Chapter 34
thirty-four
WEST
Three armed bodyguards greet me as I step out of the elevator into Vin’s penthouse apartment. They could be brothers. Broad shoulders, ear pieces, the subtle bulge from handguns beneath their black jackets. One of them pats me down, while the other whispers into his earpiece.
“Mr. Marchetti would like you to wait for him in his drawing room,” the third one says. “Would you like a drink?”
“Coffee would be good.” I glance at my watch.
It’s one o’clock in the afternoon and I’ve already burned two hours in a helicopter to get here.
Another thing I won’t be telling Eden, because she’ll skin me alive for it.
Wasted resources and all. My patience is thin.
I want this meeting over with, this mess buried, so I can go home to her.
I’m led down a hallway that smells of polish and new money. My mom would have called the décor ‘garish’, not that I ever gave a damn about her opinion.
But it’s all gold leaf, generic paintings, and pieces that somebody picked wanting them to look antique while knowing they were made in China in the last few years.
It’s like he’s cosplaying being part of something. And weirdly, I know how that feels.
“You can sit there,” the guard says when we get to the living room overlooking Central Park. I do as I’m told, then take the coffee that’s brought in by a uniformed maid.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
The door clicks open. Vin Marchetti strolls in like he owns the city, tailored suit, slick smile, a crystal tumbler of whiskey in his hand.
“West,” he says jovially, his gray eyes taking me in. “What a pleasure.”
The guard withdraws to the doorway, murmuring into his earpiece, then closes the door, standing in front of it like I’m some kind of threat.
“Nice place,” I tell him. “So kind of you to invite me.”
“So glad you could make it,” he replies, like I had a choice. He glances at my coffee cup. “Can I get you something stronger?”
“I’m fine with caffeine.”
He lifts a brow. “Shame. I was hoping we could savor this moment together. Raise a toast.”
“To the end of our partnership?” I ask him.
For a second he says nothing. Just rakes his eyes over me like he really is trying to savor something.
Then he swallows a mouthful of whiskey. “You know, growing up, my mom used to have a saying.” He waves his hand.
“Of course, we didn’t live like this. Shitty little apartment.
Two bedrooms, four adults, three kids. And never enough food.
” He gives a little chuckle. “Anyway, when we got dinner, if we got dinner, she’d tell us ‘If you eat too fast, you won’t taste the love I put in it.
’ Funny huh? I think she actually thought she could make sure we survived on pure love, no food.
” He swills his whiskey. “What did your mom used to say?”
“What?”
“At dinner. What did she say?” he repeats, his eyes slightly narrower.
“Look, I’m all for small talk but I’m a busy man.” I start to stand up.
“Sit down,” Vin tells me, his voice way too loud.
The guard shifts, the faint click of a gun being cocked reminding me exactly where I am.
I sit.
“I don’t think we’ve ever talked about our families, have we?” Vin asks.
“There’s not much to say about mine.” I don’t tell him we so rarely ate dinner together that I can’t remember any kind of table conversation. My parents preferred to eat out. Away from me.
He tips his head to the side. “Oh, I think there’s a lot to say. You grew up rich, right? Old money. Wealthy daddy, connected mommy, poor little rich boy.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket but I ignore it.
“The only person you ever loved was your nanny. I’ve got that right, huh?” he murmurs.
I lift a brow. “Is there a point to this? I’m sorry I grew up rich. I’m sorry you grew up poor. But I feel like you’re making up for it now.”
“You see, that’s it!” He points at me. “That lack of empathy. It’s a rich thing.
You couldn’t give a shit that I used to go to bed starving.
Or that my sisters were teased for wearing old curtains my mom made into dresses.
Or that people like you, like your family, got richer from charging extortionate rent for the shithole we called home. ”
“My family wasn’t in the property game,” I tell him, but we both get the point. “I thought we were having a business meeting, not group therapy.”
“It’s all a game to you, isn’t it? All smiles and money and smoothing things out. Everybody fucking likes you. Everybody thinks you’re a god. But you know what?” He leans forward, his jaw rigid. “I don’t. I think you’re a piece of shit.”
