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His expression didn’t change.
“All right,” he said. “Your father may have known exactly what those shipments contained.”
For one shameful moment, I had wanted him to deny it. I had wanted him to tell me the records could have been forged, the signatures copied and the instructions planted. I wanted him to construct a lie strong enough for me to hide inside forever.
“He ruined my life.”
Demitri said nothing.
“He knew those people were dangerous, but he brought their business into our home.” I folded my arms across my stomach, trying to hold myself together. “He sat across from me at the dinner table, hiding his shameful secrets. For years.”
My voice began to tremble despite my efforts to control it.
“He made me carry the evidence. He placed it around my neck and sent me into the world knowing that men might kill me for it. What sort of a father does that?”
Demitri lowered his gaze for a moment before looking at me again.
“You’re supposed to defend him, Demitri.”
“Why?”
“Because he was frightened! Because he loved me! Because he was trying to protect me!” Bitterness thickened my voice. “That is what people always say when dead men leave devastation behind. They offer noble intentions because the dead are no longer here to answer for the damage.”
“I’m not going to lie to you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know whether it’s true. Whatever your father’s involvement, you need to face it and deal with it.”
My throat tightened until swallowing became painful.
Demitri took one measured step closer.
“Your father may have loved you more than anyone else in his life,” he replied. “He may also have failed you in ways that love cannot excuse.”
A laugh escaped me. It hurt. “Failed me?” The word was pitifully small. “He killed me.”
Demitri was silent.
“The woman I was is gone,” I proclaimed. “My home is gone. My name is dangerous. Every person I ever trusted has become someone I have to question.”
The numbness inside me fractured, releasing all the rage trapped beneath it.
“He died, and I’m the one who has to keep running. I’m the one who wakes every morning wondering whether someone will find me. I have to look at every stranger and decide if they’ve come to drag me back into that nightmare.”
I struck my palm against the edge of a covered desk. Pain shot through my hand.
“He escaped all of it. He got to die and leave me standing here with the consequences.”
Demitri didn't tell me to lower my voice. He didn’t reach for the hand I had hurt or ask me to calm down.
Something tore open beneath my ribs.
“I hate him.”
The words hung between us.
My father had been my safest place. The hatred felt like driving a knife into the only part of my childhood that remained untouched.
