this kills me, making a deal with this slimy, wannabe piece of shit, but I have to face the facts. He knows where Rose’s boy is. That’s his ace card, like she said. It’s all he has. But it’s all he needs. “It’s just you and me and the Russians. It could be only you if you make the right choice.”
“All for the girl?”
“All for the girl,” I confirm, cementing the fact that he probably thinks I’ve lost my mind. “I want out. You want in. Do we have a deal?”
“Talk.”
I glance up when I hear footsteps, delicate footsteps that belong to Esther. She stops when she spots me sitting on the stairs. Her blue eyes look sorrier each time I look into them. “Call me in an hour. We’ll talk.” I hang up and rise to my feet, though they seem rooted to the marble step, preventing me from walking away.
“Ernie’s dead?” she asks, her hands joining in front of her midriff, nervously playing. “You killed him?”
I’m thrown, not just by the question, but because she’s asked me a question. She never speaks unless she’s spoken to. Hasn’t since the day Pops brought her to the mansion. “Yes,” I answer simply, instead of ranting at her for obviously listening in on conversations that don’t concern her. “Why?”
She visibly relaxes, her tense shoulders lowering a good few inches. “He can’t hurt me?”
I frown, taking the final few stairs down to the hall. “What are you talking about?”
Her eyes close for a long time, an obvious attempt to gather strength. “He took me.”
My confusion keeps me still and silent. He took her? Who took her?
Opening her eyes, I see something that I haven’t seen in Esther before. Grit. I back up, wary of it. “The day I walked out on you, I wasn’t going forever. I was going to get drunk, maybe even high, just to ease the pain of my latest beating. And maybe to dull the one I’d get when I got home. But I didn’t make it home. Because he found me.”
I recoil and inhale sharply, blinking back my shock. Ernie took her? In London? I step back, shaking my head, not wanting to accept the slow-forming understanding. I can’t wrap my mind around this. “No.” It’s all my mouth will give me.
“I met a nice man in a back-street pub.”
“No.”
“The next thing, I woke up in a filthy bedsit.”
“Shit, no.”
“I spent months comatose on whatever they were pumping into my veins while man after man raped me.”
My hands come up to my head and cover my ears, like the bombardment of truths can be blocked.
“For three years, I endured violation after violation until I was kicked out on the street because I didn’t fall pregnant.” Every word she speaks is delivered clearly and levelly. She’s completely together, and I just know it’s because she’s prayed for this moment, for this opportunity, to tell me how it really was. After our initial reunion, we never spoke again about it. After she told me she never wanted to abandon me, I brushed off her pathetic claim and dismissed all her attempts to talk to me again. She was just here, cooking, cleaning, tending to me, without any gratitude or appreciation in return. It was a sick kind of punishment.
I think Esther sees that I’m struggling to unravel any words to speak, so she goes on. “I went back to our flat. You were gone. He was gone. Someone else was living there. I lived on the streets for two years. Then Carlo found me. I don’t know how. I saw his ring, was scared to death, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw softness, not evil. He wasn’t the man who took me from that pub. He never knew what his cousin did. He asked me about my past, and then, when he was certain who I was, he told me about you. Told me how he found you and what he did to your stepfather. He said you wondered where I was. Why I left. I just wanted to see you, be with you, to explain.”
I look away from Esther, caught between shame, confusion, anger, and pain. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I met Ernie before I met you.” She smiles when I shoot a stunned look to her. It’s a sad smile. “He recognized me. He told me that if I breathed a word, he would kill you. I wasn’t prepared to risk that. I was