Chapter Eight
Marjorie
If I’d been having any nice feelings toward Dominic, his last statement erased them. “Nice try. My father is dead. I watched him die with my own eyes.”
“I didn’t say your father was alive,” he said.
“Last time I checked, dead people don’t give orders, and I personally don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Your father was a client of ours for years,” Dominic said. “He put plans in place to make sure his family was protected.”
“Even if I believed you, which I don’t, that would explain taking my mother and me, but not Colin. Besides, my father would never have us taken against our will. He wouldn’t frighten us like that, especially not my mother. She’s mentally ill, for God’s sake.”
“I never knew your father,” Dominic said, “but I did know he was alive during the time you thought he was dead. There were few he trusted with that information.”
His words hit me in the gut. My father clearly hadn’t trusted me with that information. Or any of my brothers. He’d faked his death once we were all adults so he could care for our mother, who also, unbeknownst to us, was alive.
His reasoning had been simple. Our mother was not safe from Wendy Madigan, and as long as Wendy knew he was alive, she’d stop at nothing to torment him, using anything that made him vulnerable.
Our mother.
And all of us.
My father was dead.
Wasn’t he?
Dominic hadn’t said otherwise. But he hadn’t said he was alive, either.
I had to stop torturing myself. The man was dead. I’d seen Wendy Madigan kill him so they could be together. I’d seen him double over. I’d seen the blood trickle from his wound. I’d fallen atop his immobile body, felt the life seep out of him…
Wendy had nearly killed Ryan as well, until Ruby shot her first.
That day was forever etched into my mind.
The scar on my thigh itched, and not in a good way. Not in a healing way.
No, it itched to be opened.
If I’d had my blade at this very moment, I’d be cutting my flesh to relieve the emotional torture swirling through me.
My father had so many facets that I’d never understand.
He was a man who could orchestrate his own death, purchase an island in the Caribbean. Hide himself and his mentally ill wife from the world.
From his children.
I forced myself out of my own head.
“You still haven’t explained Colin,” I said. “Why would my father care about protecting him?”
“We aren’t given the reasons,” Dominic said.
“So you’re okay with taking people against their will? Without knowing why?”
“We know simply that it’s for your protection. That’s enough for us.”
“That, and the money,” Dave added.