“That’s enough. Stop lying.” Alex strode in, his face like thunder. Of course he had this place wired. “I had my people investigate after Ava told me what she remembered,” he said coldly. He did? He never told me that. “You’d be surprised how much—and how quickly—one can find out with the right amount of money. She did have a third-grade teacher named Mrs. James—one who reported suspicious bruising on Ava’s wrists when she came into class the next day. You claimed it was a playground injury, and they believed you.” Alex’s eyes burned with disgust. “You’re a good actor, but drop the mask. We’re onto you.”
I stared at Michael. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. “Is that true? You were gaslighting me this whole time?”
“Ava, I’m your father.” Michael rubbed a hand over his face, his eyes bright. “I would never lie to you.”
I looked between him and Alex. My head pounded harder. There was too much going on, too many secrets to reveal. But in the end, I had to trust myself.
“I think you would,” I said. “I think you’ve been lying to me my entire life.”
Michael’s face remained anguished for several more seconds before it twisted and morphed into a hideous mask. His eyes gleamed with delighted malice, and his mouth spread into a mocking smile.
He didn’t look like my father anymore. He didn’t look human at all. He looked like a monster straight from my nightmares.
“Bravo.” He slow-clapped. “I almost had you,” he told me. “You should’ve seen yourself. I swear, Mrs. James was real,” he mimicked, laughing. The ugly sound raised every hair on my body. “Classic. You really thought you were crazy.”
I gave a subtle shake of my head when Alex moved toward Michael. I wanted to run and hide, but adrenaline pushed the words out of my mouth. “Why? I was a kid.” My chin wobbled. “I’m your daughter. Why would you do those things to me? Tell me the truth.” I tightened my jaw. “No. More. Lies.”
“The truth is subjective.” Michael leaned back in his chair. “But you want to know so bad? Here’s my truth—you’re not really my daughter.” He flashed a humorless smile at my sharp intake of breath. “That’s right. Your bitch of a mom cheated on me. Must’ve been one of those times I was away for business. She always complained I wasn’t around enough, like it wasn’t my fucking business that put the roof over her head and kept her nice and warm in designer clothes. I’d always suspected you weren’t mine—you look nothing like me, but I figured, hey, maybe you just have a strong resemblance to Wendy. I took a secret paternity test and lo-and-behold, you really aren’t mine. Your mother tried to deny it, but there wasn’t much she could do with the evidence staring her in the face.” His expression darkened. “Of course, we couldn’t mention that in the divorce proceedings. Those things always leak, and we would’ve both lost face.”
There were few things worse than losing face in Chinese culture. Except, of course, trying to murder your daughter.
“If I’m not your daughter, why did you fight so hard for custody?” I demanded, my tongue thick in my mouth.
Michael’s lips curled into a sneer. “I didn’t fight for custody for you. I did it for Josh. He’s actually my son. Test confirmed it. My legacy, my heir. But since no one other than your mother and I knew you weren’t mine, you and Josh were a package deal. Unfortunately, courts almost always side with the mother except in extraordinary circumstances, so…” He shrugged. “I had to engineer an extraordinary circumstance.”
I felt sick, but I stayed frozen while Michael unraveled the tangled web of our past.
“I was lucky your mom was stupid enough to leave you alone. Honestly, that was negligence on its own. But I snuck into the house, intending to plant evidence of her ‘drug addiction’, and I found you playing by the lake instead. It was like God dropped the opportunity into my lap. Sometimes, courts side with the mother even if she’s a drug addict, but trying to drown her child? Guaranteed win for me. Not to mention, it’d be punishment for her. So I pushed you in. I was tempted to let you drown for real.” Another flash of teeth. “But I wasn’t that cold-hearted. You were just a kid. So I fished you out, told authorities I saw Wendy push you in. She kept screaming she didn’t do it, but you wanna know the real genius of my plan?” He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling. “You were the one who implicated your mother.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t. I didn’t even see—I didn’t remember—”
“Not after. But in the moment?” He smirked. “It’s quite easy to implant false memories, especially in the mind of a confused, traumatized child. A few suggestions and leading questions from me, and you were convinced it was your mom. Said you smelled her perfume, plus she was the only person there. Either way, authorities had to investigate, and they gave me custody of you and Josh while they gathered evidence. Your mom became depressed and, well, you know what happened with the pills. It’s pretty poetic, actually. She died of the very thing I’d wanted to frame her for—at 4:44 a.m., no less. The unluckiest time.”
