Page 140 of Midnight Curfew

I inhale a big breath, knowing where this is going. I don’t even have to guess.

He goes on, “One day, she had my father come and get her and she never went back.”

I’ve never known my father to force a woman physically. He’s very good at using the power he has to coerce people into doing what he wants, and they will often feel as if they don’t have a choice. He loves that. The reluctant surrender.

“He must’ve freaked her out pretty good,” Dallas adds.

I’d imagine so. An episode from my childhood slides to the forefront of my memory, of him making a maid clean his shower on her hands and knees.

He was in it, naked and masturbating over her with the water running.

Dallas stops and levels me with his steady but firm gaze. “Extreme wealth and unlimited power make people sick, Callum,” he states. “When you can have anything you want, you get desensitized. You need to up the ante in order to feel excited.”

I tip my chin up. I don’t need a lesson.

“And then once that becomes normal,” he continues, “you need to up the ante again.”

Is he really educating me on a life I’ve lived for twenty-two years?

“But you know this, don’t you?” he says, as if reading my mind. “You know sickness. Especially after what you tried to do to Liv.”

I didn’t realize I was still scowling until my face falls. What I did…

What I did to Liv? I am nothing like my father.

But before I argue back, he starts pacing. “Stop me when I’m wrong,” he tells me. “Your father sees Anna-Katherine growing up, likes what he sees, and figures he can have anything he wants.” He shrugs at me, cocky. “Why not, right? He’s had young girls before. Why shouldn’t he get a taste before the rest of St. Carmen? He’s the man, right?”

I lock my jaw, my hands aching with anger as they curl into fists.

“Once he’d had her to himself for a while,” Dallas muses, “and he’d had his fill…”

I can’t swallow, the lump in my throat too big. I drop my eyes and shake my head, but more to myself than to him.

“…he took her into the Wolfe Room, didn’t he?” he goes on.

No. I squeeze my eyes shut. No, no, no…

I grab a student’s desk and shove it to the ground. Goddammit.

I need the Bay. With that much power, I can get rid of them all. My father, his friends, Dallas…

I can’t talk to him about this! He’ll use it as leverage.

He steps toward me. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”

I shoot my eyes up. “But you’d take her from me.”

He’ll do whatever he has to, especially if part of him thinks he’s protecting her in the process.

My chest starts to shake. He doesn’t know what it’s like. What did he do the one time someone cried for him? He ignored her.

“I told her,” I murmur. “I tried to tell her.”

I remember catching them in his office. She was in his lap, his hand under her skirt, and she wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t looking away from him, either. It was like she idolized him.

I shake my head. “She thought he loved her. She thought his attention meant the world.” I look away, remember that feeling myself as I whisper, “Everyone just wants to be wanted.”

“How many times did he take her in?”