Chapter 5

I stayed in the hospital for another week, my body slowly healing while my mind replayed every horror. My father never called. Not once.

The day I was discharged, I went straight to the Collier mansion. I didn't want anything from him except what was rightfully mine: the old house my mother had left me in her will.

I walked in to find him in a rage. A porcelain vase shattered against the wall near my head.

"You have the nerve to show your face here?" he bellowed, his face purple with fury.

He threw a stack of photographs at my feet. They scattered across the floor. My blood ran cold as I saw them.

They were pictures of me. Tied to the chair in the warehouse, my back a bloody mess, my face contorted in agony. The photos the thugs had taken.

Conrad had sent them to my father.

"Look at this!" my father screamed. "Our family's name, dragged through the mud! These are all over the internet! They think my daughter is some kind of degenerate, involved in sick games!"

Kassidy, who was standing beside him, put a comforting hand on his arm. "Dad, don't be so angry. Abby is young. Maybe she's just... experimenting." Her words were honey-laced poison.

My world was spinning. Conrad hadn't just tortured me. He was trying to destroy my reputation, to ruin me completely, all to avenge a fake allergy attack on behalf of the woman he truly loved.

I was frozen in shock, unable to speak.

My father grabbed a golf club from a stand by the door. "I'm going to beat you to death, you disgraceful whore!" he roared, raising it above his head.

"Dad, no!" Kassidy cried, grabbing his arm in a perfect imitation of a concerned daughter. "Don't hurt her! Abby, just apologize to Dad. Tell him you're sorry!"

I finally found my voice. I stood up straight, my back screaming in protest, and looked my father in the eye.

"I was kidnapped," I said, my voice flat and dead. "I was tied up and whipped. Those pictures are evidence of a crime."

My father scoffed. "Kidnapped? Don't lie to me! You look perfectly fine. You're just making excuses for your disgusting behavior!"

He pointed the golf club at me. "I should have never had you. You are the biggest mistake of my life."

The last flicker of hope for my father, for any shred of familial love, died in that moment.

"Fine," I said, my voice void of all emotion. "I don't care anymore. Just give me what's mine. Mom's house. I want the deed."

His eyes darted away. "The house? It's... it's slated for demolition. The city is redeveloping that area."

He was lying. I could see it in his shifty gaze.

"Get out!" he yelled, shoving me toward the door. "Get out of my house and never come back!"

A maid closed the door in my face. "Miss Abby, please go. Don't make him angrier."

I walked away, a hollow shell. He wasn't going to give me the house. He was going to give it to them.

I had to see it one last time.

I took a taxi to the old neighborhood, to the small house where I had spent the first ten years of my life, happy and loved, with my mother.

The garden was overgrown with weeds. The paint on the front door was peeling. It looked sad and abandoned, a mirror of my own heart.

I sank to the ground in front of the gate, sobs wracking my body. I had failed my mother. I couldn't even protect the last thing she left me.

"Well, well, look what the cat dragged in."

I looked up. Kassidy was standing there, a smug, triumphant smile on her face.

"Crying? How pathetic," she sneered. "I guess you heard. My mom asked your dad for this house, and he gave it to her. He said it's going to be torn down soon anyway, to make way for a new shopping mall."

Rage, hot and blinding, surged through me. I scrambled to my feet and lunged at her.

I grabbed a fistful of her perfect hair and slapped her, hard, across the face.

"You're nothing but a homewrecker's bastard child!" I screamed. "This is my mother's house! You have no right to it!"

Kassidy clutched her cheek, her eyes filled with hatred. "It's in your father's name now! And he loves my mother more than he ever loved yours. You lost, Abby. I won."

"You used Conrad!" I shrieked. "You manipulated him!"

She laughed, a high, piercing sound. "Of course I did. And he fell for it completely. No one will ever believe you, Abby. You're the crazy, obsessed stalker. I'm the sweet, innocent victim."

She took a step back, her smile turning manic. "Actually, I have a little gift for you."

She pulled a bottle of wine from her designer handbag and smashed it against the wooden door. The red wine looked like blood as it dripped down the peeling paint.

Then, she pulled out a lighter.

With a flick of her wrist, she tossed it onto the wine-soaked wood.

The door erupted in flames.

I stared, paralyzed with horror, as the fire licked up the walls of my childhood home.

"No!" I screamed, a sound of pure agony. "NO!"

Kassidy's laughter was wild, deranged. "Goodbye, Abby. Say hello to your mother in hell for me."

Just then, she saw a car pull up down the street. Her expression changed in an instant. The manic grin vanished, replaced by a mask of terror. Tears welled in her eyes.

She ran toward the car, stumbling.

"Conrad!" she cried, throwing herself into his arms as he got out. "Conrad, help me! Abby's gone crazy! She hit me, she threatened to burn my face, and then... then she set the house on fire!"