"Beryl, I know you can't stand even a grain of sand in your eye. But Marina saved my life." His tone shifted, half coaxing, half threatening. "If you'd been a little more obedient, if you hadn't gone after her, I could've kept lifting you up."
"Otherwise... you know what I'm capable of."
That familiar voice. Once, it had been tender. Now it was a warning.
I paused. After a moment, my voice came out level.
"Just let me go, and I won't compete with her for resources anymore."
Perhaps because I seemed compliant, he tilted my chin up with one finger.
"Beryl, remember this. I only like you when you're obedient."
But in the next breath, his expression darkened.
"Still, there's the matter of the resources you stole from Marina. How do we settle that score?" His eyes narrowed. "I don't trust you. For the sake of your career, how much did you make Marina suffer? How am I supposed to believe you'll actually behave?"
His words turned the blood in my veins to ice.
So that was how it was. Three years of everything I'd done for Abraham Simmons, every sacrifice, every sleepless night, and in his eyes, all of it had been an attack on Marina Mason.