Linda cooed in response, sickly sweet. “She’s always been profoundly ungrateful, darling. You plucked her out of nothing and gave her a life.”

“Women like that,” Frank added, ice clinking in his glass, “need severe consequences to keep them in line. You did the right thing, son. Establish dominance early.”

Consequences. They threw the word around like a weapon, blissfully unaware that a tidal wave of severe, life-altering consequences was mobilizing in armored vehicles, speeding toward their manicured lawn.

As dusk painted the sky outside the window in bruised purple and violent orange, the lock clicked open. Dean stood in the doorway, backlit by the harsh hallway light, holding a small plate with two pieces of dry toast.

He didn’t offer it to me. He tossed it onto the bedside table, where it clattered.

“You’re going to call your office first thing tomorrow,” he commanded, his eyes bloodshot and erratic. “You’re going to tell them you caught a severe flu and you’ll be out all week.”