Does my father actually love me more than anything else, or is that just what Leo wants to believe to justify this whole revenge plot?
I know my father loves me, I’ve never doubted that.
He’s always been protective and made sure I had everything I needed.
He’s always called me “Emma girl” in that rough, affectionate voice that he doesn’t use with anyone else.
When I was little, he’d carry me on his shoulders and buy me ice cream and tell me I could be anything I wanted to be.
But what he loves most in the world?
More than his power, his empire, his position as head of the Brennan clan?
Nah. If that were true, would he have sold me to the Lombardos like a prize mare?
I don’t want to think about that too closely.
I don’t want to think about what it means that my father—who supposedly values me above all else—was perfectly willing to marry me off to a man I barely knew for shipping routes and political alliances.
I cannot consider the possibility that Leo might be wrong and I’m not the leverage he thinks I am.
Because if I’m not, if my father doesn’t love me the way Leo believes he does, then what was the point of all this? What am I even worth as a hostage?
“Stop it,” I tell myself firmly, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. “Dad loves you. He’s coming for you. This is just Connor Brennan being strategic, and you’ve always known that’s how he operates.”
But the doubt lingers as I finish the sketch.
My father’s hard face stares out from the page with those shrewd eyes that have probably ordered more deaths than I can count.
I flip to a new page and, almost without meaning to, I start drawing Leo.
I’m only drawing him because his face is burned into my memory after several days of wanting to kill him.
Drawing helps me process things, and I need to process the fact that I’m being held captive by a man who looks like he could snap me in half but also somehow carries me upstairs like I weigh nothing and checks to make sure I’m eating.
I tell myself it’s not because there’s something about his face that’s actually interesting to draw—the angles of his jaw, the thin scar through his left eyebrow, the way his eyes are darker than they should be for someone with his coloring.
My pencil moves almost automatically, capturing the harsh planes of his face, the way his mouth is usually set in a hard line except for those brief moments when it almost looks like he might smile.
I draw him the way he looked this morning when he came to make me eat: cold and controlled on the surface but with something else underneath.
Grief, maybe.
Or guilt.
Or both.
I add the scratches I gave him that I’m proud of. Battle scars from trying to claw his eyes out.
Annoyingly, that didn’t seem to bother him. He didn’t even flinch when I made them.
He caught my wrists and held on like I was no more threatening than a kitten.
The drawing takes shape and I realize with irritation that I’ve made him look almost…human.
Not the monster I want him to be, but just a man.
A complicated, stupid man who’s doing terrible things for reasons he thinks are justified.