Free Lies & Lullabies by Courtney Lane Page B

I closed the door to my bedroom and rested my back against it. I held my hand up and stared at the ring I had forgotten to remove. I turned it around toward my palm and shuffled into the bathroom to take the hottest shower I could stand.

    I rushed out of the bathroom in my dress slacks and button-up shirt several sizes too large. Michael controlled what was in my closet, and I was never allowed to wear anything that revealed my curves. Makeup was another cardinal sin according to him.  
    The last time I deigned to wear mascara and do something with my hair in his presence, he had his bodyguard hold me down and he cut my hair nearly bald. It took two years to get my hair to my shoulders when it was originally down my back.
    There was only one way I could consistently rebel against Michael and avoid his wrath: silence. I had never spoken more than a few words to the man since he showed me his true nature. His resolution was the piano. He claimed music was the one way he could make me communicate with him.
    I plodded down the hall and took the steps several at a time to visit the kitchen for a cup of coffee before heading off to work.  
    “Sam…are you cooking?” I hung my nose in the air, the scent of burnt food permeated my nose. “You know you can’t cook. Don’t burn my kitchen down again.” Sam only knew how to cook one dish, and not very well: eggs.
    “It smells more like you’re burning—” I froze in place, staring at the scene in the kitchen. Sam was naked and secured to a chair, facing the doorway, tethered to it by his arms and legs with duct tape.  
    An angry red burn print was set into his bare chest, matching the pattern of the burner ring from the range. His face was wet with tears. He began to plead through quiet moans for his life. The moment he rested his eyes on me, his gaze pointed toward the back of the house and to me repeatedly, sending me a message. He returned to pleading for his life, the intoning volume echoed off the vaulted ceilings and the wide space. It was a scene I’d witnessed before and never thought I’d have to witness again.
    The man standing next to him was Michael’s best and most loyal soldier, Tyler. He ripped a fresh piece of tape from the roll and secured it across Sam’s mouth on the heels of Sam screaming at me, “Run!”
    I glanced back to another man, his large stature blocked the entire doorframe, leading to the back of the house. The person in front of me was the last person I wanted to see—Michael, and he wasn’t happy.  
    “What the fuck is the matter with you?” Michael barked at me, my body jumped in reaction to his wall-shuddering volume. “When we had this conversation, two months ago, you said we wouldn’t have it again. Why the fuck am I back here to say the same thing? I warned your ass not to do it again when I caught you at that party wearing another fucker’s dinner jacket. Now I hear…you’re fighting women who look like they’ve been beaten with a bag of bricks. For what? Che cozz’? ”
    The thumping beat of my heart spread its rhythm throughout my body. My limbs began to shake in time. The involuntary action of swallowing became difficult. A heat rushed over my skin. Pent-up anger over years of wishing Michael was never responsible for my life boiled to the surface.
    I wanted to question how he knew. I was so careful this time. I swore to be that way so no one else would lose their life because of Michael. There wasn’t much in the way of options on what to say or do to get Michael to back down.  
    He wouldn’t claim me in public or privately to any of his associates. If anyone asked questions, he said I was his bitch. He kept me a secret. I was his illegitimate child, who he threw money at as though I was his expensive stock, and he expected to see a return on his investment—to own and control.  
    No one alive but him, Deana, and myself knew he was my father, a man I called my sperm donor, or simply Michael because he was