The Dark Forest: A Collection Of Erotic Fairytales(146)
No, no, it’s real? She’s real?
“Daddy dearest gave up on another kid when you were about two. That’s when Haisch’s notes stop, but I think that’s when this picture was taken. I guess he wanted a keepsake.”
“How long?”
“What?” He was digging in another filing cabinet now, but he stopped to look back at her.
“How long were we together? How long until she died?”
“You mean before she tried to run with you and your father killed her?” A sharp slam of the latest drawer made her jump, a chill settling on her bare skin.
“How do you know this, how do you know any of this?” she shouted at him, the threat of tears in her voice as she stared at the only real image of her mother she’d ever seen. The fake photos her father had provided tearing at pieces of her heart.
When she raised her eyes to him, she saw the deathgrip he had on the handle, his knuckles white, and the aura of rage around him again like a dark halo. “I know all of this shit because my fool of a father was going to help her escape. With you.”
Her already unstable world completely flipped, her body rocking back in the chair like she’d taken a blow to the chest. “What?”
“My father tried to help your mother, and when daddy dearest found out, he made your mother disappear and then spent a year ruining our lives.” The man growled and dropped the folders in his hands to the floor, going for another cabinet.
“I don’t understand,” she breathed, suddenly lightheaded.
“You don’t understand? I don’t fucking understand it. Why he ever thought it was a good idea to get between Daniel Sinclair and his fucking miracle child…” He growled under his breath. “—that, that insane choice, I will never understand.”
“Wait, how did he even know him? Who the fuck are you?”
“My father had his own software company. It was small, but he was doing well, doing some unique things, and Sinclair invited him in for a joint venture on a product. From what he used to tell me, they would spend hours together working on ideas, and somehow he met your mother. Somehow she managed to tell my father she needed help, and like the fucking fool that he was, he agreed.”
“What happened?” Rebecca asked, rubbing at her sternum as she stared down at her mother’s smiling face. The longer she looked, the more uncomfortable the smile seemed, the more forced, while her own blissfully ignorant one was bright.
He’s right, you’ve been so blind for so long. So stupid.
“Well, he didn’t believe your mother at first. He spent an entire year gathering evidence against Daniel Sinclair, trying to understand what was happening. Trying to verify that the woman your father called ‘the nanny’ was actually your mother.”
“And?” she prodded. Her chest hurt, and she couldn’t tell if it was the hangover causing the nausea or the new knowledge that was settling like an acidic weight inside her.
“And you know the end of this story, princess. I didn’t lie to you. My father figured out a way to get her past all of the tricky little passcodes that locked the doors, picked a day and everything, and then just before it was all supposed to happen—poof. She disappeared.”
Brushing at the tears on her cheeks, she looked up at him and shouted, “When?”
“You were four.”
“Goddammit!” She shoved the folders in front of her off the table, standing up fast enough to knock the chair over. Papers fluttered out, but she didn’t care as she stared down at the tiny photo, willing herself to summon one real memory of the woman who had cared for her enough to die trying to free them. “Why don’t I remember her? I had four fucking years with her!” A sob broke past her lips. It felt like her chest was caving in, the pain of a loss she didn’t even have words for, didn’t even have memories for—just an emptiness, an absence.
“You were a kid, Rebecca.” His voice was quiet, and when she looked up at him to find his brows pulled together in some version of concern, she flinched and tore her eyes away. “I’ve been hoping you could tell me the one thing my father never understood. How Sinclair figured out what was happening, and how he found out my father was the one helping her.”
“Why does that matter? She’s dead.”
“It matters because your fucking father spent a year destroying my family.” Ripping a thick folder from one of the cabinets, he stormed around to the other side of the table and dropped it, flipping it open to point at a logo. “This was my father’s company. Gothel Technologies. When Daniel Sinclair learned about my father trying to help you and your mother, he retaliated by destroying it. Bought the building it was in and evicted us, threatened every customer we had until they disappeared. We were bankrupt in a matter of months, but he didn’t stop there. No, he blacklisted my father’s name to everyone. There wasn’t a job anywhere near a computer that he could get. The larger companies wouldn’t even hire him to be a janitor, because it would mean making an enemy of Daniel fucking Sinclair.”
“Do you want me to say I’m sorry?” Rebecca picked up her chair so she could collapse into it, burying her fingers in her hair until it formed a cocoon around her. She felt a twist of guilt that had both nothing, and everything, to do with her. It was all her father, it had always been her father, but his blood ran in her veins. “I’m sorry, okay? He’s a bastard, is that what you want me to say? Just tell me what you want.”