“Then I’ll fire them and hire new flunkies.”
“Christ, Rock. Turnover costs money. Carla and Jarrod are excellent employees. Why risk losing them? They’re also very nice people.”
“Why’d they work for Dad, then?”
“I told you. He treated his employees very well. Way better than he treated his family.” My brother shoved his hand through his hair.
Reid looked troubled, and for the first time, I wondered something.My eye throbbed. I’d had black eyes courtesy of my father many times, but this one felt like it had sliced into my brain. Alexandria, our nanny, gave me a raw steak. “Hold this against your eye, sweetie. It will help. I get you some aspirins.”
Alexandria was the only person in the household who showed any of us any affection, and even that wasn’t a lot. A pet name or two, sometimes a kiss on the forehead when we went to bed. Never a hug. Never a smile.
My fourteenth birthday was only two days away. Aside from the throbbing in my eye, my back and my legs also hurt. Growing pains, Alexandria said. I’d shot up six inches over the summer. I was two inches taller than my mother now, and I was always starving.
Except for now.
Right now I felt like I was going to retch.
But I wouldn’t. I’d hold it back as I’d learned to do. Wasn’t worth it. I wouldn’t do anything to show the rat bastard who was my father that his actions bothered me.
I’d stopped crying over his beatings five years ago, and three years ago, I’d perfected holding back puke.
Four more years.
In four more years, I’d be eighteen, and I’d get out of this house for good.
Alexandria returned with the aspirin, as she called it. It was actually a large dose of ibuprofen. I guess I should have been thankful for small favors. The beating before this one had been so bad that the nanny had stolen a few pills from my mother’s stash. I didn’t know what they were, but they’d knocked me out like someone had clocked me with a hammer.
“What you do to make your daddy so mad at you?” Alexandria handed me a glass of water so I could swallow the pills.
What had I done? Nothing. I’d put myself between him and my brother Reid. Reid was only nine, but he had a big mouth. He was resting peacefully in bed, his cute face unmarred thanks to me.
I swallowed the water and pills with a gulp. “Nothing.”
“Nothing.” Alexandria shook her head. “You always say nothing. Daddies don’t beat their kids for doing nothing!”
“They do here.”
She gave me a quick kiss on the forehead and then shook her head. “I’ll check on you in an hour.”
Unreal. Alexandria knew exactly what went on here. Though my father took care to keep most of his antics from the house staff, Alexandria’s position as our nanny made it impossible to hide everything.
My father’s money had a way of helping people to look the other way. Alexandria wasn’t a bad person. She was a good nanny, took good care of us. She just wasn’t overly affectionate, though she was more affectionate than either of our parents.
The steak was clammy against my face, but the coolness felt good on my eyelid. I switched my TV on with the remote. Watching with one eye was better than nothing.My father had never touched me inappropriately. Okay, a lie. My father never touched me sexually. He beat my ass with a coat hanger and a mop handle, to name a few. Maybe it was sexual for him. Maybe he got his rocks off beating his kid. But I was tough as nails and took as much as he dished out, never giving him the satisfaction of one single tear after I turned seven.
He’d beaten Roy and Reid too. I protected them when I could, but when I failed as a big brother, I’d heard their screams. I took them both aside after that and told them never to let the bastard see them cry.
Was it possible that what he’d done to Riley he’d also done to Roy or Reid? Not the kind of thing I could ask my brother—my brother who was wearing his custom-tailored suit and sitting in an office more exquisite than my hotel penthouse suite.
My hotel suite. My mind raced to Lacey.
But no time for that now.
“Reid,” I said, “someone killed Dad. We all know he was a bastard, but who the hell hated him enough to kill him?”
“You. For one.”
“Luckily, I was in Montana.”
“Yeah. And I was kidding, actually. Not that you didn’t hate him. We all hated him. Who killed him? It’s anyone’s guess. It could have been a hundred different people. The cops have their work cut out for them.”
“Maybe we should hire a PI.”
“Why? I’m glad he’s gone. I’d think you are too.”