Prologue

August 1870 — Springfield, Illinois

A black wagon was already sitting waiting by the time Maya came home.

The wagon was far fancier than anyone from town had business owning, which only made Maya more nervous. Her steps hurried at the sight of it. She threw open the front door and stepped into the small, wooden, one-story home that she shared with her father. A puff of dust rose up from the dirt kitchen floor.

The dust did nothing to hide a cropping of oil slick-black hair. Or the sight of a far-too-white leather jacket. Maya had seen it all too many times before. Adam had always sat in the front pew when he bothered to attend church, showing his face on major holidays. The older man only ever appeared to make a scene.

Adam sat across from her father at the kitchen table. Between them sat a single, empty bottle—rum or whiskey, Maya didn’t care to know the difference between the two. She hoped she never would. Maya’s father had been drinking again.

She felt nauseous.

A serene look rested on Adam’s face as he turned to Maya, almost as though he’d been expecting her. Maya’s father didn’t bother to look her in the eyes. Instead, Gregory Eaton downed the drink in front of him, as if the liquor would banish the sight of his daughter from his mind.

His broad shoulders were slumped in shame. Sparse hair covered her father’s bald head—a sign that this was far from his first drink in the last day. He would have shaved if he had any sense left in him, taking the time to sculpt the greying goatee that grew patchy and uneven on his chin.

“You promised,” Maya whispered under her breath. Her throat burned with betrayal; her father told her that he was going to cut down on drinking.

“Well, would you look at that. Right on time,” Adam beamed.

Only a fool would have trusted it. Maya had heard all the rumors. Quiet murmurings had taken root in the pews of her church. Adam had taken three wives thus far. His hair hadn’t even turned grey before the first of them died.

Childbirth, the rumors said. That was the kindest thing to believe. Once the second and third wife had died, one had to wonder if kindness really was what Adam should have received.

“What are you doing here?” Maya said, unable to hide the chill in her voice.

“Why, I was just finishing speaking to your father. Looking over the debts he owes. It was only two weeks ago when Gregory and I met in a bar. He was feeling real guilty then,” Adam said with a hint of dark humor. Maya’s father averted his eyes. “He was just looking for a little bit of help. Someone to lend him a pinch of money so he could keep the bills at bay. Or at least, that’s what he said. Lord, you did snatch those bills up, didn’t you, my friend?” Adam asked pleasantly.

Maya’s stomach sank lower.

We were so close to clawing our way out of debt. How could he? Maya thought to herself.

“Well,” Adam said, clicking his tongue. He pushed back from the table and stood. “There’s no worry. Gregory here promised me he’d be able to pay me back in two weeks’ time. Now, those two weeks have passed, you see.”

“How much?” Maya choked.

“Two hundred dollars.”

Maya could barely stand at the revelation. She staggered backward, looking to her father frantically. Surely, he had some sort of explanation.

“I can’t pay it, Maya,” he rasped.

Tears pricked at the corners of Maya’s eyes. “I’ll pay it,” she tried, but she knew she would never be able to. It was more than she could ever hope to make.

Adam snorted at the very idea.

Adam stepped toward Maya like a lion approaching its prey. “Oh, don’t you worry, darling. I already know that you will,” he said, reaching for her. Maya flinched as his hand landed on her cheek. “A pretty little thing like you? Why, you’ll make just the right sort of wife.”

“I would rather die.” Maya jerked away from his touch, the words tearing out of her mouth before she could think twice. She regretted them immediately.

The way that Adam reeled back said everything. His dark brows rose. “Why would you say that, Miss?” he asked, his voice almost mockingly formal. “Why, we’ve only barely met.”

“I’ve heard about you,” Maya said, swallowing hard. “You know what the church ladies say.”

They said far too much, truthfully. Maya had overheard the older women conversing amongst themselves. They kept track of the bruises that covered their sons when they worked for Adam too long, and how his horses were beautiful thoroughbreds with large, raised scars sitting beneath their pure black coats. That spoke volumes.

