Chapter 0009

I stare into his face, pleading in my eyes. “Please. Please just let me go home, let me stay there. I’ll

never bother you again.”

He shakes his hand slowly, beginning to close the door, as if the offer is ending soon. “You can go

home and say goodbye, Fay. Or you can just stay here and let him wonder where you went.”

Made desperate by the sight of the closing door, I get to my shaky feet and rush towards it, heading

out. As I pass over the threshold, Kent murmurs “good girl.”

I glare back at him over my shoulder as a bodyguard takes me by the arm and leads me down the

stairs.

Thirty minutes later, just as the sun is starting to come up, we pull up outside my small house. I had

given the driver the address when we got in. The three bodyguards who accompany me ride in silence

until we arrive. Lippert didn’t come with us.

I jump from the car and brush past the body guards, throwing myself through the front door, which is

never locked.

“Fay?” I hear my dad’s anxious voice call from the kitchen. “Janeen?” I dash into the kitchen and throw

myself into his arms, crying, as the three bodyguards follow me.

“Oh my god, Fay,” he says, wrapping me up in his arms. “I was so worried –“ he glances the men over

my shoulder. “What…what’s happening?”

“Dad,” I say, looking up at him, desperate. “Please tell me this is all a mistake – that he’s not my real

father -”

“What?” he says, shooting anxious glances between me and the guards, who stand calmly in the room.

They let us have our moment, but their threat is evident. Time is short.

“Do you know who my biological dad is?” I say, wiping my tears from my face with the heels of my

palms.

“No…” he says, hesitating, and I can sense the lie in his words.

“Dad,” I plead, wrapping my hands in the lapels of his pajamas. “Please, dad, tell me what you know.”

“It doesn’t matter who your biological dad is, Fay,” he says, looking down at me seriously. “It never has.

I’m your father.”

“Who is he, Dad?” I press.

He narrows my eyes at me. “What do you know, Fay,” he says, his voice low. “This is dangerous

territory – who are these men –“

“Then you know,” I say, shocked, my words hardly breath. “You know the truth – it’s real –“

My dad pulls me to him, seeking to put me behind him, but the guards step forward.

“We’ll go,” dad says to the guards, putting out a hand. “We’ll disappear, you’ll never see us again,

never have any trouble –“

“No, sir,” one of the guards says. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.” With a distinct look at the other men,

all three spring into action. One comes forward, wrapping his arms around me, locking me within his

grasp. I scream and thrash, desperate.

The other two grab my dad – wrap his arms around his back – tie them – a gag in his mouth – a bag –

oh my god a black bag over his head – it all happens in seconds.

“Let’s move,” my guard says, slapping a hand over my mouth, and the two men lift up my dad and carry

him out the front door. Deftly, without being seen, they tuck him inside the trunk as I’m placed into the

back seat of the car.

My mind struggles to comprehend this as I scream and flail against the guards that climb into the car

on either side of me. One wraps his arms around me, holding me still.

“Miss, if you continue this,” he says, “we’ll have to use the chloroform again. We’d rather not do that.”

Within his voice is the unsaid threat, but we will.

I still, then, realizing that this – too – is out of my control. Suddenly exhausted, I again burst again into

tears, burying my face in my hands.

“Back to the house,” the second guard says to the driver. Without a word, he pulls away from the curb.