5 #3
I close my eyes, more tears fall. “Elite dancers,” I say, my head dropped. “The best of the best.”
I lift my head and his eyes lock on mine for a long, long moment.
“You five were the best. He knew it. They knew it. He owns your studio, and a heap of others. Everything he is, is tied up in those studios, in all the businesses he runs. So, he agreed. His daughter and four other elite dancers, for a clean break. They would get their money, and he would walk free.”
“But that pathetic, useless waste of space wasn’t willing to look me in the fucking eye and deliver me himself. So, he got you to do it.”
Ace jerks his chin. “He knew the best way to make it look like an accident or a disappearance was to say he was sending you all on a vacation.”
“What was his plan? To say our boat got fucking overtaken by pirates? Like, come on.”
Ace grunts. “He never told me what his plan was. Just told me where to deliver, and not to ask questions. My guess is that’s why no one has come looking.
Safer for him to say the yacht went down and everyone died, than to admit to the world why it wasn’t where it was supposed to be, or better yet, to the people wantin’ their money, why you weren’t delivered. ”
“You think that’s why no one has come? Because he thinks it’s easier to say there was an accident?”
“It’s that, or they’d likely destroy him. I have no doubt that he has spun a story, told them the yacht went down, you’re all dead, and has no doubt already worked out another plan.”
My god.
Does that mean he has gone and taken more girls?
That would draw too much suspicion, so he must have had another plan, right?
“I don’t know,” I whisper, but the words feel heavy on my tongue. “I can’t believe he’d do this to me. To us.”
Ace’s voice comes out careful. “He didn’t care about anyone else but himself, sweet pea. He only cared about what you could buy him.”
I shake my head. My skin tingles. All those years in his orbit, dancing for his applause, fighting for his attention, perfecting every line and pirouette just for the sick satisfaction of seeing pride bloom on his face—which, come to think of it, I never saw.
That’s because it was never about me. It was about him.
What I represented to the world. My worth was never mine.
But Ace? He has a brother—a twin—and a story I never even dreamed of. I layer his heartbreak over mine, and something in me shudders. I want to scream. I want to curl up and burn the memory of my father out of myself for good. Instead, I sit perfectly still, jaw locked, hands twisted in my lap.
“I get it, you know.” It takes me a few tries to find the right words. “Why you did it. Why you needed to. If it were my sister... hell, if it were Aggie or Tati or anyone I loved, I’d do the same.”
The words burn coming out, but they’re true.
Maybe that’s why I can’t hate him, even after everything.
Love makes us so weak and so strong at the same time.
He lets out a harsh breath, then finally puts the knife down.
“I wish I could take it all back,” he says.
“But the second I met you girls, I knew it was wrong. I knew I had to find a way to get out of it.”
“You were trying to figure a way out?”
He nods, eyes flicking up to meet mine. “I was. Even when I was acting like a bastard, I wasn’t gonna do it. I just....” He cuts off, looking away. “Never got the chance to fix anythin’. Next thing I knew, we were on this fuckin’ island.”
I stare at my hands. “We could have avoided all this if we had just asked for your help.”
“You overheard a pretty fuckin’ intense plan. Don’t blame you for not trustin’ anyone. You did what you had to. No matter what happens, don’t ever think this is your fault. This, this shit is on your father.”
“We do fucked up things for the people we love. I wish my father had loved me half as much as you love your brother.”
He reaches over, his fingers curling around my chin. “You’re not just a job to me anymore, Gracie. You haven’t been since the second I saw you drunk on that deck.”
That punches the air from my lungs. My eyes sting, but I manage a smile, crooked and half-broken. “That wasn’t my finest moment. But, we’re here, and we’re alive. That’s all we have for now. We can’t hang onto the past, we just need to get home.”
“What’s that look like to you, us goin’ home?”
I think about it—about the world waiting for us, about the girls, about a future that isn’t burnt down by my father’s shadow. “I don’t know,” I admit. “But I want to survive. And, well, I want you to be part of whatever it holds.”
I hold my breath.
For a second, everything is still. He’s searching my face, waiting for the catch. There isn’t one.
“Me too, sweetpea, me too.”
I don’t get to answer, because there’s a clatter at the shack entrance and Rachel barrels in, eyes wide with pure panic. “Grace. You need to come now. It’s Tati and Aggie,” she says, breathless and red-cheeked. “They’re going to kill each other.”
Ace and I are up before she finishes the sentence.
It’s never boring on this goddamn island.