by Lana Sky
I’m too busy shivering to pay attention to our surroundings. He could be taking me anywhere, for any purpose, yet I can’t muster up the energy to care.
Though my silence, ironically, must worry him. “Don’t sleep,” he warns as if sensing my slowed, heavy breathing and how my eyelids drift lower by the second. “What the hell were you thinking?”
His anger sears my skin, hotter than the heat he orders the driver to turn up.
“Sorry,” I murmur, unwilling to lift my head from his shoulder, even as I direct what little anger I feel his way. “It’s not every day that I’m called a murderer to my face.”
Recently, anyway.
I sense him stiffen.
“I…apologize.”
And I must be delirious. My body reacts violently to the sudden warmth. My teeth chatter. I can’t stop shaking, and the worse my tremors become, the more words in Spanish Damien snaps at his driver.
“Vámonos!”
The man must be used to the pressure, because he doesn’t so much as flinch while maneuvering seamlessly through traffic. My old town flies by in a muted blur. The school where Leslie and I spent our last few hours of innocence. The old park. The library.
Nostalgia hits like a punch in the stomach. I squeeze my eyes shut against it and find myself sinking even further against the firm body serving as my sole support.
“No.” His finger grazes my chin disapprovingly. “Stay awake.”
“I’m fine.” I grimace, but with a sigh, I peel my eyes open. His concern shouldn’t affect me so much.
“Say something,” he growls.
“My father’s going to kill me.”
The press conference is today. His big announcement. His triumphant return to the political sphere. All of it tarnished slightly by me.
“He delayed the press briefing,” Damien says dryly. “It’s later this evening.”
“Good.” A funny thought occurs to me. “How did you find me? Do you have me LoJacked?” Then again, the prospect isn’t so funny.
“Julio followed you long enough to get the license plate of the cab,” he explains. Not because he wants to, I suspect. He’s stiff, resembling stone again.
I have a sudden urge to run my fingers along his jaw, testing the give of his flesh for myself. I do and frown. Soft like always, though he flinches at the contact. My fingers look like a stranger’s. I’ve never been so pale.
“Why?” I croak.
“I have contacts who tracked your position out of the state,” he adds without answering my last question. “Once I realized where you were headed, I knew where to find you.”
“You were very thorough in your research, it seems.” My fingers are still on his jaw. “Did you break into my old file?” I’ve been told the case has been declared indefinitely cold. “I guess you really do know everything.”
“Not everything.” Glowering, he removes his arm from around my shoulders and takes my hand, lowering it to my lap. But he doesn’t let go. If anything, his fingers tighten as if he can force out the numbing chill through brute strength alone. “For example, I don’t know what lasting damage you might experience from being in freezing temperatures for several hours wearing only a dress.”
“You don’t have to do this.” But even as I watch his fingers intertwined with mine, I can’t bring myself to pull away.
“New wager.” His tone warns that, this time, there will be no negotiation. “Give me this one moment to give a damn about your welfare and tomorrow you can berate me all you’d like. Por favor.”
Apparently, he’s not interested in receiving permission, because the car comes to a stop a heartbeat later. While the driver circles around to his side, Damien tightens his grip as if he’s expecting me to resist.
But I don’t. I allow him to steer me from the car and then through the halls of what I assume is a modest hotel, so unlike the posh, luxury high-rises we both frequent.
Julio enters our room first. He prowls the area, spitting out simple phrases all the while. “Bed at twelve o’clock, sir. Bathroom at three o’clock. Ten paces each way.”
“Thank you,” Damien says. Only now does he guide me inside, and I realize that this must be one of the many ways he navigates without his cane. “You can leave for the moment, Julio. See if you can have clothing brought for Ms. Thorne.”
“Right away.” Julio embarks on his mission while I’m marched into a modest bathroom.
Damien feels along the wall until he finds the light switch—for my benefit. Then he keeps going until his fingers brush the cool tile above the tub and then continue to the water fixture. “Remove your clothing,” he commands as he switches the faucet on.
