Page 147 of Devious Obsession
It’s filled with kid things. Underwear and sleep shirts and shorts, play clothes.
There’s a makeup bag on top of it. Without thinking, I overturn it. My makeup—my makeup—spills out. Spills everywhere. Tubes of mascara and lipstick roll off the dresser. My eyeshadow palette clatters to the floor and shatters.
“Careful, Aspen!” Dad tows me away from the shards of glass and plastic, almost lifting me completely off my feet.
I kick and squeal, unnerved at how easy he carries me away. His arm banded around my waist gives me no leniency.
He tosses me down on the double bed, his expression fierce. “You can’t destroy your stuff like that.”
He’sangry. But not just that—disappointed.
“What is this?” I have to ask.
Dad squints at me. Confused. “This is ours, babydoll. Just temporary, of course, while I get your sisters and mother. We’ll set up at a bigger house back in Chicago, get you your own room. But we’re going to be a family again. That’s all I’ve wanted.”
I can’t do this.
I sit there and stare at him, my mind turning over the horrors of a reality I’d live out if he succeeds. What he would do to my fourteen- and twelve-year-old sisters. Or me.
How many debts does he have?
How many mobsters want him dead?
My mind goes to Steele. Just picturing his face gives me an ounce of room in my lungs for air. I suck it in greedily, and I snap out of being coy, or scared, or fuckingweak. I didn’t survive all that shit with him just to turn around and bend my head for my father. Not when he’s talking about ripping my sisters away from their lives. And what, kidnapping my mother along with us?
I rise from the bed. “You can’t do that. I have a life. A good life. And so do my sisters, and my mom. Are you seriously so delusional to think that any of us will last? You’re trouble incarnate.”
He retrieves a brown paper bag out of the closet, from the top shelf, and tosses it at me. “Why didn’t you spend this?” His voice rises, his face reddening. “I gave this to you—my brother passed it along. And yet I found it untouched in your closet while you took handouts from some other man?”
I flinch. “I don’t wantanythingfrom you.”
Dad stares at me. The seconds tick by… and his expression morphs.
From a sympathetic, caring Dad, straight into the face of a madman.
“Foolish girl,” he whispers.
Ah.
Ice trickles down my spine. I should’ve remembered that when he went quiet was the worst. The deep, dark monsters that lived under his skin never made much noise—but they always made an impact.
He leads me out of the room and back toward the kitchen. There’s a piano on the wall that divides the kitchen and the living room. And my music binder sits on top of it.
“I went through so much trouble for you,” he growls. “You ungrateful child.”
He pulls a matchbook from his pocket and snatches the binder. He marches to the sink and holds the binder so all the pages fan out.
My heart goes into my throat. All those carefully written notes, my handwriting cramped between the bars of music. All the practice and rehearsal that went into it.
He strikes the match and sets it to the pages, and all my hard work goes up in flames.
I lunge for it, but he drops the burning music into the dry sink basin. The pages blacken and curl, and I let out a ragged noise. He comes around and drags me closer, forcing me to watch up close.
Tears burn my eyes. The smoke gets in my nose, scratching my throat. I blink, and the tears drip down my face.
“This is why you should listen to your father, babydoll,” he says in my ear.
He drags me back into the living room and throws me in the armchair I woke up in. He positions himself right in front of the man curled on the floor, a grim smirk overtaking his face.
