Fifty-Five
WHEN DASH’S EYES FALL ON ME, THE COLLISION OF EMOTIONS IN them startles me. He shuts the door behind him.
I don’t look away. I stole from my dad. I want him to know it was me.
“I admit, I didn’t think you could do it,” he says.
I hold my chin high. “Why?” I ask. “You stole my home from me. Money was the least of what I could take from you. I don’t regret it.”
Fireworks have started outside over the water. Explosions of red and gold light the office. He waves away my words and walks over to a couch, where he sits, legs crossed. I watch him, hiding confusion. His collar undone, his hair imperfect from the wear of the wedding. The defiant relaxation of his posture in his tuxedo. He looks pleased to be here, the recipient of the wedding gift he never expected his daughters would give him.
“No, not that,” he says. “Revenge, theft—I understand these instincts well. In fact, they’re necessary. You don’t get to have this”—he gestures to the room, the house, the imposing everything—“without them. I didn’t think you were capable of pulling it off, of evading security, of planning something like this. When I heard your scheme, I didn’t stop you. I wanted to see how far you’d get.”
I feel the slap of his words. “You’ve always underestimated me,” I muster, hearing my retort’s weakness, its lack of menace. The entire day, the months of planning, I’ve imagined myself the defiant intruder in his perfectly smug hallways. Instead, I haven’t managed to escape ending up exactly where he wanted me.
Dash smiles. He nods while white fireworks light up his face. Abigail stands, arms crossed, glaring, outside the explosions’ glow. The likeness of their faces is otherwise impossible to ignore.
“I suppose I have,” my father concedes. “I’ll be taking the money back, of course, but I can toss you a couple hundred thousand. You’ve earned it.”
I furrow my brow, not understanding.
Dash goes on cheerfully, clapping his hands together. “Honestly, I feel so much better now. You know, I always regretted not having a son I could pass the empire on to. I figured you were soft. Shallow.” He uncrosses his legs and leans forward. “Now I know you’re a worthy heir, Olivia Owens. I’m proud of you.”
I’m proud of you.
I’ve never, not once, heard the reverence in his voice when he pronounces my name. It holds me in place like no handcuffs ever could. His is the intonation used for futures forged, dynasties delivered, and queens crowned.
In the shadows, Abigail watches.
My father rises from the couch and pulls from his jacket pocket a key, glinting silver in the light from the windows. He comes over to me, where he unlocks the handcuffs. I don’t move. I can’t.
“You’re my legacy,” he says.
I hate how much his approval feeds the fantasies I’ve spent the day fighting off, racked with the recognition of how I’ll always love him, even while I hate him. Even while I steal from him. I’ll never escape the dream of the life where he values me.
He’s now delivering the reality right into my grasp. Guilty images fill my head of me moving back into this house, not full-time—I would never leave my mom—but half the time, I could be here. I could have this. My dad. Everything.
This isn’t revenge, a voice in my head whispers. Is it better, though?
I don’t know.
Rubbing my wrist, I stand. I push aside the intoxicating idea of calling every manicured lawn, every palatial room, every strip of crown molding mine again. It is the horrible power of home—how can I rue this house yet yearn for it the instant it returns to my grasp? “What about my crew?” I demand.
“Talented people,” Dash remarks without hesitating. “Keep them close, Olivia. You could make use of them in the future.”
His measured manner is utterly puzzling. It’s like it’s the first day of my internship in his footsteps. Nor do I miss what’s hidden in his invocation of the future. The life he leads—the life he’s leading me into—is one of using the people closest to me.
“You won’t press charges?” I ask.
He laughs. He’s walked over to the drink cart, where he pours himself whiskey into one of the unused glasses. “Charges?” he repeats. “Charges for what? While I’m pleased with your efforts, you didn’t succeed or accomplish anything. You can’t beat me, but you can learn a few things.”
Finished pouring, he raises his glass.
In my honor, I realize.
“I can’t wait to teach you,” he says.
No embarrassed imaginings of how it would feel to return here, under the roof where I grew up, could ever compare to what I feel now. Every hope, every resentful wish, leads here, into the heart of my fantasies. What I wanted was never a heist. It was never a house. It was respect, his respect. Recognition. Love.
While I wrestle with myself, my father turns to his other daughter. “Now you. You’ve done your job sufficiently.” His air is dismissive. Painfully professional. “You’ll get what you were promised. I’ll name you in my will, and you’ll receive an inheritance along with Olivia and whatever future children I may have.”
The change in his demeanor startles Abigail. I watch her conceal her flinch poorly. In the corner of the room, she no longer looks like my opponent. She looks like the ghost of me.
“That’s it?” she replies.
“That was our agreement, was it not?” Dash returns.
With horrible clarity, I realize what he’s done here. I recognize his filthy fingerprints everywhere on this conversation. He implied he would welcome Abigail into the family without ever intending to honor her expectations. It’s perfectly him. Enough promises for you to feel hope. Never enough for you to feel loved.
“But…” With the word, the waver steals further into my sister’s voice. “I thought…”
Dash swirls his drink. “Don’t tell me you were expecting—what? To move in?” He wanders into the middle of the room, infuriatingly comfortable. It’s exactly how he lives, I guess. The man in the center of everything while planning nothing.
“Of course not. I just—” She steps forward, mastering her emotions once more. “So when Olivia pulls off a scheme, you bring her in to the company, but when I do it, I’m just the girl you hired? Olivia didn’t even succeed,” she points out. “I delivered. Yet you’re rewarding her. It’s not fair.”
If the stakes weren’t empires and millions, I would find the whole situation perilously close to funny. We just sound like squabbling sisters, pressing our cases in front of our parent, decider of our fate. She did it first! Why isn’t she getting punished? It’s not fair! Of course, the conversation is heartbreakingly far from the sibling drama I’m imagining. The desperation in Abigail’s every word leaves me closer to crying, not laughing.
I know exactly what she’s feeling. It makes my heart crack. Abigail is strong, stronger than me. It won’t matter. Dash will break her anyway.
He frowns incredulously. “Oh, what is fair?” He spits the word as if it’s poison in his drink. “Fair,” he answers himself, “is just a word people use when they want to get their hands on what others have earned.”
His intonation leaves no doubt which group he considers himself part of. I can’t help grimacing. Yes, my father is crafty. Yes, he’s charismatic. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s earned exactly none of the indulgences his life has left him. He carelessly walks in carpeted footsteps. Fair is stealing from someone like him.
“You may have my blood, Abigail, but you’re not an Owens,” he concludes. “I’ll have to ask you to leave my property now.”
In Abigail’s eyes, I watch doors slam shut on hope. The frantic hunger in her gaze withers into nothing. She looks lost, small enough that she could vanish into the shadowy corner of the high-ceilinged study. I could consider it revenge for her betrayal. I even wait for the dark whispers to overtake me. It’s what the Owens in me would feel, isn’t it?
I wait, and they never do. I only feel sad for her. I see myself in my sister. The girl who, years ago, was told to pack her bags and leave.
I can’t just watch it happen again.
“No,” I hear myself say. “Abigail won’t be leaving.”
I face my father, who rounds on me. The fires of revenge are burning hot and bright in me once more, reignited by his dismissal of Abigail. I can’t overlook it just because he’s offered me everything I’ve privately dreamed of. He needs to pay.
He needs to know how fairness really feels—and in the shadows, her dark double, revenge. The same, yet different.
Like sisters.
For once, my father needs to experience what he deserves.