Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 182641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 913(@200wpm)___ 731(@250wpm)___ 609(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 913(@200wpm)___ 731(@250wpm)___ 609(@300wpm)
He can go fuck himself for all I care.
I don’t need him.
I don’t.
I do fucking not.
Chapter 27
Rocklin
“So how was school?” my father asks as he cuts into his steak with ease.
Boston bounces in her seat. “Since I can’t be on the dance team anymore, I convinced Miss Giano to allow me to choreograph for the showcase.”
“That’s excellent news. It will look good on your application to Juilliard next term.”
My eyes snap up, flicking between my father and Boston, the tension in Boston’s shoulders obvious, while my father appears as lax as ever.
She pushes another bite of food around on her plate, none yet making it into her mouth, though she keeps cutting small pieces and shuffling them around.
“Maybe we could even get you an internship with Hass Morgan. You know he’s on Broadway now.”
My sister clears her throat, her voice coming up lower. “I had heard, yes.”
“I could put in a call, see about—”
“Are we fucking kidding?” I snap.
My sister’s head slices my way while our father, ever the methodical one, slowly drags his eyes to mine.
He chews his steak, taking a sip of water before he speaks again. “Something wrong, daughter?”
A humorless laugh bubbles out of me, and then a second one as I push my chair back.
“Yeah. Something is wrong. Something is really fucking wrong!” The air hisses from my lungs. “We’re sitting around a fucking dinner table we haven’t sat at in almost twelve years, having a little family chat about classes and admissions like we’re normal. We are not normal. This is not normal. I’m spending half my day locked in a house that is no longer my home, in a room that was mine when I was seven before I was shipped away like a trading card and dropped into the mansion alone. And now you want to sit and chat about school and college as if it fucking matters when it doesn’t! We literally run our own academy because we’re a bunch of fucking psychopaths with murder tendencies.” My eyes slice to Boston and back to my dad. “Stop talking to her about a dance school she can never go to. I know it, she knows it, and you know it. She’ll either be dead by fall or locked in a basement somewhere south.”
“Rocklin!” he booms.
“It’s true! If not her, then me, or maybe even all of us, since you thought it was a bright idea to put us all in one place. Might as well offer to light the fuse yourself.”
“Watch your tone, daughter.”
I should, but I can’t. Anger and so much more are boiling inside me, stewing and stirring and I’m going fucking crazy.
“I have been locked in this house for weeks, only ‘allowed’ out for classes I shouldn’t even have to take because I’m a fucking Revenaw. Because someone is watching us all like a hawk and you can’t figure out who it is, but you won’t allow me to help.”
“It’s not your concern.”
“It is my life! My work is being handled by other people. I’m putting my members out into the world, chewing them out from a room with a pink princess canopy over my bed!”
His eyes narrow, and he speaks slowly. “I am taking care of things. This is not forever. It’s a temporary hiccup we are dealing with.”
“I want to go home. I want my life back. This is bullshit and you know it.”
“What is bullshit, dear daughter, is that you do not listen.” Warning flashes across his features, his anger deepening the wrinkles along his forehead, making him appear older. “You sneak off to go god knows where to do god knows what, with god knows who. I will not have it, not while your safety is at risk.”
“Our entire world is a risk. If you wanted to avoid risk and trouble for your children, maybe you shouldn’t have had any. Or better yet, maybe you should have just kept trying until you had a son because a man could protect himself better, right?!”
Our father flies from his seat, the table shaking, his chair soaring back and crashing to the cold marble floors. His eyes are thunderous, his voice roaring, rattling the dishes between us.
His body shakes, hands tense and clenched at his sides as he glares down at me.
His jaw is locked so hard I’m sure his gums will bleed.
For the first time in maybe ever, a hint of fear flickers down my spine.
I’ve never been afraid of my father. Nervous of his actions, yes, because duh.
He kills people and if he doesn’t, he has someone do it for him.
But right now?
The dead, dislodged void in his eyes as he stares at me from across the table makes me want to shrink, just as my lungs have.
“Go … to your room.” His voice is low and gravelly.