Page 45

Rhue

“Have you and Maddie talked at all?” Laura asks, keeping her voice just above a whisper even though we’re in her room.

“Just once, today. Didn’t say much—just invited her over for a study session and maybe dinner, but then Dad called so I cancelled.”

Laura gives me a disapproving look. “It’s a two-hour drive. You could have come in the morning. Why even invite her if you were just going to chicken out at the last minute?”

“I didn’t chicken out,” I tell her, bristling. “If I came in the morning, I wouldn’t have had a chance to talk to you before talking to him.”

“Oh, really? Is that the excuse? Then why haven’t you talked to her all week? You aren’t still holding a grudge against her, are you? Because if you are, Rhue, I gotta say, that’s really low.”

“I’m not holding a grudge,” I tell her with a scowl.

“Not against her, anyway. It’s just—what would I even say?

I can’t fix it. I can’t undo what he did.

I can’t even hold him accountable for what he did, because I don’t even know where to start!

You saw what mom wrote. The cops won’t take these kinds of reports against Dad.

She tried over and over again, and nothing. ”

Laura rolls her eyes to the ceiling and sighs. “Men,” she mutters.

“What?”

“She doesn’t need you to fix it for her, dummy. She just needs you to be there for her. She needs a friend who knows her deep dark secret and doesn’t judge her for it. And Dad, well—he'll get his karma.”

I narrow my eyes at her suspiciously. “How?”

“The universe works in mysterious ways,” she says in a hokey voice.

“So should I start calling you miss universe?” I ask her dryly.

“Who says I’ll have anything to do with it? I’m a perfect angel, you know this. Devoted daughter, junior campaign manager, the whole bit.”

“That’s kind of why I wanted to talk to you,” I tell her. “Why are you doing that? If you know who and what and how he is, why are you helping him get elected?”

She gives me a pained look. “Because if I don’t, some other young, pretty, female, aspiring political major will get the job—complete with all the late nights at the campaign office and private meetings with the candidate.

I’m his daughter—plus I’m in a wheelchair and I always have Steve around.

That’s three things other girls don’t have. ”

My stomach turns. “You’re throwing yourself on the grenade. What are you going to do once he’s in office? Be his intern? His secretary? You can’t insulate him from everyone, and trying to do it this way is just going to keep giving him more power to hurt more people.”

“Only if I do a good job,” she tells me with a weak smile. “Oh, nobody can tell. I’m doing as well as anyone expects a spoiled disabled teenager to do.”

“Ouch,” I say sympathetically. “The overachiever is throwing the match. That’s gotta sting.”

“Like a thousand billion ant bites,” she agrees ruefully. “But it’s okay. The experience alone will be enough to get me in on someone else’s campaign in the future. Maybe my own campaign eventually.”

I guess that’s something, but it doesn’t make up for what she’s having to do to get there.

Somebody needs to take the bastard down.

I know if she’d been able to come up with a plan to do it, she would have done it already—but now she’s trapped, serving his agenda.

My father is a fucking monster, and he’s gotten away with it so far.

But he and I are cut from the same cloth, aren’t we?

If there’s anyone who can best him, it should be me.

I don’t sleep well. It’s hard to rest easy when my mind is roiling with the heavy weight of sacrifices made for my father by the women who are important to me.

The unfairness of it all stokes my temper, and the sun rises on my foul mood.

He requested a breakfast meeting, so I clean up and head downstairs.

He’s already in the solarium, at the table he uses for official business when he wants to keep things friendly.

Interesting—I guess I’ll just have to see where this goes.

I stop at the coffee cart before heading to the table.

I look at my father, stare past his aging facade to the beast beneath the polished surface.

The narcissist who takes what he wants, when he wants it.

I wonder how many other women have paid the price of being interesting to this man; how many never made it into mother’s little book?

Is evil passed down genetically? How much of that darkness lives in me?

“Why are you staring like that?” Dad asks.

I finish pouring my coffee and sit across the large round table from him. This is the closest I feel like I can get without making it too tempting to ram my fist into his mouth repeatedly. It’s not normal to feel this kind of rage toward one’s own father, and fuck him for evoking it.

“Just a few thoughts going through my head,” I reply flatly. “Doing my best to process some things.”

“Anything I can help with?”

I give him a long, hard look. He casually sits back in his chair.

This is my first weekend home since the café debacle with Madison.

He and I never had the talk I promised, but I see the passage of time has soothed his frayed nerves to the point where he’s friendly again.

Either that or he’s buttering me up prior to telling me why he asked me here in the first place.

After several moments of silence, he presses the issue.

“I know things, Rhue. Things that might help you get ahead of your schoolmates.”

“Really? Well, that’s interesting. Why don’t you tell me more?”

He smiles, ready to dive in. “I have direct access to the dean and every single professor and professor’s assistant currently employed by Cornell Uni—”

“Oh, wait, I just remembered,” I cut him off. “I don’t give a shit. Your advice is always one of three things: hit harder than the other guy, blackmail the other guy, or bribe the other guy. Newsflash, Julian—I don’t need mobster ass shortcuts. I’m smarter than that.”

His humor fades. He’s insulted. This isn’t the first time I’ve pissed him off, but it has gotten more and more personal as of late. I have to admit, his self-control is impressive. In the past, he would’ve flung his coffee mug at me. This time, however, he just glowers at me, speechless and fuming.

