Chapter 20
Callum
“Stay here,” I tell my friends as I gaze up at Dallas’s classroom.
If Sophia’s having a meltdown, I don’t want them witnessing it.
I start to walk, but Milo steps in my way. “Nah, fuck that.”
“Then go home.”
I scowl at him through the rain. Officer Chavez saw Dallas’s car cruising past curfew, heading toward the school, and once he got a hold of me, I knew Sophia must be there.
When I got done with my calls after dinner, she was gone. Milo said she went for a walk, and she knows damn well she’s not allowed to be out after dark. Why would he take her into the school? Did she call him? She wasn’t answering her phone when I tried.
I’d waited a bit for her to come back, but after Milo left, I jumped in my car. I searched the park, the ice cream bar, the pet store…They have a huge saltwater aquarium in their display window. She loves it there.
Then Chavez got a hold of me.
“I’ll deal with my sister myself,” I tell Milo.
Vincent moves to my side. “You shouldn’t let her around him at all,” he says. “There’s no telling what he’s filling her head with.”
“They already have Clay and Krisjen.” Milo stares up at me. “Her brain may be a noodle, but she’s still pretty. He’s after her, Callum.”
The last part, he bites out in a stern voice, but I don’t need their help in there. I don’t want to fight with Dallas in front of Sophia, but it might be impossible, and things are going to be said that I don’t want my friends to hear.
When Chavez called me, I called them simply to stand watch.
“When he steps outside,” I dictate, “grab him.” I start walking toward the school. “And let me handle Sophia my way.”
Leaving them behind in the rain, I walk to the side door, glancing at Dallas’s car as I pass. The front and back seats are empty, and I’m tempted to yell for Vincent and Milo to smash in his fucking windshield. What the hell is he doing in there alone with her?
Unlocking the door, I slip inside, quickly locking it behind me. Kind of pointless, because they have keys, too.
Removing my phone from my pant leg, I dial my stepsister.
Drifting into the school, I listen to it ring in my ear as I scan the courtyard.
A bit of moonlight peeks through the clouds, spilling onto the garden, but there’s no movement or sound, other than the steady torrent of water falling through the open roof.
Ending the call, I tap out a text. I’m inside.
Milo replies, If you’re not back in 15, we’re coming in.
Plenty long enough to throw her over my shoulder and spit out a few fucking choice words for Dallas. Are they in his classroom? He has a couch.
My heart pumps a mile a minute. If he’s touching her…
Goddamn him.
I’m not surprised. He’s a piece of shit, and I’ve known it for years.
I squeeze the phone in my hand, calling her again and climbing the stairs to his classroom. Ringing finally reaches my ears, and I vault up the last of the steps, charging toward his room.
“Sophia?” I call out.
Her phone glows bright on Dallas’s desk as it rings in my ear. I hear his voice before I look around.
“She’s in the Bay.”
Jerking my head, I see Dallas slide his hands into his pockets.
Ending the call, I watch him step closer, his T-shirt damp against his body, outlining his stomach. His wet neck and hair glow under the dim light from the hallway.
“I had Officer Jaeger take her,” he says.
“You did what?”
She’s not even here? I look around for any sign of her. Why would she leave her phone?
He looks at me with eyes so calm I want to punch him. “Krisjen and Clay will give her some ice cream and make sure she gets some rest.” He blinks. “She’ll be perfectly safe.”
“She’s not safe without me!”
“She’s not safe with you,” he retorts.
I stuff my cell in my pocket and charge toward him. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” I growl. “You know her for two seconds and think you have a right to make decisions about her life?”
“When your best friend tried to take off her clothes tonight, she ran to me,” he fires back. “Not you.”
Take off her clothes? What?!
He wouldn’t have done that with me in the house. I was right down the hallway.
Dallas goes on, “He told her she would be spanked for the windows.” He glances behind him, and I follow his gaze, seeing her beautiful work. “So he offered to go easy on her if she let him do it instead.”
He wouldn’t have done that with me in the house.
But he would’ve done it. It sounds exactly like something he’d say. I picture Milo behind me, down the stairs, and out the door, thinking he could try to lay his hands on her. Did he think I’d pass her around to my friends, too?
He probably didn’t even bat an eyelash about me finding out, because no one knows me. Not him, not my father, not Dallas.
I meet his eyes again. “I’ll take care of it,” I say in a low voice. “But I’m not discussing this with you. Sophia and I—”
“Anna-Katherine.”
“Sophia and I,” I grit out, “are none of your business. Is that clear?”
