Twisted Love (Twisted, #1)(58)

Dread and shock coiled at the base of my spine and flared their wings, enveloping me in their dark embrace.

“Michael Chen.” Ava shook harder. “Alex, my mom didn’t try to kill me. My dad did.”





29





Ava





I couldn’t stop throwing up.

I heaved into the toilet, my stomach roiling, my skin drenched with sweat as Alex held my hair back and rubbed circles on my back.

He was livid. Not at me, but at my father, my past, the entire situation. I could feel it in the tenseness of his hands and the aura of barely leashed violence that’d swirled around him since I confessed my memories.

The day at the lake had only been the tip of the iceberg.

I’d remembered something else—something that cemented my father’s guilt.

“Daddy, look!” I ran into his office, brandishing the paper in my hands with pride. It was an essay I wrote for class on who we admired most. I wrote about Daddy. Mrs. James gave me an A plus on it, and I couldn’t wait to show him.

“What is it, Ava?” He raised his eyebrows.

“I got an A plus! Look!”

He took the paper from me and skimmed it, but he didn’t look happy like I’d expected.

My smile dimmed. Why was he frowning? Weren’t A’s good? He always praised Josh when he brought home A’s.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a paper about who I admire most?” I twisted my hands, growing more nervous. I wished Josh was here, but he was at his friend’s house. “I said you, because you saved me.”

I didn’t remember him saving me, but that was what everyone told me. They said I fell into a lake a few years ago and would’ve died if Daddy hadn’t jumped in after me.

“I did, didn’t I?” He finally smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile.

I suddenly didn’t want to be here anymore.

“You look so much like your mother,” Daddy said. “A carbon copy of when she was your age.”

I didn’t know what a carbon copy was, but based on his tone, it probably wasn’t a good thing.

He stood, and I instinctively stepped back until my legs hit the couch.

“Do you remember what happened at the lake when you were five, darling Ava?” He brushed his fingers over my cheek, and I flinched.

I shook my head, too scared to speak.

“That’s for the best. Makes things easier.” Daddy smiled another ugly smile. “I wonder if you’ll forget this too?” He picked up a throw pillow and pushed me onto the couch.

I didn’t have time to respond before I lost the ability to breathe. The pillow pressed into my face, cutting off my oxygen supply. I tried to push it off, but I wasn’t strong enough. A strong hand locked my wrists together until I couldn’t struggle anymore.

My chest tightened, and my vision flickered.

No air. Noairnoairnoair—

Not only had my father tried to drown me, he’d also tried to suffocate me.

I retched again, and again, and again. I’d managed to stay calm for most of Thanksgiving weekend, but saying the words out loud—my father tried to kill me—must’ve triggered a delayed physical response.

After I’d thrown up what must’ve been all the contents in my stomach, I sank onto the floor. Alex handed me a glass of water, and I downed it with long, grateful gulps.

“I’m sorry,” I rasped. “This is so embarrassing. I’ll clean up—”

“Don’t worry about it.” He ran a gentle hand over my hair, but an inferno raged in his eyes. “We’ll figure everything out. Leave it to me.”





A week later, Alex and I waited for my father to arrive in one of Archer Group’s conference rooms. It was my first time seeing Alex’s workplace, and the building was exactly how I’d pictured it: sleek, modern, and beautiful, all glass and white marble.

I couldn’t appreciate it, though. I was too nervous.

The clock ticked on the wall, deafening in the silence.

I drummed my fingers on the polished wood table and stared through the tinted glass windows, both willing and dreading my father’s appearance.

“Security here is top-notch,” Alex reassured me. “And I’ll be by your side the entire time.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” I had to press my other hand against my knee to keep it from bouncing. “I don’t think he would…”

Physically hurt me? But he had. Or at least, he’d tried.

The day he pushed me into the lake, and the day he suffocated me. And those were only the instances I remembered.

I flashed back over the years, trying to remember anything else amiss. I thought he’d been a decent father during my teenage years. Not the most present or affectionate, but he hadn’t tried to kill me, which begged the question: why hadn’t he? There’d been plenty of opportunities, plenty of times when he could’ve made my death look like an accident.

But that question paled in comparison to the biggest one of all, which was why he wanted to kill me in the first place. I was his daughter.

A single broken sob erupted from my throat. Alex squeezed my hand, his brows drawn tight over his eyes, but I shook my head.