I know my father sold us. My stepfather told me this over, and over, and over again when I was young.
He didn’t love you or your mother, Lyssa. I am the only one who loves you. And do you see what I’ve given you?
Yes, I saw it. I never did manage to trick my brain into transient blindness.
So these office visits with his friends went on for a few years before he managed to convince my mother that I needed to come home from school so I could be more involved locally.
By then the coping mechanism had mostly worn off. He was too loud not to hear. So I acted out. I tried to be something he didn’t want.
It just never worked.
He never stopped wanting me. Even now, after all I’ve done to convince him that I’m not worth it, he still wants me.
I am still worth it.
Because who else is he going to get to run this estate?
And of course, even though I didn’t hear the plans they made for me, I did hear the plans they made for me.
I just tucked it away into a little compartment in my brain and left it alone.
Everything started to change in college. Every day I was away from him I got better. Just like back in boarding school. Only now he couldn’t make me come home.
But he didn’t have to. My mother was very sick by then and if I left her, who would she have at the end?
So it’s a nice surprise when I wake up from my second kidnapping in less than two weeks and I realize my father is talking…
But I can’t hear him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – MASON
I show up at the estate on Saturday in Lyssa’s Mercedes and without an invitation. I didn’t expect to drive right up to the house. I did my homework and I have first-hand knowledge of what his personal mercenary team can do. So when the security stops me at the end of the driveway, I tell them I’m just returning the car.
I’m sure they’ve got a picture of me on their little clipboards because the one in charge walks off to the side to call up to the house.
He stares at me under the shade of a tree, nodding his head. I raise my hand and say, “You tell Baylor I’m sending him a text.”
And then I send it.
Thirty seconds later I’m being waved into the circular driveway and a valet opens my door for me. I hand him the keys, straighten my smart-casual jacket, and walk up the front steps.
Her stepfather is waiting for me in the middle of the foyer, already excusing himself from his guests and panning his hand at the office doors.
We enter the office and he says, “I didn’t expect to see you here, Mason.”
“I guess you don’t know me as well as you thought.”
He closes the door and says, “What do you want?”
“You saw the picture. I found it in the backpack she brought to my apartment. I guess your mercenaries didn’t search my place very well. Because leaving that behind for me to find—huge mistake.”
“How much?” he says.
“What?”
“What will it take to make you go away, Macintyre? Another five million?”
I just blink at this asshole. Because he’s real. This fucker is real. “I want Lyssa.”
“The wedding is about to start. We don’t have time—”
“No, you don’t.” I cut him off. “You’re out of time, Baylor. Get Lyssa down here right now, or I’ll—”
“You’ll what?”
“You know what. You dressed her up like a fucking doll. Made her act like a teenager and…”
But I can’t even fucking say the words out loud. It’s too disgusting.
“Fucked her?” Baylor laughs. “No. I never fucked her. And if she told you that—”
“She didn’t tell me anything like that,” I say. “You got all your dirty secrets locked up real tight, don’t you?”
He sighs. Like he’s getting bored with me. “You’ve got it backwards, Mason. She wanted me. All these years, she wanted me. She sends me texts of herself. All the time. That whole week you were here with her? She was sexting me from that princess room. Opening her legs, and playing with herself, and—”
“Liar,” I snarl.
“I’m afraid not, son.” He pulls out his phone, taps the screen a few times, then thrusts it at me.
Photos of Lyssa doing exactly what he said.
Which I already knew about. Because I found her phone.
But that’s not the whole story. Not even close.
“Here,” he says. “Take it. Look through all of them. This goes back years.”
I take the phone and check the stream. “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, it does. You’ve been manipulating her a very long time. Maybe even since the day you met her.”
Which just makes me sick.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, son. I’ve done my best to protect my daughter.”