Page 1 of The Love You Fight For
PROLOGUE
Past
It’squiet in the hallway outside my bedroom door, but when I twist the knob and pull it open a few inches, I can hear them.
The deep laughter and the clinking of rocks glasses.
The smell of cigar smoke wafts up the stairs, tainting the air.
My skin crawls, and slowly, I push the door shut again with a softclick.
I check the clock on my nightstand: 11:57 p.m.
If this party is anything like the others, it won’t wind down for another few hours. They’ll stay here, drinking my father’s expensive bourbon and smoking his imported cigars until their eyes cross and their drivers have to cart them home just before dawn. They’ll grow rowdier, their refined façades fading along with their good sense. Along with their decency. Or at least, the decency they fake in public.
I know the truth, though.
Those men downstairs? They’re no better than boys. Reckless, spoiled boys who aren’t used to hearing the word no. Who think the very rules they make don’t apply to them.
I check the clock on my nightstand again: 12:01 a.m.
I was sent to bed over an hour ago, my dutiful daughter routine deemed fulfilled for the evening, and the security guard won’t be by again for another thirty minutes. If I have any chance of making it, it has to be now.
Almost ready?I type into my phone.
My friend responds immediately.
Pulling up now.
Without overthinking it, I slip my phone into my back pocket and sling my backpack over my shoulder. It’s heavy despite being filled with the bare minimum. The makeup, the designer bags and shoes, the jewelry. I don’t need any of it. I don’t want it. I hate it all, really. Pretty trinkets meant to buy me. Not my love—my father couldn’t care less about that—but my loyalty. Mysilence.
I cross the floor to my window and push it open. It slides up without a sound. I toss my backpack out the window and listen as it thuds on the grass below, then slide the window shut again. I go over my plan as I hurry back to my bedroom door.
Down the back stairwell and through the kitchen. Disarm the alarm, then out the side door near the garage, and around the front to grab the backpack. Haul ass to the street, climb the fence, and slide into the waiting car.
I smile a little, though I know I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t jinx it by getting my hopes up. But if this works. If I can do it...
“Almost there,” I whisper to myself, then I twist the knob and poke my head into the hallway. I check up and down the dark corridor before taking a quiet step out of my room. I move to turn left, toward the back staircase, when a shuffling sound draws my attention back to the right.
A familiar head of salt-and-pepper hair emerges slowly as he ascends the main staircase, and before he can look up and see me, I step back into my bedroom and shut the door.
No.
My heart pounds in my chest, and I glance at the clock on my nightstand once more. This isn’t right. It’s too early for his visit, and now I’m running out of time. I turn the lock on my doorknob andtake a step backward. It won’t keep anyone out, but it might buy me some time.
The knob jiggles, and my breath catches in my throat. There’s a pause—he’s undoubtedly stunned—before he jiggles the handle again. When it doesn’t open, he knocks.
“Samantha,” his deep voice rasps, and it chills my blood. “Wake up, honey. It’s me.”
I’m frozen, eyes flicking between the door and the clock on my nightstand. He’s early. He’shoursearly. I timed everything up perfectly. I was supposed to be long gone before he even set foot on the staircase.
“Samantha,” he says, louder this time. More urgent. Irritated. “Be a good girl and let me in.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I know it’s my friend asking where I am. I should have been at the car by now. We should be turning off my street and heading to the interstate. When another knock sounds through my bedroom, I start to move.
Back to the window, I slide it open and take a seat on the sill before swinging my legs out, dangling from the second story opening. I can still do this. It can still work.
I glance down where my backpack lies twelve feet below. The distance seems farther in the darkness, but the grass looks deceptively soft.
