Page 87 of Wicked Salvation

Then I take it.

I stare out the window, wiping at the last of my tears with the edge of his handkerchief. I don’t feel real. The city passes in a blur—neon, fog, night. My makeup stains the cloth.

“Was it just tonight?” My father asks suddenly, voice low, controlled.

I flinch. My throat tightens.

“What are you talking about?” My throat tightens.

He sighs, heavy and charged. That’s when I pick up his mood—things are tense in here too, like the moment before a thunderstorm cracks the sky in half.

“You know what I mean, Eden,” I feel his eyes on the side of me. “I saw the way he held you, how he spoke to you.” A pause. “The bruises that you’ve covered.”

I flinch. “No,” I whisper.

I don’t expect the way his knuckles whiten as he grips the center console. My father is not a man prone to anger—he’s the exact opposite of my mother. He’s measured, composed, the kind of man who keeps his wrath in a vault.

But there’s a crack now.

A dangerous crack.

“Tell me, Eden.”

I squeeze the handkerchief until it’s a tight knot in my palm. “It started a few days into our relationship,” I admit. “He…it started so small. A grip that was too tight, a word that was too harsh. I explained the bruises away before he even had to. And when it got hard for me to make sense of things, I let him twist things until I couldn’t tell what was real anymore.”

His jaw clenches.

That’s the most succinct way to put it.

The real story would be too long—and would make me look even more stupid. This is my first time admitting any of this out loud and it feels like an out of body experience, but in the opposite way. Like my spirit is finally snapping back into my body.

And none of it makes sense.

How did I allow this to happen to me?

“And Evelyn knew?”

I suck in a breath. “She said it could be fixed with time.”

There’s a silence so sharp it slices between us, then he turns to me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice breaks on the last word.

That undoes me.

The tears start streaming again.

“Both of you sent me away to get married or I’d lose my inheritance. I thought I had found someone that would finally make you feel proud of me.” My lip quivers. “When mother heard, she was elated. She treated me better. I felt like…if I told you, you’d be disappointed. That you’d think I was weak.”

He leans in, taking my hands, his eyes blazing.

I’ve rarely ever seen my father this affectionate, this caring. But all the times he has been, my mother was never around. As I look at my reflection in his eyes, I wonder if he’s one of her victims too.

“You listen to me, Eden,” he says, every syllable ground out like stone. “There isnothingweak about surviving someone like him. Nothing shameful about ending a relationship that’s killing you.” He huffs. “This is my fault. I should have been more involved in this whole situation. If I had known…”

Tears spill again, hot and sudden.

He pulls me into a hug—tight, steady and protective in a way I didn’t know I still needed.