“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m offering you employment.”
A laugh escaped me, broken and unbelieving.
“You’re insane.”
“No. I’m practical.” Lydia set the phone on my blanket. Grant’s terrified face stared upward from the screen. “My son enjoyed cruelty for its own sake. That made him weak. I built systems. Systems can be repaired.”
“You belong in prison.”
“Possibly.” She sounded uninterested. “But prison is for people without leverage.”
I stared at Grant’s image.
For years, he had been the monster in the room.
Now he looked small.
Afraid.
Breakable.
Lydia watched me watching him.
“He told me you were ordinary,” she said. “That was his second greatest mistake.”
“What was his first?”
“Thinking I was dead enough to disobey.”
The phone chimed again.
A new message appeared beneath Grant’s frozen face.
TRANSFER ACCEPTED.
I looked at Lydia.
“What did you do?”
She stood and smoothed the front of her coat.
