“I’ll give you time to think about it.” Agnus places the cigarette to his lips. “It won’t be long before Ethan finds out you’re missing. I disabled the ability to open the door from the inside. Stay here and process everything carefully, Elsa.”

The door clicks shut behind him.

Aiden runs to the entrance and up the stairs, but it’s too late. The metal door is already blinking red.

I stand by his side and press my finger on the screen. It continues blinking in red.

“Fuck,” Aiden curses.

“Did he just lock us in?” I murmur in astonishment.

“The phones are outside,” Aiden curses again.

“I can’t believe he did that. Dad will never forgive him.”

“He wants you to think carefully about what to say to your father.” Aiden glances at me. “He probably doesn’t want to hurt you. If you give him what he wants, he’ll let us out.”

“How? He locked us in.” I contain a frustrated yell.

The psycho.

I can’t believe I’ve never seen the signs before. I thought his quiet nature was because he preferred helping Dad from the background, and while he did, he also plotted chaos.

Even back then, Agnus didn’t seem sad about Uncle Reg’s death, his twin brother and only family.

He only cared about the fact that Uncle Reg betrayed Dad by siding up with Jonathan and helping Ma.

A scary thought whirls into my brain.

“What if he…” I gulp, the idea hitting me like a hurricane. “What if he hurts Dad?”

“He didn’t save him to hurt him,” Aiden says. “Besides, think about it. All of Agnus’ motives lead back to Ethan. I say he’d never hurt him.”

“How do you know that?”

He grins, a sadism so deep ignites in his cloudy eyes. “I know my kind when I meet one.”

“Your… kind?”

“Agnus and I are the same. We don’t mind creating anarchy if it gets us what we want.”

“So he’s planning anarchy?”

“He already did with that fire.”

“This only means he’s unstoppable.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Am I unstoppable, sweetheart?”

“You are.”

“How about when it comes to you?”

“You still are… sometimes. I mean, I know you care about me, but that doesn’t mean you’re politically correct.”

“And I’ll never be.” He dismisses ever so casually. “In your mind, do I want to hurt or protect you?”

“Protect me.” I don’t even think about it.

Aiden might’ve wanted to hurt me at the beginning, but that’s changed. He doesn’t want to inflict pain on me anymore — except during sex sometimes, but that’s part of our foreplay.

Aiden is my number one protector now, and I can admit it out loud.

“Agnus is like me,” he emphasises every word. “He’s just like me.”

The realisation hits me like an eruption of a volcano. “He wants to protect my dad.”

“Exactly.”

I gasp. “Do you think he has feelings for him? Is he... gay?”

“Could be. Could be not.”

“I mean I didn’t notice anything between him and Dad, but…” I trail off, raking my head for any suspicious moments but come up with nothing — at least from the outside looking in.

“He could only care about being his right hand and best friend,” Aiden says. “With people like Agnus, you’ll never know unless he says it out loud.”

I ponder on his words. Now that I think about it, Agnus took Knox and Teal in because Dad asked him to. He saved and watched me from afar because he knows how much I mean to Dad.

All his actions lead back to my father’s well-being.

Well, all except for locking me in a basement with no way out.

That reality of things hits me hard when Aiden pulls and pushes the door with no result.

We’re trapped.

34

Ethan

When I think back on my life, I’m left with the bitter feeling that I accomplished nothing.

It doesn’t even have anything to do with the nine years I spent sleeping while the world moved on around me.

I dreamt a lot about normal family life during those years. About Abby’s angelic smile, Eli’s laughs, and Elsa’s giggles.

Little things. Impossible things.

Because the truth of the matter is, Agnus was right. I started a family with a mentally unstable woman, and I was too smitten to think straight.

I started a family with a woman who shouldn’t have given birth.

Elsa will never know this, but it was because of Abby’s neglect that Eli drowned. She removed his swimming jacket and asked him to go into the water. She told him to be free.

She confessed all that to me at his funeral.

Perhaps that’s why Abby lost all her bearings after his death.

Her notion of freedom is different than any of us.

Abby was damaged since a young age. She was broken but smiled. She was innocent but wanted to be wild.

She was different, and that’s exactly why I was attracted to her. I was a moth drawn to a flame that eventually burned me.

If I could redo the past, I would lock Abby away the second Elsa was born. I would’ve followed the therapist’s recommendation and kept her away from children.

The truth of the matter is, I was selfish, and there’s no way to fix my selfishness now.

That’s why it feels like I accomplished nothing in my forty-four-years-old life. Business ventures and economic success don’t count. I couldn’t even protect my employees from the fire ten years ago.

However, as I stare at Teal and hear her words, I can’t help the smile that breaks across my face. I might not have accomplished much, but I at least saved her and Knox. They’re the best thing that happened to my life after Elsa.

And Agnus.

I let Teal finish talking. She’s speaking fast, skipping over words, and blurting out what’s inside her.

Teal isn’t talkative, but when she does speak, she doesn’t know how to stop. I let her get on with it, because if I interrupt her flow, she’ll lose her chain of thoughts.

“You don’t have to do that,” I tell her once she’s finished. “I’ll find another way.”

“No.” She stomps her foot while standing up. “I’m in, Dad. I made my decision.”

“Think more carefully about it, Teal.”

“I have. That’s why I’m talking to you. I want to do this.”

“Do what?” Knox barges in, dropping on the armrest of Teal’s chair.

I shake my head. The kid is a headache. He’s so lively and energetic, it drives me bonkers sometimes.

He always goes around saying he wants to be my best son, threatening both Elsa and Teal so they don’t step the line. He already is, I just don’t tell him that so he doesn’t lose his energy.

Knox has an infuriating habit of losing interest once he gets what he wants.

“What are you gonna do, T?” He pulls on his sister’s strands. “Don’t tell me Dad agreed to let you pierce your belly button.”