My stomach lurched. 4:44 a.m. The time I awoke from my nightmares.
I’ve never been a superstitious person, but I couldn’t help wondering if that had been my mom screaming at me from the other side, urging me to remember. To leave the sociopath whose house I’d been living in all these years.
“What about that day in your office?” I asked, determined to see this through even though I wanted to throw up.
Michael snorted. “Right. That stupid essay about how I ‘saved’ you. You know, I did a pretty good job of hiding how much I resented having to raise you, the ‘daughter’ who’s not even my own, all those years. I played the role of the quiet, awkward, grief-stricken father to a tee.” His ugly smile reappeared. “But sometimes, you push my limits, especially since you look so much like her. A living reminder of her infidelity. It would’ve been so easy if you were out of the picture, but Josh chose that moment to come home. Alas.” He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “Can’t have it all. To be fair, the office incident was a moment of weakness on my part—you were very much aware of what was going on, and I would’ve had a helluva time explaining what happened, though I’m sure I would’ve come up with something. But imagine my pleasant surprise when you woke up with not only no recollection of the office, but no recollection of your entire childhood up to that point. Doctors couldn’t explain it, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was you forgot.” He smiled. “God really does smile on me, doesn’t he?”
I felt Alex’s hands on my back. I hadn’t even noticed him approach. I leaned into the comfort of his touch while my mind spun. I remembered running to my room and locking the door after Michael released me and greeted Josh like nothing had happened. I stayed there all night, refusing to eat dinner no matter how much Josh tried to persuade me to come out. He’d only been thirteen at the time—too young to help me—and I had no one else to turn to.
I wondered if I’d been so panicked and traumatized that I’d blacked out all of my experiences with Michael, which was basically my entire childhood.
“I couldn’t be sure I’d be as lucky again, though,” Michael continued. “So I left you alone after that. Even sent you to therapy because I had to play the part of the concerned father, but it was a good thing those incompetent idiots didn’t know what they were doing.”
No wonder he’d been so adamant about stopping my therapy sessions. He must’ve been terrified I would remember and implicate him. Which begged the question…why the hell was he so willing to tell me all of this now?
It was like Alex read my mind. “There’s no statute of limitations for attempted murder, and this entire conversation is recorded,” he said.“D.C. has a one-party consent law for recordings, and Ava—” He gestured at me. “Consented beforehand. You’re going to jail for a long, long time.”
Michael’s mask of malice melted, leaving behind the “father” who took me on college visits and planned my birthday parties again. It was terrifying how easily he switched between the two. “If I have to go to jail to save her, I will,” he whispered. He turned to me, his eyes shining with actual tears. “Ava, honey, Alex is not who you think he is. His driver picked me up, and on the way here, he threatened me—”
“Enough,” Alex hissed. “No more gaslighting her. You’re done, and my friends would agree.”
I watched in shock as two FBI agents burst into the room and hauled Michael out of his chair. Alex hadn’t mentioned the FBI when we’d planned this.
“This won’t hold up in court,” Michael said, sounding quite calm for someone entering federal custody. “I’ll fight it. You won’t win.”
“With what money?” Alex raised his eyebrows. “You see, my people found some interesting things about your business during their digging as well. Interesting, illegal things. Tax evasion. Corporate fraud. Ring any bells?”
For the first time since he arrived, Michael’s composure slipped. “You’re lying,” he hissed. “You had no authority—”
“Au contraire, I worked with the FBI on that part. My friends at the agency were quite interested in what I had to say, and what they found.” Alex smiled. “You can use your untainted assets to hire an attorney, but most of your assets are tainted and will be frozen before your trial. You’ll receive the official notice before the end of today.”
“Josh will never forgive you for this.” Michael’s eyes burned. “He worships me. Who do you think he’ll believe? Me, his father, or you, a punk he met a few years ago?”
“In this case, Father—” Josh walked in, his face darker than I’d ever seen it. “I think I’ll believe ‘the punk’.”
He slammed his fist into Michael’s face, and all hell broke loose.