Page 68 of Dark Consequences

Xiao reaches out and grabs my arm, giving me a silent command to stay still as he leans in to kiss me. He doesn’t care that my lip is busted and bruised. He kisses me hard anyhow. Unlike Raphael, who kisses me like he’s treasuring every brush of our lips.

“Come and sit down, baby,” Xiao suggests in a tone that warns me not to ignore him.

His hand slips from my arm to my hand as he pulls me toward the table. Xiao gestures to the seat next to him, and I sit tensely, keeping my back ramrod straight and every muscle rigid and ready to move.

“Our daughter was just about to tell me about your time with Raphael DiAngelo after he took you two from me.”

I swallow hard, my eyes dropping to the table. It’s been decorated for a five-course meal, and I eye the knife set to the right of the plate, wondering if I can somehow take it without Xiao noticing. But then that leaves the next problem of where the hell do I hide it?

Under the table, Xiao sets his hand heavy on my thigh and grips me hard enough to leave a bruise. He knows what I’m thinking, and this is his way of saying I can just forget it.

“Go on, baby girl,” Xiao says to Mei with a fake smile I can see through.

It doesn’t matter what she says, Xiao will somehow find something to latch on to and twist it into something terrible. Like, for example, Raphael made us breakfast, which is innocent and nothing to dissect, but to Xiao, he’ll assume it means that we enjoy his cooking more than Xiao’s personal chef. Which is true, but nothing to get mad about.

“Did he buy you toys?”

Mei nods. “And books for Mommy to read.”

Xiao’s hand tightens on my thigh, his nails biting into my flesh. “That’s nice. Did Raphael read to you too?”

Mei nods again.

“Did you have fun?”

Mei glances at me before lowering her eyes to her hands. No child should have to go through this kind of interrogation. No child should have to lie intentionally to avoid angering her parent. Especially a man who is supposed to be her father. A father is someone who protects their child. Not torment.

“Well, did you?”

Mei shakes her head. “Not really.”

I know she’s lying. So does Xiao.

“He didn’t take you to his parents for Christmas? You didn’t make cookies with him or go to the beach and make sandcastles?”

My head snaps to Xiao. How does he know about any of that? His questions are too precise to be mere guesses. Cookies maybe, but the afternoon we spent at the beach after Dominic’s death? That’s too specific.

The weather that day was unusually warm. Almost like Mother Nature was urging us to leave the chilly, depressive house to indulge in the sun and remember we’re alive. With Dominic’s funeral the next day, it felt like the right thing to do.

“Look, Mommy!” Mei cries out, pulling my attention from the ocean waves. “I made a castle like a princess.”

In no way does her “castle” resemble one, but to her, it does, and I will never smother my daughter’s imagination. I walk over to kneel beside her in the sand and smile widely at her masterpiece. “It’s beautiful, sweetheart! I love it.”

“Maybe Raphael can make it real?” Mei asks. At hearing his name, Raphael glances over. “Like how the fairy made the pumpkin real for Cinderella?”

I smother a laugh because in her own way, she’s just compared Raphael to Cinderella’s fairy godmother. Raphael catches me and narrows his eyes at me playfully.

“Why don’t you ask him, sweetie?”

Mei practically jumps to her feet and rushes over to Raphael. He catches her at the last minute when she stumbles and gently sets her down on the sand beside him. “Can you, Raphael?”

Raphael meets my eyes over my daughter’s head, and I smile gently at him. I always wanted a true and loving father figure for Mei, and in such a short amount of time, Raphael was on the verge of becoming that. Something her real father could never accomplish in the four years of her life.

“Show me what you’ve built first, and we’ll go from there. How does that sound?”

Mei smiles big. “Okay!”

For a few short hours, we enjoyed the break from reality, where we imagined a beautiful castle with a moat, flying horses, and talking candlesticks.

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