The Knight (Endgame #2)(50)

And without a word he continues past the ballroom, down the hallway.

The room takes a collective breath. I burst through the press of people, going after him. I hear Gabriel call my name, but I can’t slow down. By the time I reach the stairs, my father is already at the top. And when I make it to his office, he’s sitting in his armchair by the fireplace.

“Daddy, what are you doing here?”

He smiles, though it looks more like a grimace. “You didn’t visit me again. If my daughter won’t come to me, then I have to come to her. I knew you would come.”

This close I can see what coming here has cost him, the sickly white of his skin, the sheen of sweat. He breathes heavily even sitting, still using the cane to hold himself upright.

“You should be in the nursing home.”

“The one Gabriel Miller paid for?”

“Who cares who paid for it? You need rest.”

“So that I can live another month? Another year? That’s not a life. I’m ready to go.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I should have joined your mother a long time ago.”

I look away, wondering if they will really be together in the afterlife. “I don’t know what to believe anymore, Daddy.”

“You doubt me, Avery. Gabriel Miller has made you doubt me.”

“Maybe so, but I think I was blind for too long. I wanted to believe that you and Mama were in love, but you weren’t. She was scared.”

“That again? She told me she heard the house talking to her, Avery. I loved her, but there was something wrong with her. And even then I suspected it wasn’t a drunk driver that caused her accident. She was running from her own demons.”

Gabriel appears at the door. “Convenient that she isn’t here to refute that.”

My father’s eyes snap with temporary vigor. “How dare you speak of my wife.”

“Tell me you didn’t hurt her,” I beg softly, kneeling at his side. His hand feels frail between mine. “If you tell me, I’ll believe you.”

He looks down at me, almost confused, like he isn’t sure who I am. “My good girl.” He glances at the small table beside us, the marble chess base built into the wood. “Play one more game with me.”

“No, Daddy. I’m not going to play a game as if everything’s fine.”

Sorrow darkens his eyes. “Then he’s well and truly taken you from me, hasn’t he?”

I want him trapped in every sense of the word, unable to make another move, but alive and fully aware of his loss. That’s what Gabriel said he wanted. It’s what he’s done. The ultimate victory, but he doesn’t look pleased. His features are severe, a sentinel by the door, keeping watch over me.

My knight in dark armor.

A scuff from the hall draws my attention. Nina Thomas stands in the doorway, her gaze accusatory, the matronly rose-gold dress incongruous with the venom in her eyes.

Charlotte hovers behind her, looking worried. “Mom, I don’t think—”

“This is what we came for, so that I could look this man in the eye and tell him I know what he did. I knew from the beginning. I warned her about you.”

I realize now that I don’t need the diary to understand my mother. Don’t need the house or the confessions of the people who loved her. Because for all that they wanted her, they didn’t know her.

My father laughs, breath uneven. “Of course you did.”

She moves into the room, leaning on her daughter’s arm. “What does that mean?”

“It means Helen told me about your adolescent explorations. She told me that you cared for her more than she did for you, how it embarrassed her.”

I suck in a breath, shocked by the cruelty in the words—because there’s a ring of truth in them. And judging by the pain in Nina’s eyes, she heard it. “I don’t believe anything you say,” she says fiercely. “You terrorized her. And when she tried to run away from you, you killed her.”

My father narrows his eyes. “Or maybe you were angry that she wouldn’t leave with you.”

My mother was Helen of Troy in every sense, the threat of female power, the destructive beauty of the female form. I know because I walk the same path. Every girl who’s lusted after and then blamed for that lust, every woman who’s seduced and then accused of liking it.

Stolen and then wrestled back. We’re all the epicenter of our own wars.

“More likely you were angry that she left with anyone,” Uncle Landon says from the doorway. “I admit it wounded me that she never looked at me as anything more than an amusement, one of her admiring coterie. But I would have helped her if she came to me. That’s what pains me the most. That she trusted the wrong person.”

The city will define me in its own image—with all the glory and the humiliation of the virginity auction. They don’t know me, either. Only Gabriel knows the heart of me, those golden eyes unnerving because they actually see.

And that knowledge gives me the strength to stand up. “Trusting the wrong person?” I say to Uncle Landon. “That’s rich coming from you. My mother trusted you enough to make you the administrator of her trust. And you gambled it away, losing her house.”

Tears brighten his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry, Helen.”