Chapter 52
LUNA
The duct tape is easy to get off.
Most people would think the pendant necklace I wear has some kind of sentimental meaning. They wouldn’t notice the smaller, sharper edges hidden in the curves of the metal.
All I have to do is bend my arms at some interesting angles to maneuver my hands in front of my body, slip the necklace off, and grip the cord of the jewelry in my teeth as I catch the tape on the sharp edge.
A few slices and splitting through the bindings, and it becomes as easy as ripping open a bag of chips.
With free hands, the tape around my feet doesn’t stand a chance.
I pause to stretch my muscles, shaking out the cramps and aches of lying in an uncomfortable position for too long.
With careful fingers, I probe the back of my head. The area is sore to the touch, but my hands come away clean. That’s a plus. I’ll still need to visit a hospital when this is all over to check I don’t have a concussion.
Walking on light feet, I explore the room that used to be so familiar to me. Unsurprisingly, the door is locked. Not the escape route I want to use anyway. Leaving through the door means I still need to navigate through the house, almost certainly alerting my father to my escape in real time.
Better if I’m able to get out without him knowing.
Crossing to the window, I discover there is still something in this room left over from my childhood.
A row of nails has been hammered in a haphazard line into the bottom of the window frame. Holding the window firmly shut.
Despite his ease with laying hands on me now, there was a time when my father rarely used his fists to punish me.
“That’s for the boys,” he always said.
Instead, Bill Lamont would lock me in this room for an indeterminate amount of time.
No food. No water. Just endless hours to contemplate how I’d wronged him. There was one time I’d really pissed him off. I can’t remember what I did, but it was enough to have the lock still firmly in place two days after the incident.
That was the day I climbed out the window.
I got down to the street and jogged to the closest gas station, where I used the bathroom before scarfing down two hot dogs and almost a liter of water.
When I climbed back into the bedroom, the door was still locked, but my father came in a few hours later, wearing his aren’t you happy to see me now face.
It took a year for him to discover my escape route.
That was when he nailed things shut.
That was when I started having panic attacks at the thought of this room. Most nights, I would end up sleeping on the floor of Leo’s or Dash’s room to avoid coming in here.
And now I’m back, locked up all over again.
The panic still claws against my brain, but I stifle the dread with my survival knowledge.
I can get out of this room.
I’ll probably have to break the glass, which will bring my parents running. But as long as I’m prepared to shimmy down the drainpipe faster than it takes my dad to unlock a door, I’ll be good.
There’s nothing in the room particularly good for breaking windows. I’m in the process of wrapping a few of my mother’s shirts around my fist when I hear the yelling through the door. The whole house shakes with the noise.
Footsteps pound the stairs, and I glance between the window and the door.
I banked on the time it’d take them to run up the stairs to give myself precious seconds to clear away shards of broken glass that could cause real injury if I tried climbing through them.
But if my dad is right outside the door when I break the window, I don’t stand a chance of climbing out without his interference.
I drop the shirts and hurry to stand just beside the doorway, sliding a rack of clothes closer to shield me for the brief moment when someone first enters the room.
This may be my only chance to escape.
Let’s just hope my father isn’t carrying one of his guns. Not much room to dodge a bullet down the narrow staircase.
Even as I tense to run, the people who pounded toward my room don’t seem ready to greet me just yet.
“She’s my daughter! I can do whatever the hell I want with her.”
Uh, no, you fucking cannot.
But then I pause at my father’s phrasing.
Is he arguing with someone about this? Is he arguing with my mother? The woman who has never stood up for me in her entire life?
The idea doesn’t compute.
Then a deeper voice sounds through the flimsy wood.
“When I say let her the fuck out, I mean it. Now!” Uncle Mike’s booming bass rattles the window.
I wonder if maybe he’ll create my escape route just with his anger.
“You don’t get it!” There’s a note of whining in my father’s voice, as if his big brother were taking away a toy he wanted to play with instead of telling him to free his kidnapped daughter.
“She’s got money. I just need to keep her here until she gives it up.
Then we’re good. And I’ll give you your ten percent, like always.
” My father says this last bit with an air of coaxing. Like he’s offering some tasty morsel.
I almost laugh.
“I know about the money, you fuckup.” The doorknob rattles, and I can envision Mike’s meaty fist wrapped around it. “She’s paying it to me. All of it.”
“What?” Panic brings a sharp edge to Bill’s words. “No. She’d never agree to that.”
“She’s paying for Leo!” Mike snarls. “That girl of yours wants both her brothers out of the game, and she’ll pay just about anything to make it happen. She’s sure as hell got a lot more family loyalty than you’ve ever shown.”
“Mike—”
“Bet you weren’t planning on telling me about the cash, you greedy fucking bastard.”
“I was.” Through the door, I can hear the lie in his voice.
Maybe, going off this conversation, I could hope to put my faith in Uncle Mike.
The problem is, my father has this persuasive knack that works particularly well on my mother and his brother.
Time and again, Bill talks the two out of getting mad at him.
He even goes so far as to persuade them to his way of thinking.
His bullshit doesn’t work on me. It hasn’t since I was six years old. Maybe it’s because he never tried too hard until I got older. And by that time, I saw through his flimsy veneer of sincerity.
And no way his persuasion will work now. Not after he threatened Charlie.
But Bill could get my uncle to change his mind. No way am I sticking around, hoping the chop-shop owner will maintain his slippery grip on his honor.
“Open the door,” I hear my uncle growl from the other side of the wood.
A long pause, and then there’s a slip of a key into a heavier lock than I remember. Sounds like even if I’d picked my way out of here, I would have come up against a dead bolt.
Through the hanging dresses, I watch the door open.
“What the hell?”
The first rule is to run.
I burst out from behind the clothes, grab my father’s shoulder, and whip him around straight into my fist.
Guess I won’t tell anyone about how bad I am at following my own rules.
The crunch of his nose is a beautiful sound, but not as lovely as the pained squeak he lets out when I knee him straight in the balls. Shoving him to the floor, I bring my heel down hard on his right hand. The one he used to hold the gun against my head. More bones crack, and my father screams.
Violence pounds through my veins. I want to keep going. Draw more blood. Shatter more bones. Strike terror into his heart whenever he thinks of my name.
But I want to leave this room, this house, even more.
I turn on my uncle, who actually holds his hands up in surrender, despite the foot of height and hundred pounds he has on me.
“If anyone,” I pant, riding a surge of adrenaline and ignoring the ache in my ribs, “touches my husband, I will kill this piece of shit.”
I’m too pissed to think of a childish candy to call him. I let rage flow through me as I smash my heel down on the same hand, the burn of his slap still throbbing along my cheek.
“Bitch,” he whimpers.
I crouch down and grab his chin the same way he grabbed mine earlier.
“I am what you made me, snickerdoodle.”
Look at that. I did have one in me.
When I stand up and glare at my uncle, there’s something like humor in his expression.
“You can keep your money if you come work for me.” Uncle Mike smiles. “Could use another enforcer.”
“Not going to happen.” I straighten my spine further. “You get my inheritance, Leo’s out. That still the deal?”
Uncle Mike nods, and I return the gesture before strolling out of the bedroom.
Where I face my mother.
She stares at me, eyes wide with some emotion I can’t read. Not that I bother trying. I just brush past her, moving down the stairs with measured steps as a sudden vertigo messes with my balance.
Just as I reach the bottom, the front door breaks down.