Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I lost my father over fifteen years ago now. My mother before that. I know what it’s like to lose a parent.”
I shrug, staring at my hands. I’m strangely emotional and I don’t know why. I hate talking about my mother and I dislike talking to him about it in particular. What happened to me and my mother defines everything about me, and for some reason I don’t want to give him that piece of my life. Even still, I didn’t realize it would hit me this deeply and sharply.
“It was eye-opening,” I say, my palms damp with anxiety. “Not the cancer and the dying part. I’ve been around death and suffering my whole life. It was the money that really got me. The hospitals were so expensive and the treatments were outrageous, and Mom’s health insurance wasn’t all that good so she was saddled with a ton of debt. It got paid off or waived in the end, I don’t know exactly what happened, but if she’d survived, she would’ve been paying the hospital back for the rest of her time. I hated that she was stressing about money in her last days. It was wrong.”
Gavino’s quiet, watching me. I’m trembling slightly and I take a deep breath. I manage to find some calm, manage to make my fingers stop shaking, and I blink away the tears. I haven’t thought about that in a while, but now it’s rushing back, probably because the stuff in this room could’ve paid for her treatments and then some, and these people wouldn’t have noticed. It’s hard for me to imagine that a man like Gavino, with all his privileges and his wealth, knows a damn thing about what it’s really like to suffer.
To be so invisible, so worthless, that you could be lying on the side of the road bleeding and nobody would care enough to stop and help.
“That isn’t right,” he says finally, staring at me intently. “Is that why you hate Malcolm so much?”
I lean back in surprise. He’s studying my reaction and it takes an effort to keep myself from giving something away. I shake my head once, which is true, but he’s partially right. Money is part of why I hate Malcolm.
“It’s complicated.”
“Try to simplify it for me.” He steps closer, arms crossed, and interrupts before I can speak. “I’m letting you into my life. I’m letting you into my family’s world. You saw the kids down there. As much as they drive me insane, I’d kill for them, each and every single fucking last one of them. If anyone hurt them, I’d rip their fucking spine through their throat without hesitating. You’re here, in this house, and that means you’re subject to our rules and laws. That means you’ll obey our commands. If I’m going to keep you around, and keep you alive, I need to know I can trust you.”
My jaw works. My sadness is blown away by a cloud of anger and I stand up, facing him. “I didn’t ask for this, remember? I wanted to go on the run and you convinced me to stay.”
“Save it. That’s all bullshit and you know it. You want to be here because you know I can give you things you only ever dreamed of.” He comes closer and I back away, heart thudding in my chest. “Why do you hate Malcolm so much? What did he do to you?”
“He hurt my mother,” I say quietly, staring into his eyes, willing him to stop and leave me alone.
I don’t want to talk about this. I hate talking about this more than anything in the world, and I don’t want him to know the full truth. I’ve kept these secrets locked up in my chest for years and years, and they’ve fueled me, kept me warm, kept me hating. I don’t want to share them with a man I barely know just because he saved my life.
I pause and look away. He saved my life. I can’t forget that. Even if he might’ve accidentally caused me to get fired, he still came back and made sure Benedict didn’t turn my face into ribbons. He would’ve done it too, if Gavino hadn’t shown up and smashed his head in with a pipe.
“Hurt her how?” he asks, clearly not about to let this go.
“It was a long time ago and I don’t know the details. All I know is, Malcolm owed my mother something, but he never paid her. For years, my mother kept waiting, and for years, her salvation never came, and Malcolm Strafford’s name turned into a curse in my house. I hate him because my mother died penniless and alone, and she didn’t need to.” My hands ball into fists, rage radiating down my spine, giving me strength. “What if she’d gone to a better doctor from the start? What if we’d been able to afford everything without having to worry? You have no clue what growing up poor does to a person.”