Page 60 of Firethorne
“He sold you, Maya. Without giving two shits about you, or what happened to you. He sold you to my father. The bonus being that you were a virgin, perfect for a fucker like The Butcher. And do you want to know what the real killer was for me?” I couldn’t respond. I felt paralysed. “That he thought he was being noble, bringing you to the house himself. He thought it’d make the transition easier if he was there to see it all play out.” He shook his head again in disbelief. “Like that was going to help. He was fucking clueless. He had no idea who he was messing with.”
“I just... I can’t... I don’t believe...” I couldn’t get my words out, so I settled for one. “Why?”
“Because he was broke and couldn’t handle it. Because you were all he had. And my father is as evil as yours. They saw an opportunity.”
“My father wouldn’t do that,” I said, feeling totally and utterly shell-shocked.
Damien rolled his eyes, and with exasperation he said, “Grow up, Maya. Of course he would. He did. You need to open your eyes and see this for what it is.”
“If he knew you were going to send me to The Butcher, he wouldn’t have agreed to it. Maybe he didn’t really understand?—”
“He knew exactly what he was getting you into,” Damien interjected. “And he didn’t care. All he thought about was the money. And it wasa lotof fucking money. Don’t let his last-ditchattempt at showing some sort of humanity cloud your judgment. He did what he did. End of.”
“I need to speak to him,” I proclaimed, but Damien shook his head again.
“You can’t ever see him again, Maya. It’d be too risky. He can’t be trusted, and the whole reason I brought you here was to get you to safety. If you saw him, that’d be compromised, big time. And besides, I have no idea where he is.”
“What do you mean you don’t know where he is?”
“I mean exactly that. Since the night we took you, he’s been missing. He’s probably off somewhere enjoying the cash he made off the back of your misery. Mind you, he didn’t get the full settlement. Your leaving meant he forfeited any claim to that. That’s the one thing my father is relieved about throughout this whole mess. He’s desperate to find you, but he’s glad he didn’t transfer all the cash before your father disappeared.”
“He wouldn’t leave me,” I whispered to myself.
“Your father would do anything for money,” Damien said. “And I tried to tell you. I had to keep my cover, but I tried to let you know.” He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, running his hand over his mouth before he went on. “That day, when I found you in the library, I saw another opportunity to give you the truth. To show you what was going on. Did you even read those books I sent?”
“Of course I did,” I answered truthfully, my mind still stuck on my father, wondering where he was, what was really going through his mind. Why would he do this to me? Did he really do this to me?
Damien quirked his brow and said, “And what happened at the beginning ofThe Mayor of Casterbridge, Maya?”
I swallowed, the sickness roiling inside me.
“The main character, Michael, was down on his luck, so he took his wife and daughter to the market, had too much to drink... and he sold them.”
“He fucking sold them,” he reiterated.
“But how was I supposed to see a parallel there? How was I supposed to know that was a message?”
“Because you read into everything, Maya. You’re a thinker. And I was clutching at straws by this point, desperate to find anything to get through to you without showing my hand.”
“You could’ve just told me.”
“No. I couldn’t. This operation is too delicate. Too important to risk anyone overhearing anything, especially from me. I’d risked too much already by telling you to leave and offering to drive you to the fucking station.”
He was throwing so much information my way I could barely keep up.
As my mind whirled, I asked, “I get why you gave me the copy of Sons and Lovers. You knew it was my favourite. But why Wuthering Heights?”
“I thought you might make a link there, too, you know, Catherine Earnshaw. She’s the main character; my scholarship fund was the Earnshaw Scholarship. Yeah, weak, maybe, but it was something.” He smiled a regretful smile. “And anyway, everyone should own a copy of Wuthering Heights. It’s fucking awesome.”
His smile faded and he hung his head. I thought he’d told me everything, but there was still more to come. So much more. And I didn’t know if I’d survive after this.
“Trent was monitoring communication, checking the dark web. We knew something was going to happen imminently. I asked Cora to keep you out of sight for as long as she could so we could devise a plan.”
“Cora knew?”
“No. She had her suspicions that something wasn’t right. She’s seen enough girls come and go, sometimes in the dead of night, only staying for a matter of hours, others lingering for a day or two. You were the longest guest we had. But no, she didn’t know. Or if she did, she never spoke about it.”
“Guest,” I huffed. “I wasn’t a fucking guest.” And then remembering the last message he sent me, I said, “I don’t understand why you’d steal one of Lysander’s sketches and leave it in the cupboard for me to find the way you did.”
