Page 113 of Collateral Claim

I lift my gaze from the gray floor to the mirror. “Yes?”

Her eyes are glossy and puffy from crying. “You never talk about him.”

Him.There’s only one him she’s interested in. The less I speak, the more my sister insists I tell her about Endo, about my captivity with him. But I can’t talk about Endo without crying or quite possibly dying if Wilfred figures out I have feelings for Endo, whom he hates with all his rotten heart.

“The corset is loose,” I say.

“If I tighten it any more, you won’t be able to breathe.”

“That’s what I’m going for.”

Charlotte pulls the strings, tightening the corset around my rib cage.

I can barely breathe. “Again.”

She tightens it more. It feels like a merciless hug. “At least my breasts look nice.”

“Wilfred will be pleased.” She watches my reaction in the mirror.

“I doubt it,” I manage to say. “He expects a bride in a white wedding dress.”

Charlotte smiles. “I’m so glad you’re a bad girl now and not doing what’s expected of you. The black wedding dress suits you.”

“Thanks.”

“Did Endo hurt you?”

“Don’t ask about him,” I say, and my chin quivers. Charlotte doesn’t need much to know this whole wedding thing with Wilfred wasn’t my idea and that I’m being traded like cattle. I think she’d tell me to run away if she ever found out I made a deal with Wilfred. He released Cass Macarley on condition that I marry Wilfred.

We never agreed on the dress, and while this bit of rebellion is petty, it feels good for my soul. I’ll take all the goodness I can summon nowadays while I heal the wounds my dad inflicted when he told me my mother, whom I idolized, thought I was good for only one thing: serving patients.

She made herself into a victim when she married my dad, but the truth is that she never gave up her career. It was all a carefully crafted story she told me so that I would do what she wanted me to do. I wish I could ask her about it, but I can’t since she’s dead.

Not that it matters. This is my life now. I don’t get another, and I plan to live the best way I can because of it. Thank you for that wisdom, Slada.

On paper, I will remain married to Wilfred, but he and I will live separate lives. I’m due for my assignment next week, and he’ll stay behind, running my dad’s company.

Wilfred gets wealthy. I get the life I want. Endo gets his brother.

Charlotte can go on living oblivious to our father’s sins. She wipes the tears from my cheeks. “Please, Scarlett, talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“There’s so much to say. Beatrice isn’t Josh’s.” She covers her mouth.

Oh fuck. “What?”

“Your turn.”

“No way! What do you mean she’s not his?”

“Your turn or I’m not telling.”

“Our father is an arms dealer.”

“Oh fuck,” she says. “Is that why Endo was after him?”

I nod. “Daddy double-crossed Endo’s brother. He kidnapped him and beat him. I made a deal to marry Wilfred so he would release Endo’s brother. Who is Beatrice’s father?”