“It was encrypted,” David sighed, plucking at a couch cushion. “Encryption adds the device to the files and considers it all one piece. You can’t copy an encrypted drive.”
“Well, then,” Benny stated, clapping his hands like he was dusting them off, “it doesn’t matter what was on the thing—it’s gone now. Besides, we have a more immediate issue. We have a wedding in two days.”
Dani’s attention was squarely back on Luke. “Two days?” she mouthed to him without talking.
Luke shrugged. What were they supposed to do? Keep playing the farce? Hope dear-ol’ daddy returned in time. The man was clearly gone, had clearly taken his money and run. Didn’t give a toss about his kids.
“...and you are not allowed to maim the bride and groom.” Benny smiled at Katie, who looked more than a little upset. Her hair had come loose from her ponytail, and her face was red and blotchy with rage. She was not a pretty girl when angry.
“It’s not them I want,” Katie growled. Luke could hear it in her, the little wolf, the vicious huntress. He wondered why he hadn’t heard it in her voice before. Katie was shooting daggers out of her eyes, all aimed at David.
“Katie,” Dani’s tone sounded more pleading than reasoning, but it had been a taxing day. “What the hell is going on? What did David do to make you hate him so much? I thought... I thought...” She stared at Katie, and sighed—clearly no longer sure of anything.
“What, you didn’t tell her?” Katie shot at the boy who was trying to hide in his own navel. “Never told her about tennis camp, and what you did to me?”
Luke could see the blood drain from Dani’s face. He knew that if Katie had a strong accusation, it would be an automatic reflex to dismiss that and protect her brother again, whether he deserved protecting or not.
Dani’s hand went to cover her mouth.
“David,” Dani’s voice was a whisper. “What did you do? Did you touch her?
Katie exploded into laughter. She could barely breathe she was laughing so hard.
Luke caught Dani’s eye. She lifted an eyebrow in a question; he shook his head. They both looked at David. He looked about ready to suck his thumb.
“Are you serious?” Katie caught her breath and her balance, by grabbing Benny’s arm. “Him? No, that...” Words seemed to fail her. “...boy could barely say ‘Mistress’ right.” She looked at the dawning revelation in Dani’s eyes. “Yes, that’s right. He was my toy. I led him on a leash and paraded him through the camp. He was my little slave boy.”
Luke turned to Dani. “Slave boy?” he mouthed. Her eyebrow rose an inch. David seemed to sink into the couch. In a minute he’d be under the cushions and crawling through the floor. Luke shot Dani another look; she widened her eyes and looked away. What the hell was going on?
“You don’t need him,” Katie was saying to Benny, her finger pointed to David like a pistol. “All you need is a wedding; he’s expendable.”
“He’s the best man!” Benny said.
What the hell? Why did it sound like Benny was trying to protect David?
“Wait,” Dani said. They both broke off and looked at her. “That doesn’t explain why you hate him so much.”
“He went running to his dear ol’ daddy!” Katie whirled on her. “Told him all about it, threw me under the bus! Your father put the screws to my father. Demoted him! Nearly left him destitute because of me! Because he had to go whining that I was abusing him! That I was humiliating him in front of his peers. I was trying to make something of him. I could have, too!” Katie could have sliced through David with her stare.
“I DID NOT!” David yelled from the floor. He’d slunk down unseen and now he actually showed some spirit, sitting up and staring her down, the hatred in his eyes meeting hers, looking for a minute like Dani when she was enraged. It was a strange moment, and though Luke didn’t care much for him it was good to see some life in the boy. For that matter, it gave a glimpse of the man he could have been. Could maybe still become if they all lived through this. “I didn’t go to him, he came to me! After that stupid stunt you pulled, you thought to humiliate me in your cabin, in front of all your friends! Well, there were others there, people who were watching, who saw me led around. I became a laughingstock and it got back to my father. There were plenty of people there who hated you, who hated what you were doing to me. I had friends.”
“I was sent to boarding school because of you!” Katie screamed, lunging forward only to be brought up short by Benny’s arm as he blocked her way.
“AND I WAS SENT TO MILITARY SCHOOL!” David shouted. “To learn how to be a ‘man’, to learn to ‘toughen up’. The only way I got out was to act like an asshole. And all because I trusted you!”
The silence that filled the room was absolute.
No one dared to breathe.
“I’m sorry.”
Luke couldn’t have said which one said it. The words had come out so quietly, so hushed.
“MY FATHER...” KATIE seethed, arms crossed in front of her body, somehow seeming fragile and small again. She moved and stood beside Benny. “My father spent his whole life scraping the scraps off the Rinehart table. Do you know what it was like growing up next door to the great Edwin Rinehart? To be at every picnic and company dinner and to watch while he brown-nosed his way up the corporate ladder, only to have it all wrenched out from under him for the least infraction? My father was demoted the year my mother had breast cancer. He was missing work and taking her to fucking chemotherapy, and the great Edwin Rinehart had my father’s corner office taken away because he was not ‘making the company a priority.’”
She swallowed hard; her eyes looked suspiciously bright, but any sympathy Luke might have had was having a hard time against the fact that, well, she’d engineered this whole mindfuck of an abduction.
Katie’s chin came up as she looked at them each in turn. It seemed no one there was overly interested in joining her pity party. “Well, fuck all of you! I made a promise to myself that I would never become my father. Not me. I am not kowtowing or pleading, or whatever it is you people think you have coming to you. If anyone around here is going to do any kneeling, it’ll be you.” Her gaze rested on David, who was still sitting on the couch. For a moment a rather satisfied smile crossed her face. Luke exchanged glances with Dani and shuddered. “I contacted Mr. Bianchi as soon I heard about him and his relationship to your family. I knew if anyone could get me where I wanted to go, it would be Uncle Benny.”
“She’s a good little girl,” Benny said and stepped closer to her.