Page 36 of The Queen (Masterpiece Duet 2)
I touch my forefinger lightly to a darker patch of skin on the side of his abdomen, a few inches below the endless stylized waves. “Tell me about this one.”
His eyes flash. “What are you doing?”
“Tell me.”
“Cast iron,” he says, his voice devoid of emotion. “A fireplace poker.”
I can’t quite control the flinch that comes from imagining that. The wound has healed over, almost smooth to the touch. Which means it happened a very long time ago. How young was he?
Without commenting on it, I move to a thin white line of raised skin. “This one.”
“Penny,” he warns.
“If you tell me, then you won’t be the only one who knows.”
His breath hitches—I can’t hear it or see it, but I feel the shift in his chest. “And you think I want that? You’re the last person I want to burden with this.”
“You keep trying to keep me safe, Damon Scott. No matter what it costs you.”
“That’s right. My life means nothing. It hasn’t meant anything since I met a little girl who stole a hundred-dollar bill from my backpack because she was hungry.”
Guilt burns like acid. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t you get it, Penny? I would give you a thousand of those. I’d give you every dollar I have, and then steal even more if that’s what you wanted.”
“Why?” I whisper, suddenly afraid.
“God knows,” he says, and it really does sound like a prayer. “My life would be so much simpler if I could just fuck one of those women down there. If I could just stop thinking about you for a single goddamn breath. Instead I’ve spent years taking over the fucking city so that I could give it you.”
Words are caught in my throat. Words like no and impossible and please.
“And the worst part is, you don’t want it, do you? You were never fooled by a suit and a smile, were you? You knew that only covered up a wild animal.”
“That’s not true,” I say, but it is. God, it is.
“You wanted to leave Tanglewood, and you were right to. You don’t belong here. So get back in your fucking little box, because that’s where I’m going to keep you until I can send you away again.”
I stand up from the bed like my limbs aren’t shattered, like my body is still in one piece. Like his gaze isn’t battering against my back. The small room is the same as when I left it. I’m the one who’s different. I’m the one hollowed out, blackened. A husk of the girl who went looking for him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I’m lying awake in bed when I hear the commotion downstairs. A man’s shout. A disturbing thump. I peek out of my little room to find the large bed empty, the sheet thrown back. Is it Damon downstairs? Or did he already go down to investigate?
I find my answer at the bottom of the stairs.
Damon stands over a prone body. A large body. One covered in bruises and blood.
“Daddy,” I whisper.
He looks up at me with one bloodshot eye, the other too puffy to see. “There you are. I had to make sure you were safe. Had to make sure—”
“Don’t speak to her,” Damon says, his voice bored.
It’s a lie, that boredom. The casual look of him, loose pants and no shirt—that’s a lie, too. Everything about this man is deliberate and honed. He’s a blade, and the man on the floor in front of him is sliced into pieces.
I rush to Daddy’s side, helping him stand. “You need to go to a hospital.”
“No,” he grunts, leaning on me. “No hospitals.”
Damon gives a coarse laugh.
I glare at him. “Did you do this to him?”
“He deserves what happened to him. Worse, actually.”
How can my father’s weight feel both heavy and painfully frail at the same time? He seems to have aged a hundred years since I saw him last. “Daddy,” I whisper. “What did you do?”
He groans. “I made a mistake.”
“A mistake,” Damon says, mocking. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
Daddy shudders in my arms, and I lead him to one of the large leather chairs, sending Damon a dirty look. I know that I have no power here, not really. Only what he gives me. I still dare him to tell me no. That Daddy can’t sit down, that this broken man can’t rest here.
Damon leans against the wall, indolent and muscular, as if unconcerned with any of this.
I hold two larger hands in mine, terribly aware of all the times this has happened before. The chair was a lumpy armchair instead of leather, the floor thin carpet instead of an oriental rug. But the feeling is the same—the searing disappointment that my father has once again hit the bottom.
And here I am, kneeling with him. Always with him.