“I don’t care what those old crones say,” Adam said dryly. “A bunch of clucking hens. There’s a reason that dang near everyone around here is dirt poor, and it ain’t ‘cause they’re too bright.”

“They’re dirt poor because you prey upon everyone you can here,” Maya whispered. “Because you hang around the bars and wait for men to fall into sin,” she said, gesturing to her father.

Gregory was half slumped over in his kitchen chair. His eyes were tracing the table. It was so clear that Maya’s father wanted to look anywhere but at her.

“You wanna blame me for their failings?” Adam asked, and Maya could only let out a bitter laugh.

“You’re as good as a snake in a tree.”

A dark look crossed Adam’s features. He inhaled slowly and took a step back, his fingers reaching for the bottle behind him. “You watch what you say, girl,” he said.

Maya didn’t know if she could anymore.

“She doesn’t mean it,” Maya’s father groaned from the table. “My Maya, she doesn’t mean it. She’s a real good girl once she has her wits about her.”

“I’d have to have lost my wits to go along with this,” Maya said between gritted teeth. She had to find a way out of Adam’s demands. Some rational trade. “Please, just be reasonable. We could work out a payment plan or something of the sort.”

“Oh, I think you will find that I am being more than reasonable. Kind, even, when you compare the patience I’ve extended to your father. You’ve got two choices here, Maya,” Adam proclaimed. His patience was clearly wearing thin. This was a man who wasn’t used to being told no. “Me, or no one. And if you’ve got half a brain—”

“Then I’d choose anyone but you,” Maya interrupted. She should have known better.

Her father tried to smooth things over. “Maya’s not normally like this,” he proclaimed. “She’s not normally…” he trailed off. Maya lost track of the seconds that passed as her father tried to come up with the right word. “So vocal.”

“Best hope she’s not,” Adam said, his voice laced with annoyance. “A silent wife. That’s what’s best. Only one place to hear a woman’s voice—”

“You’re disgusting,” Maya interrupted.

“I’m your future, darling,” Adam replied with a grin.

“No,” Maya said defiantly, “you’re not. And you’ll never be.”

Maya didn’t know who she would marry, but it definitely wouldn’t be a crude loan shark who made his money off of fear. Even as Adam glowered at her, Maya stayed firm.

“You best be taking that back, darling, because y’all know it’s dead wrong,” Adam spat. “You’ll be my wife,” he proclaimed. “And once you are, you’ll learn when to keep quiet.”

“I don’t plan on learning anything from you,” Maya said, “and I don’t plan on marrying you, either.”

Adam chuckled darkly. His hand wrapped around the neck of the bottle behind him. “Maybe you just need a little pre-emptive teaching.”

Maya almost asked Adam what he meant by that. Almost.

She wasn’t quick enough.

Adam had tugged the bottle to his side before she’d ever gotten the chance. Cold fear filled her bones as he stepped near her.

“Tell me you don’t want me,” Adam dared Maya.

“I’ll never want someone like you,” Maya whispered, backing away.

There wasn’t far to go, though, in a small kitchen like the one in Maya’s home. Her back hit the top of the counter before she knew she was trapped. Adam was less than a few feet away when the realization dawned.

Maya tried to turn to her father, but Adam stepped in the way, blocking him from view. The chuckle Adam had given before grew into a sharp, dry laugh.

“You don’t need to want me, you just need to marry me,” he proclaimed.

Maya shook her head. “No,” she said, sure of herself. “There will be others. Other men I could marry, other men with money. Ones who could take care of this,” she insisted, unaware that she was pulling the final straw. “I don’t need to marry you to make this all go away.”

“No,” Adam spat. “You didn’t need to.” The bottle raised. Maya saw the sunlight glimmer against it, almost as if warning of what would come seconds later.

