“What?” he asks, frowning at me.
I look back over at my baby sister who continues to cry at the top of her lungs. My chest is tight, and my hands are balled into fists. I want to hold her. Take care of her. “Lilly. Our mother’s favorite flowers were lilies.”
I’ll never forget the way our lives changed that day. My mother was dead. A little sister in a world that no child should have to be in. I wanted to be stronger. I wanted to grow up and rule the world that my father thought he owned. Even the devil can fall. All he needs is someone willing to push him. And I was that man.
I walk into the house with my baby sister in my arms. She has her little eyes closed because she sleeps a lot. My father hasn’t even looked at her once. He arrived at the hospital, spoke to my mother’s doctor, and then left. I refused to leave until Lilly could. Celeste brought me clothes and blankets. I slept in two chairs out in the waiting room. School and swimming be damned. Nothing else matters anymore except for Lilly. She is now the most important thing in my life.
“Blanche?” my father calls out.
My nanny comes running down the hall into the grand foyer. “Yes, sir?”
“Take the baby. I need to speak with Cole,” he orders. I’m surprised he didn’t change her name just because he can. Lilly Grace Reynolds is what they wrote on her birth certificate because I told them to, and he signed it without a second glance.
She nods and holds her hands out for her. I don’t let her go.
“Cole,” he growls.
“I’m just going to change her,” she assures me with a nod.
My eyes go from hers to my father’s, and he sighs heavily. I gently hand Lilly over to her, and my arms instantly grow cold at the loss of this little girl I need to protect. If I don’t, she’ll end up dead like our mother.
“We need to have a conversation man to man,” my father states, giving me his back. “My office.”
I straighten my shoulders and follow him down the hallway and into his office. The same one where I saw my mother tell him that Bruce Lowes had raped her and she was pregnant. That was months ago, but it seems like ages. He should have protected her, but instead, he called her broken and put his hands on her. I’ve wanted him to suffer ever since then.
“Shut the door,” he orders, sitting down in his chair.
I do as he says and walk to the front of his desk. “I have nothing to say to you,” I state.
“Watch your tone, boy,” he growls.
“Fu—”
I don’t even get the word out before he’s reaching over his desk and dragging me across it. I knock off his computer and papers and scream out in surprise. He slams my back into the wall with his hands on my shirt, pinning me in place. His face is red with anger as he lowers it to mine.
“Do you want me to send your ungrateful ass off to boarding school?” he shouts. “Like Deke’s father did to him? Huh?” He shakes me, and I try to fight him off, but he’s too strong. “Do you want me to send you away and never let you come back? Because I can fucking do that, Cole! I can do whatever the fuck I damn well want! No one’s here to stop me.”
Without thought, I punch him in the side of the head. He lets go of me long enough to backhand me across the face, sending me sprawling onto his office floor. I taste blood as I make my way up to all fours on the hardwood. I’ve never hit him before, but it’s not the first time he’s hit me.
He chuckles, standing over me. “You think you can beat me, son?” I don’t answer. “You may have the boys at school afraid of you, but don’t forget who runs this house,” he growls, “and who owns you. I can take everything away from you in a matter of seconds.” It’s almost the exact same thing he said to my mother.
I look up to see him standing before me breathing heavily. “Are you gonna kill me?” I ask, tasting the blood in my mouth. I wanna make him bleed. I want him to know what it feels like to have nothing left. “Like you did Mom?”
He throws his head back and laughs out loud. “I didn’t kill your mother.”
I get up onto my knees and wipe the blood from my chin with the back of my hand. “You gonna try and tell me that you loved her?”
“No,” he answers simply and kneels down before me. “You’re not a stupid kid, Cole. You’re a lot smarter than the others give you credit for.”