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I don’t like this house. I’ve never liked it here.
I should go back. She’ll get mad that I followed her anyway.
But then I shift to the left, my pulse hammering in my chest, as I see Madame’s husband, Mr. Torrance, cross into my view from behind his desk.
Madame and Mr. Torrance have a son. I rarely see him, though. He’s my sister’s age but goes to Catholic school.
A woman’s arms rise with her palms up and away from me as if I’m dirty and she doesn’t want to touch me.
He loves parties? I dig in my eyebrows, confused. His father doesn’t seem to agree.
The dark form inside the fountain. It sits behind the water in the bottom bowl, almost entirely hidden. Damon. Their son who was just getting yelled at upstairs.
I never hear my mom say anything nice about her, but while people are afraid of her, they are definitely nice to her face. She doesn’t look much older than my babysitter, but she has a kid older than me.
That was so long ago, but that day was burned into my mind because it was the last day I saw my mother’s face.
The last time I could run anywhere I wanted, knowing by the clear picture in front of me that the path ahead was without danger, and it was the last time people weren’t nervous around me, or my parents loved me more than they were burdened by me.
It was the last day I was me as I knew it and the first day of a new reality that could never be undone.
Because, God, I wished I never did. Some mistakes you never heal from.
now thirteen years later,
“Now . . .” my sister’s new husband whispered in my ear. “Now you belong to me.”
CHAPTER 2
“Your father guaranteed us a lofty settlement as long as I stay married to you for a year,” my sister said as she and Damon sat side by side, across from my mother and me in the car. “I intend to see it through. No matter what you pull.”
WHAT DAMON MARRIED HER SISTER
But no, I understood. As much as I wanted to pretend I didn’t know the end game, I did. Deep down, I did.
His plan wasn’t to ruin us. It was to torture.
How could she still want him? And they were going to bring kids into this madness? What he did when we were children wasn’t enough to convince her how bad he was, and neither was what he did to me in high school. She knew he couldn’t stand her, but still, she wanted him anyway. She’d always wanted him.
He made himself the cure, which wouldn’t have been necessary if he hadn’t also created the disease.
“If you have extramarital affairs,” Arion warned, “be discreet. And don’t expect me to be faithful then, either.”
“Let’s get some things straight,” he said calmly, “because I think you’ve forgotten exactly what your situation is, Arion.”
Don’t speak unless spoken to, and don’t ask me questions. It aggravates me.”
“I will fuck women who aren’t you, but you can’t fuck men who aren’t me, because no one else can father my kids. Duh,”
“I will come and go as I please, and I expect you to be dressed and ready on the rare occasion we need to play the couple in public. You may not be the happiest wife, Arion, but I’m told this is why God invented Saks and Xanax.”
“And if you want to live through this,” he warned, “I would adjust as quickly as possible, since the only way you’re getting out of this marriage is in the event of your death.”
Maybe I should be grateful that we still had the house. My father—the mayor of Thunder Bay—was gone, our businesses, assets, and real estate seized, and nearly every dollar to our names taken.
I sucked in a breath, an electric current coursing under my skin as his warm breath fell on my lips.
He wanted me to fight him, and I wasn’t ready to give him the satisfaction. Not yet.
If caught, he would’ve gone to prison, which I was sure was Damon’s desire. An eye for an eye. A little payback. A dose of his own medicine.
My sister would do anything he asked, and so would my mother. If she refused, he’d just threaten me, and she’d do anything.
She might’ve even been an option for this alliance, if not for the fact that she was still married to my father. And I wasn’t an ideal choice, either, because I’d fight him and never stop fighting him. Ari was the easy choice.
It had been a horrible year, though, and was getting worse.
The cool, oblong bag had been hidden in my closet since I sent Damon to jail five years ago, always ready for flight, because I knew I would lose in the inevitable fight.
Someone I hated putting in Damon’s path, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice.
But I was leaving now. I wasn’t spending a single night with him in this house.
“He won’t let you go.” I could hear him shift into gear again and the engine rev. “He won’t let any of you go. Your mother, your sister, you . . . In his mind, you all belong to him now. You, especially.”
You, especially. Ethan was one of my best friends, and he knew the whole story and how bad this was for me.
“It’s you he wants.”
He wanted to kill any peace of mind I’d achieved these last years with him tucked away in jail.
I knew he was right. Legally, I could do whatever I wanted, but Damon wouldn’t care about that. With or without my consent, he’d keep me wherever he wanted me.
“They knew what happened to me when we were kids. And what he did to me five years ago,” I pointed out. “And they still brought him back into our lives. They put me back in his path because of the money. Not only did they not protect me, but they put us all in danger again. Damon’s family is bad.”
But my mother was a different story. She knew what inviting him into our lives would mean. She knew his end game here, and she didn’t protect me.
How could my mother let this happen? Was she really that scared to lose her home? Was she that worried about how we’d survive? Or did that intimate look between her and Damon’s father I’d seen when I was a little girl finally make sense?
And then I heard the officer’s low, taunting voice. “Tsk-tsk-tsk . . . Damon won’t like that.”
Damon. This was him. He was who the cop was calling.
“Gabriel?” I barely mumbled, shocked.
“I want you to get your fucking little ass back home and in bed,” he bit out. I shook my head, knowing he had me—for now.
“That’s why he wants you, Winter. Just try not to be predictable next time.”
“The face of his family, and the one who will raise his children. But you?” He paused, his tone darkening and making chills spread down my arms. “You’re his cherry on top.”
