Penance (Devout Trilogy #3) - Lesli Richardson Page 0,22

of dying, I was setting you up to take a massive fall. I planted e-mail accounts and other info on your home computer and on your personal laptop. I have enough stuff on you and your friends that it would’ve made my life sooo much easier to put you away in jail.

“But after you’re dead? I’m going to drop a few bombs anyway, because the second you stop breathing, the trust is mine and safe from any legal action because of you. I’ll blame everything on you, too. Make your associates curse your name and erase your legacy. You’ll be nothing more than a footnote in history people will wish they’d never heard about.” I laugh. “And I’m registering as Democrat as soon as you die.”

He slowly licks his lips. “Get…out.” It’s barely a whisper.

“No chance in Hell of that. I’ve paid for the ticket to this show with decades of my life. Mom paid with her life. I’m going to savor watching you die. If I had popcorn right now, I’d be snacking on it. And after I get you cremated, you’re going into a container I can sit in the backyard and piss on every day.”

I’m not even kidding about that.

I have an idea and pull my burner cell from my pocket. I swipe into the pictures and find the one I want.

One Daniel took of me sucking his cock, with an obvious smile on my face even with my mouth full.

Smiling, I show it to my father, holding it close enough I know he can’t look away. “See? That’s me, Dad. That’s me happy. That’s what I look like. I will be sucking a lot of cock and getting my ass fucked on a regular basis. Sometimes, at the same time.”

I hope. Then again, depending on what Liam does, there might be little of that in my future.

I want Liam to be happy, though. I contributed too much to Liam’s misery over the years. If he runs for POTUS, then I’ll stay away so I don’t become a distraction or a scandal. I also want Daniel to be happy, because I love him, too. He did for Liam what I couldn’t, and that was walk by his side and support him. He deserves to be Liam’s husband.

If there’s eventually space for me, then I’ll gladly take it. If not…

It’s penance I pay for my cowardice.

His eyes widen as he stares at the picture. I don’t deny I take malicious, gleeful satisfaction knowing he’s shocked.

“Should’ve let you drown. Like I wanted to.”

Cold horror sweeps through me because I know exactly what he’s talking about.

I was young, maybe seven or eight. We’d been out on a canoe in a lake with some of their friends from church, me and Dad and Mom. Somehow, I fell in.

Of course I wasn’t wearing a life jacket. Mom wanted me to, and Dad said they were for sissies.

Obviously, I wanted to please my father, so I left it off.

We were out in the middle of the lake, nowhere near everyone else, when I “fell” in. Although I haven’t thought about the incident in years, I could swear I felt my Dad’s hand in the middle of my back pushing me overboard.

Mom could barely dog-paddle—and was wearing a life jacket.

I remember choking on water because I screamed when I fell in. I could barely swim and had only taken a few lessons. My father grew increasingly frustrated at my lack of progress because the son of one of his friends from church was a year younger than me and had quickly turned into an amazing swimmer who was already competing after just a couple of months of lessons.

Panic spiked through my body as the water closed over my head. No matter what I did, I couldn’t struggle my way back to the surface. After what felt like forever, I felt a splash near me and a rough, cruel hand fisted my hair, holding me under for another eternity before he finally jerked me to the surface.

“Stop crying,” Dad barked as he dragged me, literally by my hair, to the canoe, and heaved me in over the side.

I remember coughing up water in Mom’s arms, struggling not to cry because I knew it’d mean more yelling from Dad, or worse, a beating.

I also put on the life jacket.

He hauled himself into the canoe, without flipping it over somehow, and paddled us back to the dock in angry silence. The ride home terrified me. Later that