The glass cracked against the countertop just a foot away from Maya. Adam let the broken bottle hang in the air between them like a threat.

And then he took another step forward. His voice was low, all gravel as he stepped toward Maya.

Maya could no longer see her father. She tried to look past Adam as he crowded her face, desperate for some comfort.

The cross was the only place Maya could look as Adam raised the broken bottle between them. Maya’s breath caught at the sight of the hand-carved oak.

Adam ran the glass against her cheek, causing a thin line of blood to bubble up from a paper-thin scratch on her jaw. “Tell me you could marry someone else, that you would marry someone else knowing what the stakes are.”

Staring at the cross, Maya said the only thing she knew to heart. “The Lord is my shepherd, and I know he will provide for me.”

“Well, he just provided for you a Hell of a load of trouble, girl,” Adam spat, and then did it.

Pain tore through Maya when it happened. One long, sharp motion and the deed was done. The blood was already dripping on the floor before Maya realized the pain. Her hand rose to her cheek.

Tears rose in Maya’s eyes as she staggered backward. She gripped the countertop to stand, barely hearing as her father leapt to his feet.

“Maya—” Gregory yelled. Adam stepped between Maya and her father before her father could reach her.

“Now, since I’m such a nice guy? You got one month to come up with the money,” Adam said as he walked toward the doorway. Blood dripped from the broken glass bottle in his hand. “Or else I’m taking whatever payment I see fit,” he warned. “And I don’t take too kindly to my wives talking back to me.”

Maya could still feel his eyes burning through her as she sat huddled on the kitchen floor. She heard the wagon leave, her father’s near-endless apologies, and the morning birds’ call once more before she dared to move an inch, her eyes still trained on the cross that hung on the kitchen wall.

“God will help me,” Maya promised herself. “God will take care of me.”

She whispered these words in the cold of the night, for her ears and hers alone. But even then, she couldn’t help but wonder if they were actually true.

Chapter One

September 1870 — Springfield, Illinois

A large glass jar sat on the kitchen table, coins sparkling within. Every now and then, a sprinkling of new ones would join them. Maya had pulled them from pairs of rolled stockings and beneath her mattress. She had shoved coins into the spaces in the wall where the wind breathed through the gaps, pushing cloth into the holes after them.

Anything to hide the money as the weeks went by. Maya knew that she was already lucky enough, her father somehow clawing out as many extensions as he had. Sixty-five dollars sat in the jar before her, but still Maya had hope. She’d worked her fingers to the bone scrubbing every floor that she could find and mending dresses for the other women in town, but at least she’d gotten somewhere.

Now, it was her father’s turn to prove that he wasn’t what all the women said he was. That he was more than a low-life drunk. Maya had faith in him. He’d apologized endlessly the day Adam had come, once the hangover had begun to hit him, and regret ruminated in his stomach. He’d looked almost like he had when her mother was alive that night, back when Maya thought he hung the stars and moon. Mama had trusted him, after all. It made Maya want to trust him.

“You back from work, Daddy?” Maya asked. Maya emptied the final coins from her stockings as she heard the door open behind her. She turned to her father, her face a bright, exuberant smile.

As soon as her father looked at her, he burst into tears.

“Daddy?” Maya asked in alarm. She darted across the kitchen to stand in front of him. “Daddy?” Maya said, pulling the man into her arms. Her hands smoothed over his back. “Daddy, what’s wrong? You know it’s the loan’s due date today,” Maya said. Worry was heavy in her tone, and Maya had an awful, itching thought.

Gregory only buried his face into his daughter’s shoulder and wept. “Maya, you must forgive me.”

A cold wind swept over her. Maya pulled back from her father. The lump in her throat only grew.

Gregory was a tall, broad-shouldered man with thinning hair and thick, veiny arms. He was far from handsome, but Maya had always thought he was a good man. After all, Maya’s mother had told her that her father was strong. Strong enough to hold up the weight of their family and see to it that they were all safe.

