Chapter 148
Emily's POV
"What do I want?" My father laughed, and it was the ugliest sound I'd ever heard. "I want what you owe me. You're driving around in a car like that—" He gestured toward my sedan. "—you've got money. So you're gonna give me some of it."
My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might break through my ribs. "How much?"
"Ten thousand," he said, like it was nothing. Like it was pocket change. "Cash. Tonight."
"I don't—I don't have that kind of cash just sitting around," I said, my voice shaking. "I'd have to go to the bank. I'd have to—"
The second slap was harder than the first, snapping my head to the other side and making my vision go white for a second. When I could see again, he was right in my face, his hand raised like he was ready to hit me again.
"Don't you dare try to pull anything!" he roared. "You think I'm stupid? You think I'm gonna let you walk into a bank and call the cops?"
"I'm not—"
"Give me your card," he demanded, shoving his hand toward me palm-up. "Right now. Give me your fucking debit card."
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely get my wallet out of my bag, but I managed. I pulled out the card—the one tied to my personal checking account, the one that definitely didn't have ten thousand dollars in it—and held it out to him.
He snatched it from my hand and shoved it into his pocket.
"Here's what's gonna happen," he said, his voice dropping to something low and dangerous. "You're gonna transfer money into that account. Ten thousand dollars. And if it's not there by tomorrow—if you even think about fucking with me—I'm coming back. And next time, I won't be so nice."
I nodded frantically, unable to form words.
"And if you call the cops?" He leaned in close again, his face twisted with rage. "If I even hear that you talked to anyone? I know where your mother lives, Emily. I know exactly where to find her. And I will make her pay for what you did. You understand me?"
Ice flooded my veins. My mother. Of course he'd go after her. Of course he'd use her to keep me quiet.
"I understand," I whispered.
"Good." He shoved me one more time, hard enough that I stumbled and nearly fell, and then he was backing away toward the shadows at the edge of the parking lot. "Tomorrow, Emily. Don't make me come looking for you again."
And then he was gone, disappearing into the dusk like something out of a nightmare, and I was left standing there alone, shaking and bleeding and trying to remember how to breathe.
I don't know how long I stood there. Long enough that the automatic lights in the parking structure flickered on. Long enough that my legs started to ache from holding myself upright. Long enough that the panic started to recede just far enough for my brain to kick back into survival mode.
The bank.
I had to go to the bank.
I had to transfer the money before he came back. Before he went to my mother's apartment. Before he—
My hands were still shaking when I unlocked my car and slid into the driver's seat. I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror and immediately wished I hadn't. My cheek was swollen and already darkening into a bruise. There was a split in my lip that had bled down my chin. My eyes were red and puffy and wild.
I looked like a victim.
I looked like I'd looked a hundred times before, back when I was still living under his roof.
No. I forced myself to look away, to start the car, to focus on the one thing I could control right now.
The bank was only ten minutes away, but it felt like hours. I drove carefully, mechanically, my hands gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles went white. Every car that passed felt like a threat. Every shadow looked like him.
The bank was mostly empty at this time of day—just a few stragglers at the ATMs and one teller closing out her station. I went straight to the machine in the corner and pulled up my accounts with trembling fingers.
My checking account balance stared back at me from the screen—more than enough to cover what he was demanding. Two years of salary from the restaurant, careful saving, the financial stability I'd fought so hard to build. All of it sitting there, proof that I'd made something of myself.
And now I was about to hand a piece of it over to him.
My finger hovered over the transfer button, and for a long moment I couldn't make myself press it. Because doing this—giving him the money, letting him extort me, playing by his rules—meant he'd won. It meant that no matter how far I'd run or how much I'd changed, I was still that terrified girl who did what he said because the alternative was worse.
It meant I'd never really escaped at all.
I transferred ten thousand dollars to the account linked to the debit card he'd taken. Watched the numbers shift and blur on the screen through the tears that kept welling up no matter how hard I tried to blink them back.
The machine beeped to confirm the transaction, and I stood there for another minute, staring at the screen, trying to process what I'd just done.
I'd given him ten thousand dollars.
I'd let him win.
Again.
I sat in my car in the bank parking lot for another twenty minutes, trying to pull myself together. Trying to figure out what I was going to say when I got home. Trying to stop shaking long enough to actually drive.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out with numb fingers.
Ethan: Just got to the apartment. Where are you? Mason made enough food to feed an army.
I stared at the message and felt something break open in my chest. Ethan was home. Ethan was waiting for me. All three of them were there, in the apartment, probably wondering why I was late.
I should've felt happy. Should've felt excited to see them, to have everyone together for the first time in days.
Instead, all I felt was terror.
Because the second I walked through that door, they were going to know something was wrong. And I didn't know how to lie to them. Didn't know how to pretend everything was fine when my face was swollen and my hands wouldn't stop shaking and I'd just given ten thousand dollars to the man who'd made my childhood a living nightmare.
But I couldn't stay in the parking lot forever. And I couldn't not go home.
So I took a shaky breath, wiped my face one more time, and started the car.