sips, but it’s all I can stomach.
“How are you feeling?” Maxwell asks.
There’s no use lying. “My stomach is burning and wants to eject everything inside it.”
Corbin and Maxwell exchange worried looks.
I don’t know how I’m still alive, honestly, except that I have unfinished business. My father is still alive; still a threat to my children and my body refuses to die until my father is dead.
Speaking of the devil, my father makes his almost daily appearance.
“You don’t look so good, my daughter.”
“I look better than you,” I say, forcing my body up. I won’t look weak in front of him. Just like my father won’t look weak in front of me.
We both know the other is dying; we are both sick. We’re playing a game of chicken, trying to appear braver and healthier than the other. My father thinks I can be saved. As soon as I do what he says, he thinks he can give me the drugs to save me. But if that were true, he’d use them on himself and live.
I don’t know what his game is exactly. He knows I’m dying, that I can’t take over for him, and yet he keeps trying. Every. Single. Day.
“Don’t you have something better to do with your day than annoy us?” Corbin asks.
My father ignores him.
“Today is a very special day.”
“The day you finally keel over dead?” Maxwell asks.
“It’s been one year exactly. It’s time to decide.”
“Decide what?” I ask.
“Decide who I’m going to kill first—Rose or Atlas?”
I frown. Nervous energy zips through my body before I blow out a breath, letting the anxiety go. He can’t get to Rose or Atlas. They are completely protected. I don’t have to worry about him killing them.
“Neither.”
“So confident in your beau to protect them. So stupid of you to think that I can’t kill them.”
“You can’t,” I say defiantly.
He pulls out his phone and starts a video. It’s of Langston playing with the kids. I become transfixed by the video. They’ve all grown so much. Rose now towers over her two brothers. Declan has grown his hair out, while Atlas has gotten a recent buzzcut. They look happy, content, safe. My eyes drift to Langston. He’s lost weight, but not muscle. His eyes are hollow and slightly red. I’m guessing from lack of sleep or excess alcohol.
I touch the screen with my fingers, wishing I could send him my love and comfort. I wish I could let him know that I’m alive, but that would break him. He’s strong but in a fragile state. I won’t be the reason he breaks.
The video ends, and I hand the phone back to my father. “This means nothing.”
“It means I have a spy on the inside. Did you see the angle this video was taken from?”
“Who?” I can’t believe anyone there would spy for my father. Not any of our friends. Not any of the employees.
“Phoenix.”
I gasp.
“Phoenix wouldn’t risk the kids’ lives. She loves them,” Maxwell says.
I agree. She would never hurt them.
“Maybe, but then she would do anything to save her brothers’ lives.”
“You bastard! I’m going to kill you,” Corbin says.
My father smirks. “I’m going to win. The sooner you realize that, the better. There is no use in you rotting your life away in this cell.”
“Just because you got Phoenix to take a video for you doesn’t mean she’ll help you get to one of the kids. You won’t get anywhere near the island.”
“Oh, child, how you underestimate me. Where do you think we are?”
He pulls up another video. This one is a security feed from the yacht we’re on, apparently. It’s staring straight ahead at Langston’s island.
He turns the phone off and then turns, walking to my cell door. He pauses.
“You have until midnight to decide which child dies.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t take the chance that he could get his hands on one of my kids. I have no doubt if he got close, he’d kill one of them. He doesn’t need all three as a backup. He just needs one.
“Wait!” I scream.
My father stops.
“What do you want me to do?”
24
Liesel
“Kill him,” my father says.
“I would, except you won’t let me out of this cell, and he’s too smart for you to catch.” I’m not sure if that’s true. Phoenix may easily give Langston over in exchange for her brothers getting to live. She’d definitely prefer to hand over Langston than one of the kids.
“The time will come when you will have the opportunity to kill Langston. Until