In the Beginning... (37 page)

She wanted her family to
know that she had made the decision to stay with
him.

And him alone.

She could work in the family
lab, in the family business, without staying with Cormac. But that
was not what she wanted.
We go in
together.

Ok. The doors are certainly
wide enough.
It was a double-doored
entryway into the main conference room. Josey took a deep breath
and put her hand on the handle. The other hand she wrapped tightly
around his.
Let’s do this. I need to ask
him.

You know the answers he gives might not be
satisfactory, right?

What kind of answers would be? I don’t think
a satisfactory answer exists in this situation.

No. I don’t see how one
could.
Cormac pushed open the
doors.

Her father was there. Her
sister, her cousins—Rand, Mickey, Mal, Emily. Barlaam, Theo,
Aodhan,
Dahr
Rydere—they all sat around the table. They looked up when
Josey and Cormac entered.

Her father nodded, rose and approached her.
He hugged her, then pulled back so she could see his mouth.
“Sweetheart, are you ok? Theo told us you two would need some
time.”

Will you help me tell
them?
She faced her father, then forced air
through her throat. “I am fine now. I learned something that upset
me.”

Of course, I will.
Cormac pulled her toward the empty chairs at the
left of Emily’s mate. Josey took her seat, licked her lips. Her
cousin Mickey was on her left side. Mickey usually had the task of
translating for Josey. Had since they were girls. Josey quickly
signed,
“Grandfather is responsible for me
being deaf.”

Mickey faltered, then repeated Josey’s words
to the group, for the benefit of the Dardaptoans who didn’t know
sign language.

Josey knew it would upset
her father, but she continued. Mickey’s hands dropped to her side,
as Cormac wrapped Josey’s hand in his. She watched him address the
rest of the table.
Explain to
them.

She knew he acted on her words when her
father and cousin Rand grew angry. When Jade started to cry. Mickey
wrapped her arms around Josey’s shoulder and held her. Mal jumped
to her feet and began pacing around the room, her emotions making
her agitated like they always did.

Emily tried to gain control
of the family like
she
always did.

Josey observed it all as if through a glass
window.

They were mad and
hurt
for
her. They
were her family, too.
I still love my
family. I can’t
not
be a part of Taniss Industries. It’s a big part of who I am,
despite my grandfather’s actions.

His hand let go of hers then
rose, wrapped around the back of her neck, beneath her hair. The
gesture wasn’t a claiming, but a comfort, uniting them.
I know. And I will not ask you to ever do that. We
have your grandfather now.
He
will pay for his acts against our people. Not you,
and not your relatives. Never again. This I promise you.

The family around her began having one of the
heated discussions Josey was so accustomed to observing. Her
inability to hear everything that occurred had often led to her
being the observer of the group. Dependent on one or another of her
cousins to keep her up with what was going on.

Usually her family made adjustments to keep
her in the discussions, bumping their hand against a table to send
vibrations her way. She’d look at them in time to catch what they’d
said. But sometimes—quite often in a family with as many different
temperaments as hers possessed—her cousins forgot to signal her.
Then she missed something.

It took an hour of deliberations before a
decision was made. Her grandfather would be confronted in the
conference room, with his family present. They would be free to
question him without Dardaptoan interference.

The Dardaptoan Rajnis
had
not
been happy
with that.
Especially
Cormac. Josey understood it; he’d lost so many people he’d
loved to her grandfather. Only her dad’s promise to keep her safe
had her
Rajni
relenting even slightly.

The only compromise he’d
been willing to make was that
he
be allowed to be the guard posted on the inner
door of the conference room.
Dahr
Rydere had agreed, almost too quickly.

The king of the Dardaptoans apparently had a
lot of faith in Cormac. In his ability to not kill her grandfather
on sight.

Josey wasn’t so sure. She’d
seen and felt the rage he had for her grandfather— justifiable
rage.
Why are you so insistent you be
here?

He pulled her close,
ignoring the rest of her family watching. He’d stayed, when
Dahr
Rydere and the others
had left. He gripped her behind her neck again, his thumb brushing
against her pulse.
Because you’re here. And
because
he
hurt
you. None of the others can say that. He hurt you and he hurt my
sister and he hurt my niece. No one else deserves to be here as
much as I. I don’t care what your father promised; it is
my
responsibility to keep
you safe. And that is what I’ll do. Either I stay with you—or I
carry you out of here.

He kissed her quickly, then
returned to his seat near the door. Aodhan would be bringing her
grandfather in at any time. That had her trembling. What would she
say to the man responsible for so much pain? For hers? Her
father’s? Her
Rajni
’s?

So many countless other victims. She’d seen
many of their faces in the files, in photographs, on the videos.
She’d probably remember them for the rest of her life.

Did her grandfather remember them, too? Did
they haunt him at night?

The doors opened and she saw the movement,
close as she was to Cormac.

Aodhan entered, along with a male Josey
didn’t recognize, but assumed was a guard.

Her grandfather walked between them. His head
was held arrogantly, his eyes apathetic as they studied the room
and its occupants.

Josey saw him form her father’s name. Her
father stood erect and immobile beside Jade. Josey moved to her
father’s other side. His arms encircled both their waists, uniting
them as a family. Mickey wrapped her hand around Josey’s and Josey
squeezed the younger woman’s fingers in response. Em moved to
Mickey’s other side, and Mal flanked her. Protective, as always.
They stood together, united as a family. Only Rand stood apart, his
body placed between their grandfather and the rest of them.