The air in the room shifts. I actually feel it. I might not be empathetic, but I’ve spent enough years cleaning up messes. And this is starting to feel… very messy.
My phone buzzes again. “My assistant is calling,” I tell him. “I need to take it.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he growls. “I’m talking here.”
I let out a breath. “Okay.” At least he knows people know I’m here.
“You know the worst thing?” Vin says. “You don’t even realize it. You don’t know how you break people. You just walk all over them like they’re ants and you’re too busy having a good time to see what you’ve crushed.”
He stands suddenly, walks over to the coffee table, and picks up a photograph. “This is what you crushed,” he says, pushing the silver frame in front of me.
It’s an old black and white photo. A family. Vin’s, I’m guessing. Two adults, dressed up in their finest, with three children in front of them. Thin, dark haired, beaming. The eldest – Vin? – has a gap between his teeth. The girl next to him has the curliest thick hair I’ve ever seen.
But it’s the third child that pulls my attention. She has to be around ten. Thick, straight hair. Wide saucer like eyes. A pretty face that expresses how excited she is to have her photograph taken by a professional, with her best dress on, surrounded by family.
“What is this?” I ask, my stomach tight. Because I’m starting to figure it out.
“My momma, my daddy,” Vin says, pointing at each one. “Me, my sister Viv, that’s Bennet’s mom, and my other sister Lenny.”
“Lenny?”
He laughs softly, but there’s no humor in it. “She liked her real name better. Leona.”
The name slices through me like broken glass.
My chest goes tight, my mind flashing to Eden’s tear-streaked face in the library when Selena dropped it like a bomb.
And now here she is, frozen forever in black and white, smiling at the camera like she had no idea the world would chew her up and spit her out.
Vin’s gaze sharpens as he watches me take it in. “You remember her, don’t you?”
“Leona was your sister?” I ask, my voice thick. He doesn’t reply. He just stares at me, his gaze full of hatred. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I was biding my time.”
“Biding it for what? I’ve known you for years.” I look up at him, frowning. “You’ve known all this time and kept it a secret?”
“A good businessman never gives up his leverage. So yes, I’ve known all this time. Why do you think I’ve kept you so close? And I’ve also known what your father did to her.”
“My father?” I ask, confused. “What does he have to do with anything? He wasn’t home when she died.”
“Because your mother made him leave. She found out that he and Leona were having an affair.”
The words are like a fist to my jaw. I wince at their impact. “No. No, that’s not right. I was there. I would know.” The thought of my father in a relationship with a woman young enough to be his daughter makes me want to hurl.
“She loved him, did you know that? All the promises he made, all the sweet talk. It turned her head, turned her from a good, God fearing girl into somebody who did whatever he asked. She thought he was going to leave your mother for her. He told her he would. And she loved you too. Wanted to be a family.”
My stomach lurches. I think of Leona’s soft smile, her muted laugh, the way she shielded me from my father’s temper. It all collides with the image Vin is painting and I can’t make them match.
“You’re lying,” I rasp, but the words sound hollow.
Vin smiles like a cat who’s cornered a mouse. “Am I? Or is it easier to believe the fairy tale? That she was nothing but your nanny, nothing more than a servant, when in truth she was eaten up and spat out by your family. You destroyed her.”
“No,” I say more certain this time. “You’ve got it wrong.”
He picks up a folder. “This says differently. All the letters she wrote to my sister. Photographs of them together in a hotel. The police report your father paid good money to suppress.” He throws the stack of papers at me, and I watch as they flutter to the floor.
“It broke my family apart. My mother died a year later. My father a year after that. And Viv, she didn’t speak to me for over a decade.
Not after I stole all of Lennie’s letters. ”
I look at the first document in the folder. A police report on her death. Nausea rises in my stomach. “She killed herself?” I manage to say through the lump in my throat.
“Of course she did. You think it was an accidental overdose?”
“I don’t… I don’t know.” All I know is that I found her. I called for help. And my parents, well they took a week to come get me. I drop my head into my hands, remembering the week I spent with their lawyer and his family, because my own mom and dad didn’t give a shit. “I didn’t know.”
“But you were responsible. Just like he was. You take innocence and you chew it up. All of you. Your father ruined her, your family ignored her, and you…” His lip curls into a sneer.
