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


    stairs.


    Thirty minutester, just as the sun is starting toe up, we pull up outside my small house. I had


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


    until we arrive. Lippert didn’te with us.


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


    never locked.


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    “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 nces 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 nces 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 thepels 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. Onees 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 ck bag over his head – it all happens in seconds.


    “Let’s move,” my guard says, pping 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 ced into the


    back seat of the car.


    My mind struggles toprehend this as I scream and il 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.