What he said next plunged my heart into an abyss.
"If you're so clean, why did you throw yourself at me when you were nineteen?"
"If you're so clean, explain how you spent six or seven hours locked in a warehouse with over a dozen men. Who knows whether you lost that baby from a beating or from something else entirely? What right do you have to call me filthy?"
I stared at him, frozen. It wasn't his unhinged fury that terrified me. It was the fact that those words had come from his mouth at all.
So when he'd gone to find those kidnappers, he'd already known what they might do to me. He'd left me with them anyway. He'd convicted me before he ever came to get me.
After venting the rage inside him, Bertram noticed my trembling body and softened slightly.
"Fine. I'll admit Alexis went a little too far about some things. I'll let that slap go. Now come back, put on the mascot costume, and help celebrate her birthday. She said she wants both of us there to wish her well."
Alexis again. I opened my mouth to refuse, but he cut me off.
"The hospital just called. Your father is still in the ICU. If nothing goes wrong, he should wake up in the next day or two."