Chapter 4 - The Web of Bitter Deceit
I pressed my forehead against the edge of the mattress, unable to look Emily in the eyes.
“Why didn't you tell me that night?” I wept, my voice muffled by the rough fabric of the quilt.
“I tried, Daniel,” she answered softly, her voice barely louder than the breeze outside.
“I had the doctor's ultrasound in my coat pocket when you came home from the docks.”
“You were screaming so loudly that the windows were vibrating.”
“You threw your whiskey glass against the wall and told me I was poison in your life.”
“You said that anyone close to you was a liability that made you look weak to the other bosses.”
“If I told you I was pregnant, what would have happened?”
“You would have locked me inside a golden cage with guards at every door.”
“You would have raised my child in a house filled with blood, guns, and paranoia.”
“I wanted my baby to breathe clean air, even if it meant eating bread crusts in a forgotten holler.”
Every word she spoke was an execution sentence upon my character.
She had chosen starvation and freezing winters over the poisoned luxury of my world.
“How long have you been sick like this?” I asked, looking up at her hollow cheeks.
“Three years,” she murmured.
“It started with a chest cold working double shifts at the lumber mill down in the valley.”
“Then the damp winters got into my lungs.”
“The clinic in town told me it was chronic pulmonary fibrosis.”
“They said there were treatments in Lexington, but they cost four thousand dollars a month.”
“I couldn't even afford the antibiotics to stop the daily fever.”
“Why didn't you send for me sooner?”
“Because I promised myself I would rather die with clean hands than crawl back to your empire.”
“Then why did Clara write the letter?”
Emily’s eyes filled with fresh tears as she looked toward the curtain where our daughter waited.
“She found the lockbox under the floorboards three weeks ago.”
“She found our wedding license and the old newspapers featuring your name.”
“She saw how much blood I was coughing up every morning.”
“I told her you were a dangerous man who would never care about us.”
“She told me that if you were a devil with money, she would make a deal with the devil to save my life.”
A cold, suffocating rage began to replace the sorrow in my chest.
I stood up and surveyed the miserable hovel she had been forced to survive in.
“I have millions sitting in accounts, Emily.”
“I will fly the best pulmonologists from Johns Hopkins to this mountain by sunset.”
“We are leaving right now.”
Emily gave a slow, bitter shake of her head.
“We can’t just drive away, Daniel.”
“This mountain is not empty.”
“What does that mean?”
“Three months ago, when I couldn't get out of bed to clean the motel rooms in town, the rent lapsed.”
“A man named Silas Vance runs the loans and property titles in this hollow.”
“He paid the clinic fifty dollars for my pills and put a five-thousand-dollar lien on this cabin.”
“He comes every Friday with his boys to collect interest.”
“If I don't have the cash, he takes whatever food we have in the pantry.”
“Last week, he looked at Clara and told me that when she turns ten, she can start working off my debt at his roadhouse.”
The air in the room instantly turned to sub-zero ice.
The mafia don who had executed cartel commanders in New York stirred from beneath my skin.
“He threatened my daughter?” I asked, my voice dropping into a deadly, quiet register.
“He doesn't know who she is, Daniel!” Emily gasped, grabbing my wrist with her weak fingers.
“He thinks we are just abandoned mountain trash with no family to protect us.”
“He carries a sawed-off shotgun and has three cousins who run meth out of the gravel pit.”
“They don't fear the law out here because Silas's brother is the county magistrate.”
Before I could answer, the sharp crunch of heavy truck tires grinding over gravel sounded outside.
Through the thin wooden walls, the low rumble of a V8 engine vibrated through the floorboards.
A heavy car door slammed shut with a metallic bang.
Then came a harsh, tobacco-stained shout from the front porch.
May you like
“Emily! Drag your sick bones to the door, girl! It’s Friday collection time!”
Clara’s high-pitched scream pierced through the cabin as someone shoved the outer door inward.
