It smells like cedar and wet earth mixed with pepper and spiced rum.
It makes me sway on my feet. I know instantly that I’ve smelled that scent before. Not just once, but multiple times. As it did when I met Tess for the first time, the smell of that man’s aftershave hits me like a freight train, and I know without a doubt that we’ve met before.
Then I think about that night when I woke up in the woods, the way one of my attackers smelled just like this and how, after I escaped from him, he didn’t chase me. He strolled. He prowled.
Justin.
“I know you don’t remember me, princess,” he starts, reaching out a hand that Chasm very quickly slaps down, inserting himself between me and Justin. The man doesn’t let on that the move bothers him at all but for the most minute crinkling of the skin beside his eyes.
It’s that small tell that scares me the most.
I push Chasm aside and step forward.
More than anything, I want to talk to this man in private.
If he’s here, then everything we’ve suspected thus far must be correct: the Slayer has a personal interest in seeing me submit to his will, interact with him, learn from him. He’s here for me, and I’m here for Parrish.
There has to be a way to work this out.
“You might not remember me, but I’m your father, Mia,” Justin repeats with all due seriousness. He’s like, the dream dad that every girl wishes for her, and I’m goddamn terrified of him. “I’ve been wanting to come and see you for some time now.”
“Do not respond to him, Dakota,” Tess repeats, tearing from Paul’s grasp and running her palms down the front of her white power suit. “He’ll be leaving now, and if he wants to see you, he can take it to court.”
“You’d do that to me?” he asks, giving her a crushed sort of look that’s so genuine I almost believe it. “That’s sick, Tess. I’m the girl’s father. I was given as little choice in losing her as you were.” He casts a look in his ex-wife’s direction that makes her look to be the enemy in this scenario. He turns back to me yet again. “As soon as I heard you’d be found, I started preparing things for you.” He reaches out to touch my face, and Chasm goes completely stiff beside me.
I grab Chas’ wrist when he tries to move forward, squeezing it tightly enough that he stops in his tracks. We cannot piss this man off. I know that much within five minutes of meeting him.
“Nobody wants a disgraced father living in exile.” He tilts his head at me, blue eyes sparkling. I’d say we looked nothing alike, but that’s only if you take in basic details like hair and eye color. Our faces are structured in a very similar way: same nose, same mouth, same eye shape. Even his jawline is just a masculinized version of my own. “But I’m here now.” Justin turns his attention back to Tess. “If you have a problem with that, we can certainly get the law involved.”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do; you are not talking to my daughter without a judge’s order.”
“Your daughter?” Justin asks incredulously. “You mean our daughter.” He looks at me again and smiles. “Give me a hug, princess.”
Shit.
My eyes slide over to Tess; she’s looking at me, Paul’s looking at me, Chasm’s sending a heated death glare directly through Justin’s skull.
When he holds out his arms like he’s offering me a hug, I know that I have to take it. The unspoken command rests behind the friendly glimmer in his ice blue eyes.
Even though it kills me to reach out and hug the man who’s responsible for Parrish’s suffering, who orders him to be cut, to bleed, who traumatizes me, ruins my life, destroys my relationships with people I care about, I embrace him like he’s the most important person in the whole wide world.
Because as long as he has Parrish, he is.
And he knows that.
Nothing he’s done thus far is accidental—especially not this.
I love tight hugs. I really do. It’s a Banks’ family tradition to give big, tight squeezes.
What Justin does to me however … feels more like an anaconda circling prey. He hugs me so tightly that it actually hurts; he crushes the breath from my lungs and makes my bones ache. I don’t let any of it show through.
I can’t afford to do that.
And we both know it.
“Tell them you want to come with me. Beg them. Scream. Do whatever you have to do,” he whispers against the side of my head. And then he kisses me on the cheek and strands up straight, putting his hands on my shoulders and looking me over like, well, a long-lost relative. “You have turned out beautifully, you know that?” he says, gazing at me with the same level of desperation that Tess often displays toward me. Only, his isn’t sad like hers is. It’s obsessive. “What did I do to deserve such an incredible daughter?”
