Chapter 189

“I was shocked to see you again the other night, Esther. It’d been so long. Too long. Truly,” Edward says. He’s using his ‘charming voice,’ all buttery smooth. I hate everything about it, just like I hate him. He’d always use this tone of voice right before he snapped. “How shocked I am then, to discover that you’ve been spreading such nasty rumors about me.”

I’m speechless, just as I was as a little girl in the orphanage.

Please don’t hurt me again. Please don’t hurt me again, running on repeat in my mind.

“Why would you tell one of my donors that I hurt you, Esther? Do you not remember the nice times we had together? Why, I practically raised you.”

I swallow thickly. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Oh, no? You were such a good little girl. Always so eager to please.”

“Stop.”

“Then you remember.”

“Leave me alone,” I tell him.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Esther. For two reasons. For one, you are no in the employ of my competition. We will need to discuss things. It’s the nature of politics. As for the other reason, well. You must understand how much your false accusations have hurt me.”

The room is dark and the bed is hard. The doorknob jostles. Soon a strange man will come in and hurt me again.

“I must insist that you do not continue to spread these lies about me, Esther. Or I’m going to have to make you regret it. For years, we’ve left each other alone, haven’t we? Why ruin a good thing now?”

There’s a smirk in his voice when I do not answer. “I’ve given you a lot to think about, I can see that. Just remember. The past is best left in the past. For the future, I’m going to be the president. And if you even think about screwing this for me…” His voice drops low. “I will make what happened at the orphanage seem like heaven, do you understand? I will destroy you, mind. Body. Spirit.”

My heart thunders loud. My stomach churns. Every inch of my skin prickles, alert and terrified.

In a flash, his voice is back to charismatic. “I’m glad we could reach this understanding. I hope the next time we talk, we will be more… diplomatic with each other. I truly would love to catch up. Goodbye, Esther.”

The line goes dead.

I continue holding the phone to my ear, listening to the dial tone. It’s hard to return to myself, when I’m trapped with one foot so solidly in the past.

This threat… Worse than the orphanage?

I’m cold all over, trembling. I can’t breathe. Why can’t I breathe?

The doorknob of my office rattles, and in a flash, I’m hiding under my desk.

“Esther?” Miles calls from the doorway.

Oh. Oh, God. Miles.

“Miles…” I say, too frightened to say the word much louder than that. It’s enough. He closes the door behind him and comes closer.

“Where are you?” he asks, as he rounds the desk. Looking under it, he sees me. His face drops. “Esther…”

I’m still holding the phone.

Once, when I’d been a girl back at the orphanage, Daphne and I made a plan to escape. It was half-cocked at best, but for a pair of children, we thought ourselves geniuses.

We waited until Edward went to sleep. Then, as quiet as mice, we sneaked out of our rooms and crept down the hallway.

We didn’t question why our rooms weren’t locked that night. We didn’t suspect that Edward had what he called a ‘lesson’ planned for us.

We’d made it all the way to the front door. But, outside, were a group of men standing in a half circle around the entrance of the door, like they’d been waiting for us.

They came closer to us, boxing us in, that uncomfortable hunger in their eyes, the kind I had grown horribly familiar with.

Frightened, Daphne and I ran back into the orphanage.

Edward was waiting for us in the hallway. “Never question me,” he said. “Don’t you see that I’m the only one keeping you safe?”

We’d been too scared to try to escape again, though I still tested the doorknob every night. Some nights it was locked, others it wasn’t. When it wasn’t, I wondered if tonight I could escape. Or if there’d be a new lesson waiting for me.

If Edward wouldn’t let me back in next time.

“Esther…” Miles says gently as he holds me against him.

We’re both under the desk. The phone I was holding was gone. Instead I’m holding onto Miles’s waist with both hands, as if I’m terrified he’ll be ripped away from me.

“Esther,” he says again, as if calling me in from a storm.

I follow his voice, returning to the present and the safety of his arms.

Turning my face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, I breathe him in and whisper, “Miles.”

He exhales in relief. “You had me worried for a minute. You were so far away.”

“I was,” I tell him. “I was in the past.”

“The orphanage.”

I nod, knowing he could feel the movement.

“He called me,” I say.

“In your memory?”

“No.” I pull back enough to look up at Miles. The light is dim under the desk, but he watches me closely. I can see the worry in his eyes. I hate to add to it. “Just now. He remembered me. He… made threats…”

“Then we’re getting close,” Miles says. But he shakes his head. “We have to get you out of this, Esther. You don’t have to face this anymore.”

“I do,” I tell him.

Slowly, I collect myself. Yes, I shattered hearing his voice and his threats, remembering so much of the past. But now that I’m piecing myself back together, I’m filled with rage.

How dare this man come out of my past and threaten me again like I am the scared frightened child? I am stronger now. I’m a fully grown adult woman. I’ve had my own children, my own pains, my own hardships. I’ve overcome them all.

I will not let him pull me back into that dark room where I was tortured and tormented.

“We have to take him down,” I say. “He thinks he can scare me away. Yes, I am frightened. I won’t lie about it. But I’m also strong. He won’t win, Miles. I won’t let him.”

“You don’t have to take this fight on, Esther. Hugo and I can handle it.”

“No. I have to. For me. For Daphne. For ever girl that he has hurt and endangered… I will personally bring this asshole down. And I think I know where to start.”

“Where?” Miles asks.

“Back where it all began: the orphanage. There have to be records there. If we track those records, then… Why are you looking at me like that?”

He has pity in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Esther. Hugo and I tracked down the orphanage ourselves. Or at least we tried to.”

“What do you mean you tried to?”

“It doesn’t exist anymore,” he says.

“It doesn’t?” I don’t know how to feel about that. The place was the house of so much pain. On the one hand, I’m glad it’s gone, but that makes everything so much more difficult now.

“It’s gone,” Miles says. “Someone burned it to the ground two years ago.”