Page 108 of Collateral Claim

It makes me think about a baby. “What did Mom say about me being a mother?”

My dad’s eyes seem to show sympathy. “She didn’t think you’d like that.”

“Did she like it?”

Dad has to think about it. “Sometimes. She would have liked to have had two boys a lot more.”

I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from what he said to me. “Don’t tell Charlotte.”

“She knows,” he says.

“You shouldn’t have told her.”

“I didn’t. Your mother did the moment she found out her little bastard needed a father.”

“Jesus, Dad. What is wrong with you?”

“Grow up, Scarlett!” He spits the words in my face. “Smell the gunpowder in the air.” He grabs my chin and lifts my face. “Smell it. It’s the smell of money, and money buys power and freedom.”

“Yes, but I smell lots of blood too.”

He releases me. “You know nothing. It’s pointless.”

“She’s in shock,” Wilfred says from behind me.

“You should be in shock too. It’s what would happen to normal people, given our circumstances.” I look around. Neon lights. Dark metal walls.

“You don’t like what I do,” my dad says, “but you sure liked your one-bedroom dorm and then the apartment. You sure liked going through med school without being indebted to anyone because I paid the tuition. You sure like your charity events, your stupid horses, your ability to work for free overseas, and not having to worry about money. You should be grateful I saved you before Macarley turned you into his whore.”

“That’s enough, Daniel,” Wilfred says.

“Get her cleaned up.” My dad walks away, flanked by his men. He pulls back a charcoal-black curtain and walks inside. A man closes the curtain and stands guard before it. I can feel the warmth of Wilfred’s body behind me.

“Let’s go,” he says.

I wince from pain and follow him. “Where are we?”

“Inside a transport container.”

Wearemoving. “What does that even mean?”

“We’re traveling in a container on a train.”

My brain isn’t processing. “We are parked inside a train?”

“Yes.”

I look up, and our eyes meet. His are dark, hard, cold. There’s nothing between us, yet the way he looks at me tells me that maybe I’m the only one who feels that way. He might be attracted to me. I think he is.

Endo tried to tell me about Wilfred, but I didn’t listen because I didn’t trust Endo. Maybe now I do. Maybe now, with the veil being peeled off, I can start seeing my dad and his business partner with my own eyes and my own sharp mind.

“Do you have a first aid kit?”

“We have more than that.” Wilfred pulls back a dark gray curtain, revealing a fully equipped medical room similar to one found inside a hospital emergency room.

I can tell he’s waiting for praise. “I’m impressed.”

He nods. “I thought you might be.”