Josey studied her grandfather for a moment.
He was as tall as her father, but where her dad looked handsome and
strong, her grandfather looked gaunt. His hair, once the color of
Rand’s auburn, was now nothing but sparse gray. His eyes were
dulled, his skin dry and cracked.

He was ill. Probably dying.

She had a hard time finding it within herself
to care. Except that if he was dying already, how could the
Dardaptoans receive the justice they so deserved? They deserved
something for the pain her grandfather had caused.

Josey felt herself moving before she even
realized it. She forced the words out aloud. “Grandfather. Why did
you do it?”

In that moment, staring at
the man who’d fathered her own father, Josey realized she’d never
spoken to him. Not since the night he’d given her the supposed
antibiotics. Not since that next morning when she’d woken in the
hospital, held tight in her dad’s arms, locked in a world of
silence. Had he ever spoken
to
her since that event? She didn’t think he
had.

He barely looked at her. She spoke again,
conscious of her father’s hand wrapped around her shoulder. “Why
did you hurt so many people?”

He looked right at her as he answered, and
she had not trouble reading the hatred on his face, in his words.
“People? They are not people. Any more than you are now. Animals
the lot of you.”

That was the only answer anyone got. Josey
knew then that he would never answer their family. Would never
admit to any wrong-doing. Because to him he had done no wrong. That
was evident in his eyes.

His silence wasn’t good
enough for her dad. He stepped away from Josey and her sister and
grabbed his own father, yanking him from Aodhan and the other
guard’s grips. He shook the older man. Josey couldn’t read what
he’d said.
Cormac? What is my father
saying?

He’s demanding the old bastard account for
his sins. Just threatened to break every bone in his fingers—after
he pulls the bones free from his flesh first if he doesn’t explain
why he did what he did to you. I must admit, I do like your
father’s style. I shall help him with that fleshly task, if he
desires.

It’s what any good son-in-law would do.

Cormac! Stop him!
Josey looked toward her mate and waved her hand in
her father's direction.

Any particular reason why? Your father is
doing what any father would do learning his child had been harmed.
It is what I would do the moment someone harmed one of our
children. Your father has just as much right as anyone in your
family—probably more so—to make the threats he is making. Any
particular reason you want your grandfather spared?

Cormac, he’s ill. Potentially dying. How
long would it take him to stand trial?

Six months or so.

I’m not sure he has that long. Can it be
moved up?

Only at the discretion of the Dahr…and the
heads of eight of the ten houses.

Can that be arranged?

Yes. Within a day or two.

Good. You might want to have the Dahr do
that. My grandfather deserves punished. Deserves what is coming to
him. If my father kills him now, how can that justice be meted out
to him?

It can’t. You do realize my
people will execute him? That unless he can prove his case
sufficiently, he’ll be taken into a public arena and killed. Anyone
of our people who wants to watch, who has been grievously harmed by
him, is entitled to witness his execution.
I
will be there. I need to be; for my
sister, my brother-in-law. The nephew that Kindara miscarried
because of your grandfather’s experiments—they all deserve respect
and acknowledgment. As the head of the Jareth House I have to be
there. Moreover, I
want
to be there. I want to see the bastard pay.

I know.
And she did. The physician in her valued life—all forms of it.
But what her grandfather had done eliminated that value for her.
She
couldn’t
value
his life. Not more than the lives he had already taken.
And he should.

She watched the conversation flowing around
her as Rand pulled her father off of her grandfather. Mickey and
Jade were both silent, as they usually were. Mal and Emily were
both speaking at once, and Josey didn’t even attempt to follow
their conversations.

Her grandfather remained stubbornly silent.
He didn’t care that he was the one responsible for what had
happened to Josey, Mal, Mickey, or Emily. All that mattered to him
was his own pitiful agenda.

And they may never know the
details of that agenda. Josey would have to accept that.
Cormac?

Yes?

Take me out of here. I need to get away from
him.

He was at her side in an
instant.
Let’s go.

Take him to trial. I don’t think he’ll ever
tell us why he did any of it. I don’t know what Emily and my father
are wanting to prove here today.

Sometimes, you have to hear or see something
with your own senses in order to deal with it. Anything else you
want to say to him?

No. He doesn’t matter anymore.

No, he doesn’t.
Cormac’s arms slipped around her and he pulled her
against his chest. Josey rose on tip-toe and kissed him, not caring
who watched or who saw. She closed her eyes for a moment and just
absorbed his warmth into her body.

When she opened her eyes again, her gaze
landed on her grandfather. He hadn’t missed the kiss, and the
hatred blazing in his eyes made that abundantly clear.

That’s when it sank in; her
grandfather had
always
looked at her and her cousins that. Especially the girls. He
hated them all, for reasons she would never understand.
That
was how he’d been
able to sit back and watch a dangerous drug destroy his
grandchild’s hearing.

He’s a monster, isn’t he?

Yes. I’ve been in his head.
There is nothing there but a mix of intense hatred and arrogance.
Nothing else. The closest I could ever label it is sociopath. I had
thought before that there had to be some logic behind what he’d
done, but now that I’ve read him, there isn’t.
Cormac’s hand trailed down her hair and he turned her away
from her grandfather.
I’m sorry. I know you
wanted answers. But you’ll never get more than that. None of us
will. Next it will be his trial. Probably within the month, if it
all can be arranged. Will you want to be there? As a victim, you’ll
have a right to. Just as Kindara and Jierra will represent
all
the others who died by
his hands.