“I’m late,” I realize as—of all things—my commitment to Daddy enters my mind. “My father’s press conference. I’ve missed it—”
“It’s been rescheduled,” Damien says calmly. “Arrangements have been made. You don’t need to worry about that now. What you do need to worry about is your internal body temperature.” He gestures toward the tub. “Now, take off your clothing.”
Memories of Simon must have stripped me of my free will. I’m an obedient little girl again, jumping to the rasp of a monster’s growl. This one doesn’t rest until I’m standing naked before him as he fills the tub to his preference.
Taking a step back, he nods to the water. “In.”
My body rebels once I’m submerged in the deliciously warm bath. I can’t move. I’m so damn tired—to the point where someone has to assist me when seconds pass without my cleaning myself. They hand me a washcloth, and then they wet it for me and drag it along my back and my shoulders. They work their fingers into my hair and lather it with shampoo. Finally, they dry me off into a towel and perch me on the ledge of the tub, apparently while waiting for Julio to bring me fresh clothing.
They stay. All without reminding me to smile, or hush, or be brave, charming Juliana.
I know they hear me crying, and they say nothing.
I thought Daddy overreacted to the smallest crisis. Damien puts him to shame.
Heyworth Thorne could have found me neck-deep in a snowdrift, but I doubt he’d have his driver speed across state lines and all but drag me into my suite, where I find a private doctor waiting to examine me. It’s a concern that borders upon…obsessive: a collector ensuring the objects in his possession remain unharmed—by anything but him.
I should resist.
Fight him off.
I shouldn’t let him stay.
Damn Damien.
He waits in silence as the doctor pokes and prods me before declaring me healthy, though sleep-deprived and dehydrated.
“Primarily, you should get some rest,” the man suggests, gathering up his supplies.
He’s barely out the door before I find myself being manually steered into my room by a more formidable opponent.
“Wait…” I sway on my feet as Damien drags his fingers over my duvet and folds it back. “You don’t have to stay—”
“You need to rest. At least for an hour. Especially if you are attending the briefing tonight. It will be starting soon.”
“My father…” I groan, bracing my hand against my forehead. “He’s probably called the FBI by now.”
“Not quite.” With a knowing tilt of his head, Damien proves he’s outsmarted me yet again. “I had your building manager distract him with some lie about you losing your phone to explain why you’re running late. You can arrive at his media blitz on time and he’ll be none the wiser. Now, rest.” He sounds so damn stern.
Not that I’m helping my case any; I can barely stay upright. I’ve never felt so drained. So exhausted. So vulnerable.
I can’t ignore the subtle disgust tainting his tone—or the fact that he’s trying his best to disguise it. For me.
“You want to tell me something,” I blurt, sensing the truth in his tense posture. “About my father? Just say it. Please…”
“You need to rest.”
“Just tell me.” Th
e desperation in my voice startles me. “That’s why you’ve been so patient, right? To deliver the blow when I least expect it? I’m at rock bottom now, so just tell me now.”
Of all reactions, he…flinches. “Juliana—”
“Are you going to have nudes of me plastered around city hall during the press conference?” The thought makes me shudder—but it’s surprisingly low on the list of potential revenge plots. There are so many much worse. It’s a dangerous game to play, jumping into the brain of a criminal mastermind. He already knows more than enough to decimate me. “Will you have my little recording play on the speakers? Tell me. I know you have something planned.”
“And if I don’t?” His tone cuts into me, sharp and demanding. You think you know me, Ms. Thorne? Think again. “What if my plan was far simpler?”
“What?” I ask. “If you truly give a damn about my ‘welfare,’ like you said, you’d just tell me—”
“What if I only had to tell you the truth? That your nightmares and your pain and the terror you feel at night could have been resolved years ago? That the man you worship hasn’t done a damn thing to protect you. If anything, he’s used you as a pawn in his own sick, twisted scheme meant to cover his tracks.”
