Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 40637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 203(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 203(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
“She had a difficult pregnancy with you. Looking back, it was probably stress and anxiety. I didn’t know it at the time, but the abuse started a few months after Flagg found out Margaret was pregnant. She told me she was fine, that she was just tired from all the vomiting and swollen feet and just being pregnant.
“Two days after she was ordered on bedrest, I got called overseas to… arbitrate.” He sidestepped whatever his reasons were, but that was OK. I didn’t want to know about his businesses or whatever. I only wanted to know about my mother. “Are you sure you want to talk about this here?”
“Why wouldn’t I? If you’re trying to get me to go with you somewhere to talk in private so you can take me away, you can try something else.”
“Honey, no.” He shook his head. “I just want you to have the option to hear this in private. Family matters are often sensitive.”
I thought about that. “Yeah. They are. But this is my family. They’re the ones having to live through it with me now.”
To my surprise, Miles nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “He waited until he knew I was gone. Then he called in a doctor he paid to deliver the baby, then kill Margaret and make it look like an accident. He chose insulin.”
“Why didn’t the coroner rule her death a homicide?”
“Because they didn’t check for insulin since she wasn’t a diabetic, and her doctor was at her bedside when she died. I wasn’t there and no one questioned the doctor’s account of what happened.”
“What about me?”
“He told me you’d died with Margaret during the birth. Then he paid the funeral director and the doctor to file all the appropriate paperwork for a stillborn death, had a closed casket for the child, then buried both side by side with a nice headstone and everything.” The longer he spoke, the more fury filled Miles’s face. He nodded at Knuckles again who punched Flagg in the crotch with those brass knuckles with what looked like all his considerable strength.
My father squealed over and over, crying and begging. I really should have felt bad, or been uncomfortable with seeing someone so obviously suffering, but I couldn’t really muster the energy to care.
“Took me years and years to find out differently, Carrie. The second I did, I reached out to Vic.”
That got a gasp of outrage from Father’s brother, Zeb Randall. “Vic? You betrayed us!”
“That’s rich. Coming from you.” For the first time, Vic joined the discussion. He reached out his hand to Knuckles who handed over one brass knuckle. Vic put it on his right hand, then hit Randall across the as yet uninjured side of his jaw. He now looked similar to Flagg. Sounded about like him too. “It was your idea to get rid of Margaret so you could groom her child to be the perfect pawn in your game. You could marry her off to create an alliance. She’d be wife and bodyguard in one. You’d program her to be subservient and obedient. Then you’d gain an ally as well as a spy in the home of your new friend.”
“After Vic and I had our little discussion, we put a plan in place to get you to safety.”
“Which we did.” Vic grunted as he punched Randall again. “Worked pretty good too, except I lost track of you just long enough for those punks to assault you. By the time I found you, you were already fighting them. I killed the one attacker you lost track of and did it where I knew Knuckles’s people would see me.”
“I don’t know you.” Knuckles took a threatening step toward Vic. “And you didn’t lead with the fact you were here with Mr. Miles’s knowledge.”
“I wasn’t sure what your relationship with him was, and thought it better to get Carrie to safety than to play nice before I was ready.”
I felt like I was in some sort of bizarre dream. All these men, killers, criminals, whatever they were, all plotting and planning around me, for me, because of me. I looked at Miles, my grandfather, then at Hawk, the man I’d chosen, then back at the pathetic creatures who’d made my life hell. “So what happens now?” I asked, my voice steadier than I expected.
Miles looked at me with those piercing blue eyes. “Now? That’s entirely up to you, Carrie. These men hurt you. They killed your mother. They stole your childhood. What do you want to happen to them?”
Everyone in the room went still, waiting for my answer. I felt the weight of their expectation, but also something else. Power. Real power, not the illusion of it I’d been chasing all my life.
“I want to say kill them, but I’m not sure I can do that. It’s one thing to not mourn their passing, but to actually say that’s my wish and wait for you to make it happen isn’t something I’m sure I can live with.”