“Agnes will be prosecuted and put in jail. She knows quite a bit about us.”

“Don’t be stupid. If we do this, Agnes has to disappear.”

“Cathy, you can’t be serious.”

Cathy rolled her eyes. “You’re such a sniveling coward, Ryan. Do you think I’m going to let her talk to the police? Or to the press? Hardly.”

Ryan turned his head slowly, something feral and predatory in his eyes. Cathy stiffened and lowered her eyes. “We have a very good arrangement, my dear, but perhaps you need another lesson in respecting your husband.”

Jake felt his heart hammering loudly. He had never considered his father to be dangerous, but that look, that small movement, just a flexing of muscles, showed that beneath the seeming apathy, Ryan was every bit as cruel as Cathy, or even more so. He’d given himself away.

Cathy pushed a hand through her hair. “No, no, of course not, honey. I’m sorry.”

She was genuinely afraid. Jake, hidden as he was, could scent her fear permeating the room.

The tension drained from Ryan and he forced a smile, but his eyes were flat and cold. “How are you going to keep the kid from talking?”

Cathy visibly relaxed, and, even in the shadows, Jake felt the impact of evil. “He won’t talk. I can guarantee that. I have to plan this very carefully. We need a few warning signs, some things we can have on record that we discussed with the doctors, expressed our concerns, but no one can substantiate.” She rubbed her hands together. “This is good, Ryan. Maybe that skinny little rat will be worth something to us after all.”

Instinctively Jake knew he was in for trouble. He had already made up his mind to survive, to beat them at their own game. He could be stronger. He’d seen how to do it. He had to be smarter and faster and more ruthless than any of them. He couldn’t stop them yet, but he could endure, and that too would strengthen him.

He opened his hand and looked at the burns there. He had let her and her friend put out their cigarettes on him. He had been fast enough to get away, but he hadn’t been stupid about it, and he needed to remember this one moment, to mark the occasion so he would know he could be smarter, use his brains to defeat them. Down in his room, when he was certain he was alone, he took out a knife and slowly drew it over his thigh, making the first of many marks to prove to himself, to remind himself, that he had deliberately taken their punishment, that he had allowed it.

SIX YEARS

JAKE watched helplessly as Cathy and Ryan killed Agnes. They took tremendous pleasure in it. And they hurt her for a long time before they killed her. He was tied up and forced to watch as they systematically beat to death the woman who had raised him. Agnes had been cruel at times and apathetic at others, but at least she’d taken care of him. He knew what was coming next, because Cathy had told him what would happen to him. She’d smiled as she told him.

When they were through beating him, Jake spent the next two weeks in the hospital, and he never once denied the allegations brought against his former nanny. She’d disappeared after viciously beating their son, Cathy and Ryan claimed.

The police tried to question him, but he was broken, his bones and, even for a time, his spirit. He could only lie in bed, helpless, pain shaking him, cruelty destroying him, remaining absolutely silent, knowing they would kill him if he said anything. He wasn’t strong enough yet. He had to push harder. He had to dig deeper. He had so much to learn and, lying in bed while his ribs and arms healed, he had lots of time to formulate a plan.

The reporters came and went. The doctors and nurses felt sorry for Cathy as she quietly and beautifully wept for the cameras and her audience, clinging to her handsome, adoring husband. She played out her role, lavishing attention on the unresponsive boy, her money and her celebrity affording her prime-time coverage. She sought out every possible advantage, leading charities and organizations as long as she could headline and get the television time. Everyone believed her, not because of the evidence of Jake’s body, but because of the money and her acting skills. Jake had to admit she was mesmerizing. She could get almost anyone to do what she wanted. He needed those skills now that he knew what he was dealing with.

EIGHT YEARS

CATHY was nervous and upset. Jake Fenton, her grandfather, was coming for another visit. He always insisted on talking alone with Jake, and Cathy didn’t like it. She despised her grandfather and even talked about trying to have him killed, but she was afraid of him. Young Jake didn’t understand why she was afraid. Fenton lived several states away in Texas, but she always dressed Jake just so and acted completely different, as if she cared about him in front of his grandfather.

She hissed instructions to young Jake, reminding him to mind his manners, to keep his mouth shut, not to answer any questions about Cathy or Ryan or their personal lives. She threatened him with dark punishments if he dared disobey her. Jake found the entire matter of his great-grandfather quite interesting. What did the old man have that frightened Cathy? What did she want from him that made her try to look so respectable and sweet?

Fenton never bought her lies. He smiled and made nice with Cathy and Ryan, but Jake could smell the pretense flowing from one to the other and he could see the contempt in the old man’s piercing gaze. Fenton always insisted he talk alone with young Jake, and Jake enjoyed the long conversations, but the aftermath was always hell. Cathy and Ryan used a whip on him to beat him into submission and as an attempt to force every word of the conversation between the old man and their son out of him. Jake became very adept at making up stories and telling them with a straight face, looking the two of them right in the eyes. And then he would go to his room and mark his victory permanently into his skin, the pain clearing the rage and anger from his belly, replacing it with cold resolve.