I swallow hard, hating the gruff earnest in his voice. It’s harder to ignore than his usual smug mocking. “Like how?”
“All this time… You have no clue, do you? Think back to when he first adopted you, Juliana. Did you ever ask yourself why a man like him would take in a child like you? Why your case in particular drew the notice of such a cavalier defense attorney who rarely participated in even charity events?”
“Are you blaming my father for Leslie’s death too?” I scoff. “Very funny.”
But he isn’t laughing. “Nothing could prevent what happened to you, except justice. Justice served to the man who hurt you before you could ever cross his path.”
“The police never found him,” I croak. “Does the all-knowing Damien claim to know his identity too?”
“What if I told you that you weren’t the first or the second victim of this man. This killer? That several girls your age had suffered through a similar hell. Died. Mere shreds of evidence tied them to one suspect who escaped prosecution—not through fate, but intention?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, what if that monster had a damn good lawyer? A lawyer who got him off scot-free and had the records expunged so that the world would never even learn his name? A powerful man, with a powerful lawyer who allowed him to terrorize two little girls, killing one and leaving the other traumatized for life? Only after his mistake did that same lawyer adopt a victim of a crime he himself enabled and yet pretended to have suddenly grown a heart? A lawyer who likes to think himself a beacon of all things just.”
His words create an invisible noose that wraps around my throat, tightening by the second. “No…”
“Should I be blunter?” Damien wonders, cocking his head. “What if that lawyer’s name was Heyworth Thorne, and that everything he claimed to believe in was a lie?”
“You’re lying.”
“No. He has been lying. To you, most likely since the day he came into your life. It wasn’t an act of goodwill that led him to you, Juliana. It was guilt. But guilt that hasn’t led him to do the right thing and name your tormentor, even after all these years. He knows his name. He’s known all along—”
“Stop.”
“Why else erase the records?” He sounds so calm, though it feels like he’s shouting. “Why else suddenly take an interest in supposed ‘justice’? Heyworth Thorne never loved you. He merely used you like a trophy to assuage his own fucking conscience—”
“Stop!” Tears spray down my cheeks like bullets as I scramble to my feet and stagger toward the door. “You’re lying!”
“Juliana, wait—”
“Leave me alone!” I’m running, escaping into the hall without bothering with a coat or shoes. Downstairs a car is waiting as promised, but when I enter it, I break.
Because I know that Damien wasn’t lying.
If he could turn me against my father, he’d have everything to gain.
But Heyworth Thorne has a lot more to lose.
Enough that he’d use me as a pawn to keep it all.
Town Hall sits within a maze of reporters jostling for the right vantage point to cover my father’s moment of triumph. It’s a buzz of activity I quickly adjusted to while growing up in the Thorne family. From the age of eight, I learned how to smile on cue and nod solemnly when asked to explain how grateful I was to my father for adopting me.
When all along…
He might have known the identity of the specter haunting my nightmares. And all this time, he’s said nothing.
Could such a man really be deserving of all the hate Damien feels toward him? Could he have allowed prejudice to cloud his judgment in the case of Mathias Villa?
The answer makes my stomach churn. Deep down, maybe I’ve known it all along: yes.
Heyworth Thorne is human—and I’ve learned the hard way that every human, at their core, has the potential to become a monster.
“Where to, miss?” the driver inquires, which makes me jump.
“H-here.” I exit the car a block away from the press queue and spot my father amid a crowd of assistants near the entrance to the sprawling, Romanesque town hall building. It’s a ritual of his: show up early, prep his speech, and ensure that all optics are picture-perfect.
My heart throbs as I observe him and try to see the man most of the world has turned against. His gray, balding head. His warm, gentle smile that eased my fear when I needed comfort the most. I try my best to strip away twenty years of loving Heyworth Thorne.
But all I see is an old man preening for the cameras, desperate to salvage the one thing he’s cherished above all: his career.