“You were the prize she thought she’d win if she held on long enough.
A little boy with wide eyes and a broken smile.
She thought loving you meant she’d get him too. ”
The words hollow me out. I can see her face the way it was that night, pale and slack, her hand dangling off the bed. I taste bile. “I was just a kid. I didn’t know,” I whisper again, though it sounds pathetic even to me.
Vin leans closer, his whiskey breath hot against my cheek.
“And now you do.” He folds his arms over his chest. “We were getting so close. I could feel it. I was going to steal the thing you wanted most and bring you to your knees. I thought it was the resort. I was never going to release you from the loan. But then…”
“Then?” I prompt.
A sour smile pulls at his lips. “Then Bennett told me. Everything. And I realized the resort wouldn’t be enough. I don’t want you on your knees, I want you broken. I want it so you can never get up. So I’m going to take the one thing you took from me. The sweet hope of innocence.”
“I think I lost that a long time ago.”
“Oh no, I think you just found it. Her. See, Bennett is very chatty,” he says. “Lovely little Benny. Wants so badly to belong, doesn’t he? A few kind words, a little pressure, and he handed me the truth with a bow on top.”
My pulse roars in my ears. “Leave him out of this.”
“Why would I?” Vin swirls his glass, amber light catching.
“He’s the thread that ties it all together.
Your father’s betrayal. My sister’s death.
And now you, pretending you’ve built some perfect life.
The girl, the family, the island. You think you’ve got it all.
But I’m going to destroy it piece by piece. ”
He leans closer, his eyes cold as ice. “Do you want to know what I see when I look at pictures of your wife? That same light in Leona’s eyes. And I swear to God, West, I’ll watch it burn out the same way.”
“If you touch her—”
“Oh god no. What do you take me for? I’m not some kind of two bit gangster.
I won’t touch a hair on her head. But I’ll show her everything I know about you.
I’ve been following your work for years.
Like I’m your biggest fan.” He grins at that.
“I have pictures. Documents. Every dirty deal. Every woman you fucked and left behind. Every time you cleaned up a mess by throwing money at it. It’s all here.
” He taps a thick file on the table, his grin widening.
“You think your sweet little wife will laugh it off? You think she’ll still look at you the way she does now, like you hung the damn moon? ”
My chest seizes.
“I won’t need to lay a finger on her,” Vin says softly.
“All I’ll have to do is peel back your mask.
Let her see what you’ve been hiding. Let her see that you’re no different than your father.
And then you’ll lose her. The way I lost my sister.
” His face lights into triumph. “And then I’m going to steal your resort, bankrupt your friends, and let you watch it all burn down. ”
I shake my head, trying to figure out what’s happening here. I can’t let him hurt her. Or them. My heart slams against my ribcage.
“Don’t hurt them,” I beg. “I’ll end it.” The words scrape my throat raw. “I’ll walk away from her. From the island. From all of it. She’ll hate me, but at least she’ll be safe. You want me broken? That’ll do it. You’ll never even have to lift a finger. Just leave her and her family out of it.”
Vin tilts his head, eyes gleaming like a cat watching a mouse bleed out from its sharp claws. “You’d cut her out yourself?”
“If you let the resort stand,” I grit out. “If you leave her family untouched, I’ll give you what you want. I’ll disappear.”
His smile spreads, slow and poisonous. “Now that,” he murmurs, savoring the idea like his whiskey, “sounds interesting.”
He leans back, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “But you don’t get to decide when it ends, West. I do. And when I say walk away, you’ll do it. In front of her. You’ll look her in the eye and you’ll break her yourself. That’s the only way I’ll believe it.”
My stomach hollows out. “You’re insane.”
“No,” he says softly. “I’m patient. Twenty-five years patient. And I finally have what I want.”
The guard shifts by the door, the faint click of his weapon breaking the silence.
“Now leave,” Vin adds. “When I say the word, you tell your wife goodbye. And if you fuck it up, I’ll take everything from you.”
Every inch of me knows he’s telling the truth. And it hollows me out, because I’m going to lose the only woman I’ve ever truly loved.