My daughter was uttered on a deviant’s tongue, yet came off with pure disdain. I wanted to puke.
“What do you want from us?” The words cracked. I knew it sounded as if I were begging.
Sebastian wound his arm around my waist, his hand firm across my stomach as he pulled me against him.
“Shea, don’t,” he urged, attempting to drag me back and keep me from getting sucked into the cesspool that was Martin Jennings.
Offhandedly, Martin lifted a shoulder, ignoring Sebastian, his tone deceptively sweet. “Come now, Delaney. Did you really think I wouldn’t return for you? I promised I would. And I never break my promises. You do remember what you cost me?”
He looked at me pointedly. Reminding.
But the underlying reminder wasn’t about how much money had been lost by my desertion. But what he’d planned to do with that money. Money effectively stolen from me because of the contracts I’d been pressured to sign. Contracts where almost all royalties went to Martin and my mother. My eighteen-year-old naivety had once again gotten the best of me.
Lester Ford was a name I’d wanted to forget. For years I almost had. But briefly hearing his name on the news about a year ago had caused everything inside me to seize. The announcement the Tennessee tycoon was throwing in a bid to run for governor tripping up my feet.
Ignorantly, I’d pushed the importance of it aside. Pretended some more.
Anger pressed at my chest. “I owe you nothing.”
He laughed as if I was ignorant, then glanced at the blackened back window of the Suburban. “Don’t forget she’s my daughter, too.”
It came across as another threat, this revolting man using my child against me.
Expendable.
A belonging.
A possession.
Just as my mother had treated me. The same as she’d passed me on to him.
Sold me, really.
I’d just been too blinded by my desire to please her to see it for what it really was.
But I wasn’t that frightened girl anymore.
He lifted his chin in a gesture toward Sebastian. “And you can’t imagine the pleasure it will bring me to take down the two people who owe me most in one fell swoop. I suppose I should thank you for slumming it with this piece of trash, Delaney. I couldn’t ask for a better scenario.”
He leaned in close as he mouthed at my ear. “I will guarantee your silence.”
I choked and Sebastian growled.
As Martin backed away, his smile curled the hairs at the back of my neck, fierce and shameless and somehow knowing. He turned on his heel and stalked toward the house.
There was no question he’d not forgotten my promise, either.
The shaky, foolishly bold promise I’d made when he’d come to the hospital the day Kallie was born.
The one stating I would expose both him and Lester Ford if he didn’t let Kallie and me go, implying I had securities in place that would destroy him if something happened to me.
He’d promised I was nothing but a fool for thinking I had any control, and he’d be back for me when the time was right.
Maybe he knew I’d been bluffing. Doing anything in my power to protect my daughter.
Still, I was certain we’d danced around those threats for years. Each of us reliant on what one held over the other.
But why now?
“We’ll fight you,” I claimed on a broken shout.
Martin stopped. Slow to look over his shoulder.
I did everything I could to steady the words, to keep from conceding and yielding the way I’d always done. “And I promise, I’ll do everything to make sure you go down in flames.”
He began to turn back around, when I said, “And my name isn’t Delaney. She died a long time ago.”
The smile on his face appeared satisfied, and he shook his head as if pleased, muttering as he walked way, “You surprise me again, Delaney Rhoads.”
THE SUN WAS JUST sinking behind the trees when I rolled to a stop in front of Shea’s house.
Kallie had long since fallen asleep.