Chapter 2 #3
Dominik got killed on a deal gone wrong. A pig killed him. A cop with eyes for my father’s game. A man with more money in his pockets than the strength of his moral compass.
I believed Dominik was too good to die the way he had, but numerous members of our family disagreed. If it were a setup, there would be trophies. That was what they told me when I dared utter a single disagreement with how things played out.
We were standing in his fucking basement now, drinking his hard-earned money down the drain and running more fancy cars on this property than there had ever been at one time.
“I want you to promise me I’ll get Estelle back.”
I raised my eyes back up from the scuff marks on my midnight combat boots. His cane ruptured the tension in the air with a cool, crisp clack against the floorboards. I knew by the way Papa tilted his head that he was smirking.
“Papa, please.” I inhaled deeply and relaxed my shoulders.
He wanted power. He wanted total control over me. If it meant putting on the princess puppy dog eyes and doing my worst impression of his eldest child, then that was what I was willing to do. Anything to get my daughter back. Then, if anything happened to me, I knew they’d have to listen.
“Pussy softer than her mom’s,” Maxim snickered in the corner.
He fell with a loud huff behind the bar when Levi turned and chucked his beer bottle in Maxim’s direction. I didn’t spare him any attention, but I was sure Levi had been dying for an excuse to beat him over the head since he walked in here.
“Boy—” Levi hissed. “Sit your ass down!”
Maxim quickly listened. Dumbass.
Time seemed to slow as Papa turned to face me, his every move measured and drawn out.
“You want to make a deal?” he asked.
Papa fixed his expensive suit jacket and eased his hand over his collar. His fingers touched the eight-point star cufflinks on his wrists, tapping his cane in thought.
“When someone makes a deal with me, they are signing themselves to the d’yovol.”
I gulped. It meant devil.
It had been a few years since I faced the threat of losing the other half of what sliver of soul I considered I had control of.
Maybe it was a figure of speech to some, but in this family, it was an expectation.
Some nights, the tips of my fingers throbbed from trying to hold on to the cement floors as I was dragged toward hell.
The dark father gave us no mercy. Church had never been the same after training.
I’d never feel comfortable in a cell-like environment.
My father knew that when he sent me to fucking juvenile detention.
I wanted nothing to do with the fire in Papa’s eyes, but it was unluckily the only option I might have if I wanted Estelle to have a chance.
“You give me what I want, and you get what you need. No games. No exceptions.” His eyes weighed on me, voice deepening with his thick Russian accent. “No exceptions, Eleanor.”
I swallowed hard once more but settled myself with a heavy step forward, then another. Each footfall toward him felt like heavy weights clunking against steel, nearing my demise.
He’d be the one to put me in the ground. A part of me knew this growing up, yet I continued to tip toe the line. I worried how far he’d go, how hard he’d push me. If I one day lost it, it would be all his fault.
He was the one who encouraged the monster inside me out into the sun. Eleanor stayed in the basement. In my mind, she was dragged into the fire by the devil. Forgotten. Gone. Dead.
“I’m not afraid to make a deal with the devil,” I spoke louder over Oscar’s snarky side comment to Milo near the pool table. They continued playing their game with Victor, though I could tell they didn’t believe a word I said.
I hope my father had. Truth was, I was terrified of what this would do to me. Estelle needed a life more than this.
Papa’s dark hazel eyes, their gaze penetrating, watched me like a hawk. He stood deep in thought, and a flicker of worry settled in my mind when he rolled his cane more firmly in his hand.
“Tell me who you are.”
Great. This shit again.
“Eleanor Battles.” I straightened my feet and squared my shoulders for him. It pleased him to see me respond exactly how I had been taught.
She was in the basement. Screaming. Crying. Chained to the fireplace, begging for her Papa to let her out.
Please, don’t let her out.
As I recalled my childhood, I balled my hands into fists. He approached me step by step with a growing smile, knowing how deadly his words were to me. He loved this. He loved making me feel small, forcing me to acknowledge all I wished to forget.
“Tell me—” His voice raised then softened with a sadistically calm smile. “Who. You. Are.”
“I am Eleanor Battles.” I paused and met his eyes. “And I am a star.”
“Damn right you are.” The handle of Papa’s cane knocked into my shoulder. “And you’re going to kill Agent Dawson’s daughter.”
I swallowed.
“You want Estelle, Eleanor?” Papa hissed. “Say it. Say it like you mean it.”
Taking a deep breath and remembering I had taken this responsibility when I decided to leave the abortion clinic, I spat out the poisonous words infecting my tongue.
“I’m Eleanor Battles, and I’m going to kill Agent Dawson’s daughter.”