“Your father was going to use you, Violet. You were going to be the bargaining chip he used in exchange for more territory, so he could extend his human trafficking networks into Eastern Europe.”
She kept shaking her head as if that alone would deny the truth.
Elijah kept talking. “He was going to give you to the biggest crime lord in Europe in return for his so-called ‘trading links,’ and whether you wanted it or not wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest. Everyone was fair game to him and that included his daughter.”
She stared at him.
He stared back. If she wanted to know the truth, he’d give it to her. “I was going to kill him, but Eva fucking King took that honor for herself. So instead, I’m going to use you. You’re my bait, Violet. Jericho wants you, which makes you the perfect tool to flush him out.” He smiled again. “Because since your prick of a father is already dead, I’m going to kill Jericho instead.”
* * *
Violet sat on the couch as Elijah disappeared into the kitchen area, the sounds of cupboards being opened and food being prepared drifting out.
She felt frozen. Like she’d been thrown outside into a snowbank naked.
Your father is dead. Your father was a murderer. Your father ran one of the biggest crime rings in New York.…
No. No. No. It couldn’t be. That wasn’t true.
Oh sure. Like you never thought that something about Dad was wrong. That he was hiding something, concealing something. Something you could never put a finger on and were too frightened to want to find out.
She swallowed, staring down at the handcuffs around her wrists, glittering among the silver already there.
It was too much, too big to get her head around.
Grief thickened in her throat, because whatever else was true about what Elijah had said—if indeed any of it was true—her father had still been her father. Sure, he’d been kind of distant and closed off, never physical in the slightest, but he’d gone to all her school plays. Encouraged her with her homework. Supported her academic achievements, never pushed her to do more the way her precise and very particular mother had.
It wasn’t until she’d been around twelve, about a year after they’d lost Theo, that she’d realized there was something about her dad that disturbed her. He’d get a cold look in his eye. A look that made her feel as if another man was looking out from behind those blue eyes she knew so well.
It had frightened her. But she’d thought it was grief and so had pretended not to see it.
Apparently she’d been wrong. Perhaps it hadn’t been grief at all. Perhaps it had been there all along.
Nausea churned in her gut. She stumbled to her feet and headed for the bathroom, shouldering through the door and staggering over to the toilet. Then she dropped to her knees on the white tiles and retched into the bowl as her stomach heaved.
Afterward she sagged to the side, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the tiled wall, shudders shaking her.
Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe Elijah had lied to her about everything. But then those marks on his face … He hadn’t gotten those for the fun of it, that was for sure. And why would he lie anyway? He had nothing to gain from it, surely?
Tears slipped down her cheeks and she let them fall for a minute or two, needing to get rid of the heavy stone of grief and pain in some way.
Better to concentrate on one thing at a time, such as the loss of a father.
Anything else would have to wait.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, but all of a sudden, strong fingers wound around her arm and she was being hauled ignominiously to her feet.
“Save your tears.” Elijah’s cold, rough voice in her ear. “He wasn’t worth any of them.”
Violet didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to talk to him right now. Didn’t want to hear that voice of his hurling icy truths at her. Truths that hit her far harder than any bullet.
Really, it would have hurt less if he’d just shot her in the leg like he’d said.
“Yes,” he said as he flushed the toilet and dragged her back out to the lounge area. “That would probably have been a lot less painful for all concerned.”
Oh shit. She must have said it aloud.
He sat her once more on the couch, in among the detritus she’d pulled out from her purse, and she didn’t have any energy to fight him. “Why didn’t you then?” she only said. “I think I would have preferred it.”
“The truth would have come out one way or another.” He stepped back, giving her a cold look. “Anyway, why should I spare you? You’ve been successfully looking the other way for years now, just like your mother. You deserve the truth shoved in your face.”
Behind the grief, guilt waited. Because hadn’t she known? Hadn’t she realized deep down that things weren’t quite right?
“It’s not my fault,” she said tonelessly. “I didn’t know what he was.”
“Purposefully.”
Of course it was purposefully. You didn’t want to know.
She looked away. “He was my father.”
“He was also a murderer.”
A little flash of anger went through her at the sheer implacability in his tone. Turning back, she looked up at him, standing there all dressed in black, expressionless as a brick wall. “What the hell do you care? You worked for him. Didn’t you know? And come to think of it, how do I know you’re telling the truth about any of this in the first place?”
“Of course I knew.” His gaze didn’t waver from hers. “And you should believe me because I was his right-hand man.”
CHAPTER THREE
She hadn’t expected that, though why she had no idea, since if anyone looked like a criminal it was this cold, pitiless man. Yet she couldn’t deny the shock that spread through her, already joining the acid still sitting in the pit of her stomach.
God, if she didn’t get herself together, she was going to need to throw up again.
“Okay then,” she said shakily. “So you’re a monster just like Dad.”
His scarred, bruised mouth turned up in another of those terrifying smiles. “We’re all monsters deep down, princess. Even you.”
Something lurched inside her at that, but she ignored it. “I thought you were just his bodyguard.”
“I was his bodyguard, but I also did other things.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell you.”
“And yet you had no problem telling me that Dad was a—”
“That’s because it concerned you. Whatever else I did, doesn’t.”
Her stomach twisted. “So, why haven’t you killed me? What do you want with me?”
His fathomless black gaze was utterly unreadable. “I already told you why. Because I want to use you. And you’re no good to me dead.”
“But apparently incapacitated is fine.”
“Yes.”
Her stomach twisted in another knot. “Oh, Jesus, I’m going to be sick.”
“No, you’re not.” He moved over to the low table beside the couch and picked up the glass of water sitting on it. Then he handed it to her, along with a small white pill. “Here, take this.”