The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry

Author:Christina Henry [Henry, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

JAVIER CASTILLO

before

Javier Castillo pressed the button to end the call on his cell phone and threw it on his desk with unnecessary force. The boy. Always, the boy. He’d told Lena to rein him in, that it was unseemly for a child his age to be caught on film partying with older women in clubs that he should not have even been able to enter.

And now Michael’s behavior was preventing Javier from getting funding for his next film. He knew it could be a great work, a masterpiece, if only Lena would stop the boy. Every moment of affection he’d given to the child now seemed fruitless, wasted. The boy would barely speak to him. Punishments had no effect on his behavior. He grew more and more wild, more and more willful, every single day.

Javier went out into the house, locking his office door behind him. He found Lena in the kitchen, making a salad for lunch.

“You don’t need to eat that,” he said. “You’re getting too thin as it is.”

She gave him a mildly reproving look and went on with what she was doing. “Did you want something?”

He hated this. He hated that the child he hadn’t even wanted had driven a wedge between him and Lena, that he was losing his wife more every day. But she’d chosen Michael. Over and over she’d chosen Michael, had acted like Michael needed to be protected from his own father. She’d petted and indulged the child and now he was a spoiled little monster.

“You need to speak with Michael,” he said. “I just spoke to an executive who passed on the new project because he was afraid that Michael’s behavior would be bad publicity for the film.”

Lena lifted up the cutting board and slid the half avocado she’d just diced on top of her salad greens. “Why don’t you speak with him? He is, in fact, also your son. As long as you can keep your temper.”

Javier slammed his fist on the counter, the temper she’d just reproved him for rising to the surface like a spiraling tornado. Lena looked at his hand and then at him, her brown eyes full of disappointment.

“He provokes my temper,” Javier said. “Just like you do every time you imply that I would physically harm him.”

“You slapped him.”

“Three years ago, Lena. Three years ago. When are you going to forgive me for that? When are you going to see that he was behaving badly as well?”

“It doesn’t matter how he was behaving,” she said, a line of reasoning that always maddened him. “He was a child and you are an adult. You’re supposed to be the better person.”

“Am I supposed to be perfect, Lena? Am I never allowed to be human?”

“You only expect perfection of others, so why should you be permitted to be deficient?”

“When have I ever expected perfection?” he asked, stung.

“Please,” Lena said, putting her knife down next to the cutting board. “I’ve been on your film sets. I know how you are.”

“Whatever

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