Page 92 of Torment
The words don’t make sense at first. My eyebrows pull together as the little hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
“Promised to him? What does that even mean?”
Karson doesn’t look away from me, and his hand gently squeezes mine.
“It means,” he says softly. “Jack and Melissa arranged for you to marry him.”
The room spins, my vision going blurry as the words hit like a ton of bricks.
“Marry–” the word dies in my throat. “That’s insane.”
Karson’s expression darkens. “Apparently, it wasn’t a suggestion. It was going to happen.”
A sick feeling twists in my stomach. Bile rises in my throat and I swallow it back down.
“When did–” I stammer, my hand trembling in his. “When did they do that?”
Karson hesitates before answering.
“Before they adopted you.”
My head shakes automatically, causing the throbbing I feel at the base of my skull to intensify.
“That’s not possible,” I whisper. “They didn’t know me before that.”
Karson’s jaw ticks as he scoots closer to me.
“That’s the thing, doll,” he says quietly, his hand coming up and cupping the side of my face. “They did.”
A cold shiver runs down my spine.
“What do you mean they did?” I ask.
There’s no possible way they knew me before they adopted me. No way in hell.
“Tristan told us that Jack had a business partner years ago. Someone who figured out the kind of shit Jack was involved in and decided he wasn’t going to stay quiet about it. He wanted to stop him.”
I blank at him, trying to understand where this is going.
“Okay…”
Karson’s thumb strokes my cheek.
“That man had a wife,” he continues. “And a daughter.”
My chest suddenly feels too tight, my breaths quicken through my nose.
“What happened to them?” I ask.
Karson holds my gaze. “The wife died.”
My stomach drops.
“And the husband?” I croak.
“He survived,” Karson says gently. “But Jack immediately had him locked in a psych ward, saying he was unstable. A psych ward The Steele Group funded.”
A knot the size of a golf ball forms in my already painful throat, and I try to swallow past it.
