarrassed, if anything, for me, for himself, for having to explain that businesses weren’t run on acts of kindness.
When I called Franklin, I’d been desperate for a loan. He’d insisted on coming out to meet me, had gone on and on about how worried the surviving members of my family had been.
It surprised me to learn he knew nothing of my whereabouts, that he didn’t know of the accounts my mother used to fund our escape, he only knew that my debutant ball had turned into a slaughter and I was presumed dead when they couldn’t find me.
For ten years, my mother swore that Franklin would turn around and give me to that man. She’d refused to contact him, had lost her mind every time I mentioned it. My fingers shook when I dialed his number, but after meeting with him, I was beginning to believe that something had been wrong with my mother.
Maybe she’d lost her mind, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was Franklin had swept in here as fast as he could to invite me back to the Rose estate, practically begging me to return. The man was falling all over himself, and I couldn’t tell him no.
Not that I was in a position to have declined his invitation. It was that or the streets. My decision was easy.
I couldn’t deny I was looking forward to returning home. Despite the accounts my mother had kept, our lives hadn’t been lived in the lap of luxury. Not like my childhood had been where I’d wanted for nothing and had everything at my fingertips.
Including him...a boy that drove me crazy at all times because he refused to look at me and refused to speak. Callan always did everything I demanded without fighting back, and it drove me mad that he wouldn’t argue or complain. I’d hated him by the time I turned seventeen, but I’d still cried when I learned that he was dead. Mom told me that not even the servants had survived the slaughter.