Maya’s mother had never known the man after her death. The one who had buried both his wife and his son, Maya’s twin brother. The war had ravaged the South, and with it had come the sin of vice. Maya’s mother’s temperance had only just been able to control Gregory when the news came that their son had passed. After the cholera epidemic had taken her as well, Maya’s father had stopped going to church.

Maya had confronted him just once after, asking him why. Her mother had been a religious woman, one who knew that God’s light would always guide them through. Did her father truly wish to turn his back on all she was?

The look on her father’s face then had been the same as it was now.

“Daddy, the money,” Maya said. “I saved my part, see? And you?” Maya knew before her father even breathed out an answer. The smell of alcohol stung her nose.

“Maya,” her father said as she pulled from his arms. She was unable to hide the terror on her features.

“Maya, you know I love you,” her father proclaimed. Maya believed him, but love would not solve this.

“What did you spend it on?” Maya whispered. For just once, she’d like to hear something sensible.

Maya doubted her father could give her that. She practically knew his answer before he gave it to her.

“The pain. You know the pain,” Gregory said. Maya could barely look at him. “I lost your mother and your brother,” he began.

“And you can’t lose me,” Maya said quietly. She’d heard this excuse before. It came up every time she brought up his drinking. “Tell me you didn’t. Please, Daddy. Tell me you didn’t.”

“You know I love you,” Gregory said.

Maya collapsed into a rickety kitchen chair. Her head was in her hands. “And yet somehow I’m the only one who ends up getting hurt around here,” she whispered. “You know that Adam is coming today, and he’s going to be expecting his money. We can’t keep putting him off forever.”

Her father swallowed. “Would it really be that bad, marrying him?” Gregory swayed on his feet as he stood by the door. “At least you’d be taken care of.” The guilty look on his face said that Maya’s father had already accepted her fate.

“Daddy, no,” Maya whispered in horror.

The door opened behind him, all the same. Maya’s father didn’t look surprised. If she had to guess, the two of them had come together.

Meanwhile, Maya could only recoil. The sight of Adam was just as bad as it had been when he’d left.

Maya couldn’t manage a single word as Adam stood there, looming in the doorway. Her hand rose to her cheek, the pink scar that Adam had given her that fateful night sat vicious beneath her fingertips.

“Well, where’s my money?” Adam asked in a sarcastic tone.

He knew they didn’t have it. The truth was evident in the way that he swaggered into the room. In how Adam’s eyes moved past the jar on the table, dismissing it by sight alone. Whatever meager coins Maya had managed to pull together, they wouldn’t be enough for him.

“A month,” Adam said. “I’ve given y’all a month to pull yourselves together. Gregory all but begged me for it. He told me he’d either pay his debts or his sweet little daughter would change her mind. Now, where are we today?” He must have already spoken to her father. That much was clear by the way he entered the house, storming into their domicile like he owned it. The way Adam stepped up to Maya, reaching for her as if she were already his own, spoke volumes.

“Good to see the lesson didn’t spoil your pretty little face,” Adam said. His hand landed on her cheek, his fingers smoothing over the thin, pink scar that sat across her features.

Maya flinched.

Adam pulled back. He finally turned to look at the jar of change on the kitchen table. A snort escaped him.

“Never mind that,” Adam said. He picked up the jar. “You’ll be getting off easy tomorrow morning, old man. All debts will be settled once we stand at the altar. After all, there are no debts amongst family, aren’t there?” Adam asked with a smile.

He turned to look at Gregory, almost as if daring him to protest. He did not.

Instead, he stood there in silence. A hard swallow had wrung through Gregory’s body as he looked back at Adam. His only reply.

Maya’s hands shook. Adam gave a laugh, his head thrown back as he crossed the room. “Oh, aren’t you just a hoot, old man!” Adam howled. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow morning,” Adam said as he opened the front door. “Both of you,” he added, a hint of a warning in his voice.