“Not even close.”
Awesome. I’m not going to yell at her, but she involved him and now he thinks he has a say. Another rule to add to her list.
“Did you know my mother worked for your grandparents?” Dallas points out.
Maybe I heard that somewhere. It didn’t interest me, because they’ve all worked for us in some capacity.
He drifts around the room. “A young, beautiful woman cleaning their house while your father—a young fucking prick—lived there, too.”
I inhale a big breath, knowing where this is going. I don’t even have to guess.
He goes on, “One day, she had my father come and get her and she never went back.”
I’ve never known my father to force a woman physically. He’s very good at using the power he has to coerce people into doing what he wants, and they will often feel as if they don’t have a choice. He loves that. The reluctant surrender.
“He must’ve freaked her out pretty good,” Dallas adds.
I’d imagine so. An episode from my childhood slides to the forefront of my memory, of him making a maid clean his shower on her hands and knees.
He was in it, naked and masturbating over her with the water running.
Dallas stops and levels me with his steady but firm gaze. “Extreme wealth and unlimited power make people sick, Callum,” he states. “When you can have anything you want, you get desensitized. You need to up the ante in order to feel excited.”
I tip my chin up. I don’t need a lesson.
“And then once that becomes normal,” he continues, “you need to up the ante again.”
Is he really educating me on a life I’ve lived for twenty-two years?
“But you know this, don’t you?” he says, as if reading my mind. “You know sickness. Especially after what you tried to do to Liv.”
I didn’t realize I was still scowling until my face falls. What I did…
What I did to Liv? I am nothing like my father.
But before I argue back, he starts pacing.
“Stop me when I’m wrong,” he tells me. “Your father sees Anna-Katherine growing up, likes what he sees, and figures he can have anything he wants.” He shrugs at me, cocky.
“Why not, right? He’s had young girls before.
Why shouldn’t he get a taste before the rest of St. Carmen? He’s the man, right?”
I lock my jaw, my hands aching with anger as they curl into fists.
“Once he’d had her to himself for a while,” Dallas muses, “and he’d had his fill…”
I can’t swallow, the lump in my throat too big. I drop my eyes and shake my head, but more to myself than to him.
“…he took her into the Wolfe Room, didn’t he?” he goes on.
No. I squeeze my eyes shut. No, no, no…
I grab a student’s desk and shove it to the ground. Goddammit.
I need the Bay. With that much power, I can get rid of them all. My father, his friends, Dallas…
I can’t talk to him about this! He’ll use it as leverage.
He steps toward me. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”
I shoot my eyes up. “But you’d take her from me.”
He’ll do whatever he has to, especially if part of him thinks he’s protecting her in the process.
My chest starts to shake. He doesn’t know what it’s like. What did he do the one time someone cried for him? He ignored her.
“I told her,” I murmur. “I tried to tell her.”
I remember catching them in his office. She was in his lap, his hand under her skirt, and she wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t looking away from him, either. It was like she idolized him.
I shake my head. “She thought he loved her. She thought his attention meant the world.” I look away, remember that feeling myself as I whisper, “Everyone just wants to be wanted.”
“How many times did he take her in?”
I blink for a long moment, dipping my head again. “Just once,” I tell him, my throat swelling again. “But it was bad.”
Sophia went in that night and never came out. She could never tell us what happened, but we found out. Talk on the golf course would spill over to a beer cart girl, who would tell her sister, who was someone else’s maid or cook, and she’d tell the lady of the house, who would tell her friends.
Or it went something like that.
Within days, we all knew, and my stepmother, who had failed to get Sophia away from my father when we all started seeing what was happening in our own house, almost took her kid and ran.
Almost.
She quickly realized Sophia would have zero chance without proper care to overcome her trauma.
Dallas approaches, stopping two feet in front of me. “Did he ever force you…to do anything?”
With Sophia?
Or…
I close my mouth, hesitating. No one’s ever asked me that.
Someone should’ve. It makes sense that sons could be used as easily as daughters, but Sophia wasn’t my father’s blood. Less valuable to him.
I shake my head. “No.”
“But as a man of St. Carmen, you need to pay to play, right?”
I just stare at him. I won’t have to play in the Wolfe Room for long. I know what I’m doing, and I don’t need his help. “There are seven names on my list,” I inform him. “And they will take some time, but Milo will be next. Right after my father.”
“And me.”
A gleam hits his eyes; he knows he’s on my shit list, too.
“Very good,” I coo.