Chapter 63 Get Out!!!
It is like David has frozen.
He is completely still, staring at me, not one inch of him moving except for his chest, and even that is barely perceptible. I struggle to swallow the nausea that has come back up to my throat, feeling like a hard lump of betrayal that won’t go away.
I am still leaning against the door, supporting myself to stand, and I start to push off it. Slowly. As though the man in front of me is a wild animal and I can’t spook him by moving too fast.
“David,” I whisper, and he only blinks in response. “I need you to know that I had no idea it was him until yesterday. You need to know that, okay?”
He stays silent.
Eerily and unnervingly silent.
I feel nervous and shaky as I take a single step forward. He doesn’t react, so I take another. I figure it will be another five steps before I reach him, and maybe if I just explain it while taking it slow, he will have calmed down by the time I get to him.
I take a step forward.
“From what I know, Nick and Malcolm were best friends when they were kids. Part of the same organisation, I’m told, working together, until Nick wanted to move somewhere else, take charge of his own branch once he came of age. Malcolm met my mom, they got married, they had me. I have some memories of Nick at my house, at the holidays, like he was just another one of my uncles or something.”
Another step. David’s eyes follow me.
“The next thing I remember is being told my mom died, and Malcolm said it was Nick’s fault. Said that she would be alive if it wasn’t for him. That’s when we moved to the Midwest, and then I started to be involved. And it was a couple of years after that I realised how horrible Malcolm really was, what he was doing, the people he was hurting.”
Two more steps left.
“I tried to change how he was handling things. I tried to persuade him to take different routes to get what he wanted, to do things in a better way. But he was awful to me, saying that it was always needed, saying I wasn’t experienced enough to know. That I wasn’t worth his time to explain. Then I was getting cut out of certain meetings, but being given tasks where my hand was forced. That’s when I decided I had enough.”
One step left.
I can hear David breathing, deep and heavy. He is trying to control it, to calm himself down. Hopefully he has actually listened to me, and it won’t be as bad as I think.
“I left eight years ago. I didn’t want to be part of that world anymore, I didn’t have any kind of relationship with him anymore. I hated everything so I left. And after a year of going from state to state, I met Selena, just by chance at a bar one night. She told me about her job, and I jumped for it. Six months later, I told her the whole story. She helped me change my name and protected me ever since.”
I wait, to see if he will say anything. He doesn’t. So I take the final step to him and reach up a shaky hand to his jaw.
“David…” I whisper.
Then his hand snatches my wrist away from him, and his expression finally changes.
Anger.
“Get out.” He says.
“David please I–”
“I said get out.” He repeats, louder this time.
“No, I told you to listen, just–”
He keeps his grip on my arm and storms across his room, dragging me with him. I protest, shouting his name, trying to pull my arm away, but it is solid and fuelled by his emotions.
Wrenching the bedroom door open, he pushes me into the hall, finally releasing my arm, making me fall to the floor, with him walking straight past me.
“EVERYONE OUT NOW!” he yells into the lounge, the sound making the walls vibrate, and as I rush to stand back up I hear the scuffle of people clamouring for the exit.
Then he storms back out of the lounge and into my bedroom.
“David, what are you doing?!” I call, running after him and finding him pulling clothes from the dresser and shoving them into my suitcase.
“You’re leaving.”
“I’m not, I want us to talk about this–”
“No.” He snaps, zipping the suitcase shut and throwing it at my feet. “You will not talk to me anymore. Get the fuck out of my house.”
“Please just let me–”
“NO NORA!” he shouts, then he screws his eyes shut. “I mean, Elizabeth, whoever the fuck you are! I want you OUT!”
“I get it, okay?! Trust me, I fucking get it, but we–”
“We are done.” He spits, the three words making me still. “You lied to me about The Red Room. Then about your past. Now you’ve been lying about the fact that you’re Malcolm Voss’s fucking daughter?!”
“I told you I had no idea it was him until–”
“You’ve had enough chances. Now we’re done.”
I clench my teeth together as I try to fight the urge to cry, although the tears are coming through thick and fast anyway. The way he is looking at me is indescribable, and it is hurting my heart in a way I never thought it could. His eyes seem like angry voids, glaring at me as though he wants to physically chuck me outside himself.
Realising that he isn’t going to listen to anything like this, I just nod, bend down to grab my suitcase, and look back at him one last time.
“I really am sorry.” I whisper, hoping he knows how genuine I am. Then I turn and all but run down the hallway, wiping my cheeks and ripping the front door open, closing it loudly behind me.
My feet stop moving as soon as the door closes, and I sink to the floor, burying my head in my hands and finally allowing myself to cry.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In the apartment, Marcus slips out of the study he has been hiding in and finds David standing in the middle of Nora’s bedroom, staring at the wardrobe, breathing heavily as though he has just run a mile.
Marcus leans against the doorframe, feeling nothing but sympathy for his best friend. He hadn’t heard their conversation in David’s room, but once the others had left and they were shouting out here, he had heard it all.
“So,” Marcus says, breaking the tension. “She’s Malcolm Voss’s daughter, huh?”
David yells into the air, grabbing the lamp from the bedside table and throwing it against the opposite wall. It smashes into a thousand pieces, crumbling to the floor, a small dent in the wall glaring back at him mockingly.
Then David sinks down onto the bed, his hands covering his face as he groans. Marcus sits down beside him, nudging David’s knee with his.
“You okay?” Marcus asks.
“No, I’m not fucking okay.” David breathes, lifting his head up to look at his friend. The other employees he wouldn’t dare be this honest with. But Marcus? Marcus has been there most of his life. He has seen it all.
David suddenly feels too much energy coursing through his veins to stay sitting, so he stands, starting to pace the floor in front of Marcus.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” David asks his friend, who has only just opened his mouth to respond when David continues. “I gave her the benefit of the fucking doubt when I asked her about her past, and look where it got me? Has she been feeding him information the entire time? Is all this just to make me look like a fucking fool?!”
“I don’t think–”
“She knows things now, and then what, she’s going to go back to her father and give him all the information he fucking needs to take us apart piece by fucking piece!” David yells, his face starting to turn red from anger.
“She doesn’t know enough to do that. And even if she did, do you really think she would?” Marcus counters.
“She has fucking lied to me since day one, and each time I let it go, another fucking secret popped up. I don’t know who the fuck she is anymore.”
Marcus lets David’s comment linger in the air for a moment before he tries to speak again. He knows David is at the level where he won’t listen to reason, not properly. And it will be a while before he will.
So he tries a different tactic.
“What did she say?”
“You heard it. She’s his fucking daughter.”
“No,” Marcus replies. “I heard what you said in here. I didn’t hear what she said in there.” He points through the doorway towards David’s bedroom, and when David looks at where he is pointing, he takes a breath.
“I don’t know.” David answers.
“You don’t know?”
“Something about… her mom, Nick, and her dad… I mean, after she told me that, I don’t think I was listening. Not properly. Would you?” David asks his friend, who shrugs. “After finding out that the person you…”
Marcus narrows his eyes at David after hearing him trail off, wondering what he was going to say.
Then he realises.
He stands, walks towards David, and puts his hand comfortingly on his friend’s shoulder.
“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” Marcus asks, and David’s silence answers the question for him. “Then you’re going to have to talk to her.”
“I know.” David nods. “But not yet.”