I don’t even realize I’ve slipped through the throng of onlookers until he spots me from the top of the steps, still smiling in his charming way.
“Sweet pea…” He frowns, looking me over. I’m in pajamas, my hair a mess, my eyes bloodshot. This isn’t the perfect daughter he envisioned parading around today. “Didn’t you receive the dress?”
“Why?” It’s the only word I can get out as cameras flash and reporters shout questions. “Why did you lie to me? Why?”
“Juliana—”
“They said I was a liar. All the papers. The people. My own parents didn’t want me because they thought I was…” I can’t even say it. A murderer. “And you lied to me. Tell me he wasn’t one of your cases. Tell me that you didn’t know—”
“What on Earth are you talking about?” Diane asks, placing her hand on my arm. Beside her, Heyworth Thorne just stares at me, his eyes wide. “Darling?”
“Was taking me in some kind of pity party? A way to assuage your guilt? Or was it pride? Was that all I was to you?” I demand of them both. “All I am to you? A trophy?”
“Juliana.” Daddy blinks, reassembling his mask. How ironic. He used to punish those who hide behind lies, but that’s all he’s ever done around me. “We need to discuss this in private—”
“No!” I turn, my eyes streaming as I scan the crowd for an out, any outlet. I find one in darkness: a sleek black vehicle with a hand beckoning from the back seat. Of all the things to fear, relief shatters the pain ripping through me—and I cling to it like hell.
“Juliana!”
I push through the throng of spectators and climb into the car. Black leather upholstery makes for a chilling escape. So does the man seated beside me.
“Drive,” Damien commands, and I don’t give a damn where he takes me.
Just somewhere far from here.
“Have you known all along?” I demand as the car melds into the thick of traffic. “That my father defended him? Leslie’s killer? Do you know his name? Who was he?”
Damien says nothing. Too busy savoring the moment? Fine. I’ll give him plenty to gloat over. My tears con
tinue to fall unabated. I don’t even try disguising the sobs ripping from me one after the other. “Who was he? I… I could press charges. Testify against him. Do something.”
I try to picture him. Simon. My father and Simon. Could Heyworth Thorne have known more about the attack on me than he let on? No. Even thinking as much triggers a wave of bile up my throat that I have to choke down.
But the sinking thoughts nibble away at what little sanity I have left.
All those years of Simon’s presents. Perhaps the man wasn’t as omniscient as he appeared—maybe my father let him in. Let him taunt me with those memories. Could the home I’d thought was a haven have been little more than a kennel, with me as the pet, locked inside for others’ amusement?
“I don’t know his identity,” Damien says, sounding eerily calm, no glee to be found. “I merely discovered the inconsistencies in Thorne’s prior cases. But the records were expertly expunged and I never learned a name. I will say that only a powerful man could ensure that. Someone in politics most likely—”
“He never stopped after that night,” I admit, my voice breaking. “S-Simon—that’s what I call him. Simon. Every fucking year, on my birthday, he taunts me with the same fucking ‘presents.’ Like the doll, and the rose, and the ribbon. It’s so I won’t forget. He’s still out there.”
The silence greeting my confession is too much, too thick. Desperate to shatter it, I keep talking. “He made us play a game, you see. I had to pick. Who he was going to kill. We were near the woods. Leslie and I were walking home after I got jealous of her stupid doll and…”
We fell into a madman’s trap.
I close my eyes as the memory threatens to unfold. For the first time in so damn long, I don’t resist it. I let myself see the forest. Smell the blood. I can taste the fear, so thick and real…
“He made me pick which one of us would live or die. My rich, pretty, popular friend or me, the poor, pathetic pauper? And I…”
“You don’t need to tell me this,” he says. His accent dips in an unfamiliar way. Horror? Disgust?
Confused, I look up and find his jaw clenched, his posture tense. Men like him don’t like to get their hands dirty after all. Not even figuratively.
