Page 41 of Pretty Savage: Defy

“Did Mom know?” The question scrapes out of my throat.

My father shakes his head once.

No.

The sting of that is sharper, that he lied to her, of all people. I always thought she knew him better than anyone. Now I picture him sitting across from her at dinner, laughing, touching her hand, building a marriage on top of a trapdoor she never knew was there.

Carr straightens. “That was a long time ago.”

“I remember it, though.” Dad’s voice is quiet, but a subtle stubbornness moves under it now. “How we used to play as children. You, me, and Lou. How is she? Louellen?”

At the sound of her name, Carr’s expression changes. A fleeting smile touches his mouth before sorrow chases it away.

“Three daughters,” he says. “All well.”

Dad reads between those lines. “But?” he prods.

The sharp corners of Carr’s shoulders round. “Tylerson. We lost him on a mission. Soviet Bloc. Lou, she…never really got over the loss.”

My father’s head falls forward, and the lines in his forehead deepen, giving me a glimpse of the man he’ll become in twenty, thirty years. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

The room thickens with sadness. Old names. Old losses. A history that existed before me and Carrson, before my father turned Stanson into Daniel.

“Becky?” Dad asks, continuing their conversation.

Carr pauses, weighing his answer.

“She goes by Rebecca now. She has one daughter, Samantha,” he says at last. “She’s risen to High Mother.”

Dad leans back in his chair, his fingers slipping from my knee. “You mean you chose her as a Mother? Let her g—”

“Well.” Carr snaps into action, curling his fingers at me in a get-up gesture. “As fun as this trip down memory lane has been, the children have to leave.”

The children.

Like Carrson isn’t standing there with his father’s hand on his shoulder. Like I’m not sitting right here, old enough to know that every adult in this room is a liar.

Carr sweeps his arm toward us, the gesture of a shepherd gathering an unruly flock. “They have preparations to make.” He looks right at my dad when he says it. “They’re to be bonded…and sealed.”

I hate Carr Ashford for that.

He could have left the sealing unnamed. He could have let my father believe the ceremony was only blood and vows. Instead, he makes sure Dad understands exactly what waits for me back at Ashford House.

All the color leaves my father’s face. His eyes fill, and when he takes my hand his grip is crushing. “I’m sorry, Laurel. I’m so sorry.”

What’s he apologizing for? Bringing me to The Order’s doorstep? Lying to me? To Mom? Or for whatever happened to him before he became the father I knew?

He looks up at Carr. “You have to protect her. Please. If you ever cared about me when we were young, then do this for me.”

Carr scowls. “You already spent that coin, Stanson. When you ran away and I didn’t come after you, even though everyone was calling for your punishment.”

My father’s shame gives way to anger. “Didn’t punish me?” His voice carries, drawing a few looks from the other patients. “You think I walked away with no consequences?”

Carr’s face smooths again. “You were allowed to live.”

Dad stands, the movement shaky enough that I reach for his elbow, but he waves me off. He’s fragile in ways that make me want to pull him back down, but there’s another man under the frailness now, one I don’t know. A stranger who stands with a straight back, his meekness vanished.

“What about my money?” he demands. “Millions of dollars my family earned. All taken when I left.”