“You called me here for a reason,” I continue. I gesture at the solarium around us. “A business reason, apparently. Let’s get this meeting started and leave the warm and fuzzy father son crap out of it.”

He scowls. “With this mood you’re in, I think I’d rather take it up with your property manager.”

“Fine by me,” I tell him. I pull a card out of my wallet and slide it across the table to him. “There’s his number.”

Dad pulls out his phone and dials. A few seconds later, the phone in my pocket starts ringing. I pull it out and answer, never breaking eye contact with him. “Roxson property management, this is Rhue. How can I help you today?” The echo grates on my ear, but I don’t show any discomfort.

He stabs the end call button with a furious finger, glaring at me and baring his teeth. “You don’t even have a property manager?”

“I manage my own investments,” I tell him. “I like to know who’s renting from me.”

He shakes his head at me. “You need help,” he says. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Laura makes a better landlord than you. You should at least consider selling to her.”

“And she’d buy it with a private mortgage provided by you, right?

Fuck that. I don’t need your help. More importantly, Laura doesn’t need you to fuck up her life.

You’re trying to get her involved in my properties to get her off your campaign, right?

Can’t stand to have an untouchable woman in the office?

Laura’s too polite to tell you to back the fuck off, but you know I lack the finesse. Leave the girl be.”

“Is that what this is about? Your sister? You’re being a deliberate dick because of your sister?” Dad demands. “What’s with you? You haven’t been yourself lately.”

“I haven’t been myself in a long time. I’m surprised you just noticed,” I shoot back. “Leave Laura out of your shenanigans. She will do what you ask just to please you, and when she discovers she’s just a pawn in your nefarious schemes you’ll lose her. Haven’t you lost enough?”

The question hits him in the chest. He stares at me, his brows lowering heavily over his dark, stormy eyes. “It’s about your mother, then. It’s always been about your mother.”

“It’s more about your foul character and the lies you’ve been feeding us.”

The longer I look at him, the more I’m inclined to take decisive action.

What would Dad do if an anonymous someone threatened his future, his wellbeing?

With the rape allegations going public, his career would be ruined, not to mention his electoral race.

Every single one of his plans would go up in smoke.

Naming and shaming abusers has gotten so many of the big guns fired and even arrested. Would he face that like a man, or would he destroy everything he touches in a desperate attempt to save himself? That question leads to another—one I don’t want to dwell on, but one that I can’t ignore.

What if mom had threatened Dad with the knowledge of Madison’s rape? What would he have done?

Laura thinks he might have killed her. But Madison thought mom just broke under the strain of yet another accusation.

I shake my head. Mom’s death was ruled a suicide.

I try to stop my thoughts there. But it’s not so easy.

My mind is spinning a million miles an hour.

Yes, her death was ruled a suicide, but is anything ever so clear cut?

If Dad did something, I would never forgive myself for turning a blind eye.

If he didn’t, though, what repercussions will I face for digging into that empty rabbit hole?

“You never came back to talk that weekend when I caught you and your sister with the skank,” Dad says.

“In the meantime, Laura’s been making it up to me by working extra hard to prove she’s worth my time and respect.

That was always the rule in this family, remember?

That you being my blood wasn’t enough to make you worthy of my attention.

Laura has learned. You? You’re still throwing your shitty jock asshole tantrums. Grow the fuck up. ”

I can’t help but chuckle dryly. “You’re a year too late with that bullshit line. I might’ve bought it even a month ago. Now? I’m just not impressed anymore.”

He gets up slowly, his broad frame dominating the entire room. I used to be intimidated as a kid. But the taller I grew, the more I worked out, the bigger and older I became, the less I was frightened by Julian Echeveria.

I once looked up to him. I worshipped this bastard. Now I’m disgusted by my very relation to him. There are few things worse than defiling a woman, and he did it over and over again. His disregard for consent sickens me.

“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. “Still not impressed. I’m not some female employee you can push around. I’m confused, though—am I supposed to be flattered by the attempt? Because that’s weird.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Oh, now I’m pissed. I slam my hands on the table and stand, leaning forward to shout in his face. “I’m talking about you throwing your weight around whenever you feel like it and whipping your dick out whenever there’s a pretty girl in the room!”

Shaking his head, he scoffs. “Jealousy. That’s what it is. You’re pathetic, Rhue. You’re still pouting about your little honey bunny baby crush fucking your daddy instead of you? Get the fuck over it.”

“If she’d wanted to fuck you, I’d already be over it.”

He blanches. I dismiss him with a cutting glance, then I turn around and head for the door.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he barks before I’m able to get one foot over the threshold.

“Good question,” I say sarcastically. “I’m a grown ass man with money in my pocket and a headful of deep dark secrets. Where would you go?”

He begins to move around the table, his eyes locked on me in a murderous glare. “Are you threatening me, boy?”

“What if I am?”

He shakes his head slowly. “That’s a very bad idea. You like living?”

“It’s okay most days,” I tell him breezily. “But now that you’ve answered my question, I’ll go ahead and answer yours. I wouldn’t bother threatening you, Julian. If I wanted to ruin you, I’d just get it done.”

I leave before he can think of anything else to say, my chest shaking with horror and fury.

Laura’s theory is looking more probable with every passing second. I’d deliberately pushed the conversation in that direction, deliberately let him think I was going to turn him in for sexual assault—and he did exactly what Laura suspected he would do. He threatened my life.

Denial isn’t possible anymore. I’ve got too many questions—and I need answers.