Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 116875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 468(@250wpm)___ 390(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 468(@250wpm)___ 390(@300wpm)
As I walk, I try my father’s cell, but it goes to voicemail. He must be working from home. Or maybe he took a trip out to one of our farms. Which is rare but not unheard of.
What I don’t like is that he didn’t tell me. He turned me over to Kaiser, told me I was going to marry him, and then left town?
Or maybe Fraternitas has him locked down. All the more reason to figure out how to free him and fight back.
I quicken my steps. I’m not heading for the storeroom but my father’s private lab.
Once I pass the employee’s spaces and the deep stockroom, the scent of roses and lily of the valley hits me. The sweet floral perfume was my mother’s signature scent. The place smells so much like her, I can imagine her rounding the corner in one of her floral kimonos. It makes my heart ache, but I welcome the pain.
I miss her.
I always wondered if Papa was aware that he was keeping Mom’s memory alive in his workplace. I don’t know why he surrounds himself with the scent of her when he can barely say her name. He doesn’t even wear his wedding ring anymore. Sometimes it’s like he doesn’t want to remember she even existed, and if I’m honest, that hurts as much as my grief.
But it’s old pain. I have bigger problems to deal with right now.
I enter my father’s office. It looks business-y but has a door that leads to an open workspace. Most people would assume my father compiles his perfumes up here in the workspace or the smaller lab. Only a few people know the truth—Papa’s main lab is in the basement, several floors below the main floor, along with his secret greenhouses.
On the far wall are a set of paintings. On the left, a watercolor of a lily and a rose. On the right, a peace lily surrounded by lavender. And in the middle, a belladonna plant growing between the trunks of two trees. They’re all signed Shoshonna B, and my mother painted them.
I touch the frame of the left painting and hesitate. If I press a certain pattern, a hidden door will open and lead me to my father’s secret lab. He might be down there, hidden from Fraternitas. Or he might be avoiding all his secret labs so as not to lead Fraternitas to them.
A phone rings in my father’s office, shattering the silence and making me jump. I wait for it to stop ringing, but as soon as it does, it starts again. It’s an old-fashioned phone, with a cord and a ring that could wake the dead.
I head back into his office and pick it up. It’s my father’s private line, coming from our house.
“Hello?”
“Belladonna.”
“Papa.” My shoulders relax, hearing his voice. I can imagine him here at his workspace, wearing his microscope goggles, the kind my mother used to tease him about. She’d pick me up, mischief sparkling in her brown eyes. “What do you think about having a Papa who looks like a bug?”
“You’re in my office.”
I glance up, looking for cameras. I don’t see them, but they must be here. I never thought about it.
“You’re looking well.”
“Thank you.” I fiddle with the skirt Kaiser wanted me to wear. My outfit is more preppy than usual, but I guess I look good. Normal. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Did you need something?”
“Yes. I need you to tell me what’s really going on. ”
A pause. He’s hesitating, which makes me wonder if someone’s listening in. “Now is not the time.”
“Papa, please. We need to talk.”
“I know. We will, soon. When we’re truly alone.”
So he does think Fraternitas is monitoring this conversation. They’ve bugged his phone line or his office. Or both.
Drat.
“I don’t even know when I’m allowed to see you.”
“I’ll be at the engagement party.”
“What is this engagement party?” I ask before I remember Father Francis mentioned it to me, too. “When is it?”
“Early August. Fraternitas is making the arrangements.”
“And the wedding?”
“It depends on a few things, but it will happen. Probably before the end of the year.”
Ugh. My first real semester starts at the end of August. I never thought I’d be attending university as a married woman.
Kill me now.
“You can’t be serious about this,” I sigh into the mouthpiece. “This is all so sudden and… I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand. I am your father and the head of this house. One day you will inherit all of this, but until then, you will obey me.”
My breath comes faster. “Papa, please talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” He’s doing what he always does, withdrawing from me. It only makes me frantic, and when I finally lose it and start crying or raging, he tells me I’m too emotional.
I bite my lip to keep from lashing out at him. I can do this. I can remain calm. Give him a taste of his own medicine.