***

“You didn’t say anything,” Maya whispered a half an hour later, once the dust had settled from Adam’s horses and her father had all but cried himself dry.

She stared at the green bottle in her father’s hand and wondered how long it had been there, and how much it had cost. Would a single bottle of liquor have made the difference they needed? Would it have been worth the last few coins necessary to hold Adam at bay? Maya knew better. But when paired with a thousand other drinks, the cost added up.

Suddenly, Maya was angry. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” she asked. Maya lunged forward and tore the bottle from her father’s hands. “I’ve been working all this time, and what have you been doing?”

“I’ve been working, too,” her father croaked.

“And spending it!” Maya furiously sloshed the bottle of booze. The liquid danced behind the glass.

Maya hated the bitter tears that prickled at the corners of her eyes. She hated the way her father’s eyes followed the liquor even more.

“Did you even try?” she whispered, betrayal bitter on her tongue.

“Maya,” her father said. She couldn’t even look at him. “Maya, Adam’s had his eye on you ever since you were a girl,” Gregory admitted. “There was no stopping him.”

“Except by not taking his money,” Maya said. Anger boiled beneath her skin as she stomped toward her bedroom.

Gregory was close behind. “Even if I didn’t take his money, he was going to find a way. Maya, you know about that man. That he gets anything he wants. The idea of saying no to him, well,” her father stumbled for words. “Maya, he terrifies me.”

“He terrifies you?” Maya faltered. She turned back to her father, finally ready to unleash the sort of biting words that Gregory undoubtedly deserved.

Maya was instead left without words as she looked back at her father. She didn’t expect a photo of her mother to hang on the wall behind him, the only photo her mother ever had taken. A serene one where she clutched both her babies to her chest, smiling for the cameraman like it was her idea. The woman was all dark brown hair and far too deep green eyes, and young enough that Maya couldn’t help but know that she looked like her. People said it more often than not these days, now that Maya was older and her face had thinned into the same heart-shaped, top-lip-heavy one that her mother once had.

Her father must have hung it the night before, hoping that the sight of her mother would soften Maya once he gave her the bad news.

The photo was a small luxury that her mother had allowed Gregory one year when the crops were good, and work was plentiful. She’d never had a photo of her own mother. Maya’s mother insisted it could look after Maya and her brother long after she was gone.

It almost felt like Maya’s mother was watching them then. Maya knew the woman would have never stood for Maya being married off to a man like Adam, not if she were alive.

But still, her father tried to argue for it.

“Adam is a rich man,” Gregory said. “If you keep him happy, then your life will be better for it. Better than I, or anyone else around here, could ever hope to give you. And if it just happens to settle a few of my debts…”

Maya came back to herself with a jerk. “No,” she said. Her mind was made up as she stared at her father in horror. “No,” she repeated. She stepped closer to the wall.

“Maya, you would be helping me an awful lot,” her father said. His voice was smooth then, all silky, like when he used to beg her mother for some frivolous expense or another. Or to take the Sunday off church, little more than his own exhaustion as an excuse.

He hadn’t deserved her mother. He didn’t deserve her, either.

Maya tore her mother’s photo from the wall, clutching the frame close to her chest. “I’m done helping you,” she said. She cradled the frame close. “I’ve been helping you all my life, and look at where it’s got me,” Maya said, the frame of her mother’s photograph digging into her ribs. Her eyes moved to the cross that still hung on the wall. A hint of guilt caught in Maya’s throat before she shook it away. “No.”

“You know this isn’t what that Good Book of yours says,” Maya’s father said tensely. “Kindness, charity,” he began to list off what the Good Lord asked of them. “You ain’t showing either of those.”

“I don’t want to hear nothing from you about the Good Book,” Maya said. She pulled open the door to her room and disappeared behind it.

Even as she did, Maya wondered if she would hold firm.

“Mama… Jesus… please, if you’re there, just send me a sign,” she prayed.