Collateral (Collateral Damage 1)

“It’s cider,” I lie. “Don’t worry.”

The woman glances at me unpleasantly.

He lets her go to stalk toward me, takes the flute, sniffs it.

“Why do you lie, darling?” he asks.

A different waiter appears as if on cue and my father, without taking his eyes off me, sets the almost empty flute on his tray. He leans in and to anyone looking at us, it looks like he’s kissing my cheek, my doting father, but he’s not.

“I won’t have you embarrass me, Gabriela.”

“It’s just a glass of champagne. I’m celebrating my birthday after all.”

He stands back and looks at me, studies my face, then my dress. “You look so much like her, you know that?” he asks, and if I were a fool, I’d think he seemed almost rueful. Almost sorrowful.

But he’s neither of those things and I’m not a fool.

My father is a powerful, untouchable man. One not capable of human emotions.

“I don’t remember how she looked. You know that.” I feel my eyes fill up at the words, at how true they’re becoming.

How can you forget someone who once meant so much to you? How can a face be erased? Memories vanish?

Fuck.

I won’t cry. I will not.

I steel my spine and swallow my tears, letting them sit like rocks inside my belly to join the others, adding to the mountain there. I force myself to remember who I’m talking to and I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands until I draw blood.

At least he has the decency to look down for the briefest of moments. “I miss her too,” he says.

Lie.

Liar.

This is where I get it from. The thing I inherited from him. I’m a liar too.

I glance over his shoulder. “Clearly.”

He straightens, angry. I don’t know why I provoke him.

He snaps his fingers and the same waiter appears. My father turns to him. “Get my daughter a drink,” he says to him before shifting his gaze back to me. “Apple juice.”

I hate him.

I hate this man.

He grins at my embarrassment and leans in close again. “Tonight is important. If you’re going to be ugly, you can go to your room. But know that you will be punished tomorrow.”

“Won’t I already?” I ask, taking the glass the waiter returns with.

He straightens to his full height. Gabriel Marchese. The most powerful man on two continents. A ruthless one with a reputation that precedes him.

He grins. “I don’t enjoy punishing you, Gabriela. You know that.”

“I have the scars to prove otherwise, daddy.”

His eyes narrow and my heart is racing because I know I should shut up. I should thank him for the juice and for the party I didn’t ask for and kiss his cheek and shut the fuck up.

At that moment, we’re interrupted by two men. I know the older one, Abe McKinney, a business associate of my father’s. I know immediately the younger one is his son. He looks just like his father and even though he’s only in his early twenties, my guess is he’ll lose his hair before he hits thirty.

“There you are, Gabriel,” Mr. McKinney says with his slight Irish accent.

My father smiles and they shake hands. I remember the time he’d wanted this man dead.

I shift my gaze from son to father.

“And Gabriela,” Mr. McKinney says, looking me over, making my skin crawl. He reaches into his pocket to take out a cream-colored envelope with my name etched in gold lettering on the front. “Happy birthday, beautiful,” he says, handing it to me.

I take the envelope, force a smile. “Thank you, Mr. McKinney.”

“Gabriela,” my father says, his voice almost tender as he shifts one hand to my lower back. I cringe. “This is Charles McKinney. Abe’s son.”

My smile is so fake, you’d have to be an idiot not to see through it. But Charles might be that idiot.

“A pleasure to meet you,” he says, reaching for my unoffered hand and kissing the knuckles.

Not enough alcohol in the world to numb that creepy feeling away.

I swallow the contents of my glass then remember it’s apple juice.

My father’s gaze hardens when I meet it.

“Excuse me,” I say, stepping out of his grasp. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”

Charles steps aside and I walk hurriedly away, back into the house, past the soldier standing by the grand staircase and up toward my suite of rooms on the second floor, almost running by the time I reach the doors, wishing I could lock them, but I can’t because the lock is on the outside.

I open both doors and walk inside, closing them behind me and leaning against them to catch my breath.

It takes me one moment to realize something is off.

The room is dark, the only light filtering from the party outside. The balcony doors are closed but I still hear the sound of five-hundred of my father’s closest friends getting drunk on his dime. Well, my mother’s dime, really.