Chapter Eleven – Star
”Hey.”
I lifted my head from the pillow, and grinned when I saw Jaxon sitting at the edge of the bed. He was fully dressed, and I had no idea how long he had been up for, but he had a coffee in his hand that smelled delicious.
I propped myself up, and he handed the mug to me – an expression on his face that I couldn’t quite get a read on. I stared at him for a moment, wondering if he wanted me gone.
”Is everything okay?” I asked him, my voice feeling small in my chest. I knew some guys lost interest in girls after they’d been with them once – just because I’d never had sex before didn’t mean I was ignorant of that fact, a few of my friends in high school had been through it.
”We need to talk,” he told me, and I swallowed hard. Oh, I didn’t like the sound of that, not one little bit. I straightened up, gripping on to the coffee cup a little tighter, trying to focus on the feel of it burning against my hand.
”About what?”
”About your father.”
I bit my lip. Okay, I had been worried about this. It had only been a matter of time before the truth of my life before this had become an issue, and, though I had hoped we might be able to last a little longer before this conversation happened, I guessed now was as good a time as any.
”What about him?”
He sighed, and he reached over to give my knee a squeeze.
”I don’t know how to say this,” he admitted to me, and I breathed deep. Had something happened? Had something gone down while I had been sleeping? I had woken up to find him not there, but had dozed off quickly again, too exhausted after the emotion of what had happened last night to stay awake.
”But the guys who were following you before, they came back to the shop,” he explained. ”One of them...I was able to get some information out of one of them. And he told me that your father was the one who had hired them to get you back. Not Lombardi. Like I thought.”
”My father?” I whispered. I knew he was crazy – shit, I got that, after I’d heard him talk about marrying me off to a criminal mafia boss. But this? He was willing to send lackeys after me to track me down and bring me back and make sure I didn’t get away? Yeah, it was...it was a lot to take in...
He nodded.
”They came in armed, with guns,” he explained. ”Threatened me. And if you’d been there...”
He trailed off, like he could hardly even finish up what was on his mind. Guns? I’d never seen a gun in person before, not even in the hands of the security guards who patrolled our mansion. But this...my father was willing to send someone after me with weapons, someone to take me down and bring me in? And if they hadn’t been able to do that...would they have killed me?
I shivered at the thought. I mean, I knew my father was capable of a lot, but that...that seemed like more than I could wrap my head around. Even for him. Even knowing the kind of people he worked with, even knowing who he had associated himself with.
”I know this must be a lot for you to take in,” Jaxon told me. I managed a small, wry smile.
”I thought you were going to dump me,” I admitted. ”I think that would have been worse.”
”You thought I was going to...?”
”I know a lot of guys just dip after the first hook-up,” I explained. ”I figured you might have been one of them.”
”No, never,” he replied, almost fervent. ”I would never do that to you. Not after your first time, especially.”
I closed my eyes. So much had happened this last day or so, it was so much for me to wrap my head around. I didn’t even know where to start.
”What about your father?” he asked me softly. ”You think he would really do something like this?”
I grimaced but nodded.
”Yeah, I think he would,” I admitted. ”I mean...if he was willing to sell me out to that Lombardi guy, why would he let me just walk away? He’s an important donor for my father, Dad’s not going to let me fuck this up for him.”
”It’s just so fucking twisted,” he muttered. ”What is this, medieval England? He’s selling you off like you’re not even your own person. I don’t see how any father in his right mind could do that.”
A small smile flitted over my lips.
”I don’t think he’s been in his right mind for a long time,” I admitted. ”I think he’s been stuck in his head. Trying to figure out how he can keep hold of his power, how he can get the support of the people he needs. I don’t think he cares about anything else in the world right now.”
He shook his head.
”It’s fucked,” he told me. ”You see that, right? It’s totally and utterly fucked.”
”Your parents never asked you to do anything you didn’t want to?” I joked. He managed a small smile.
”Shit, I don’t think my mom would have noticed if I had been trying to marry her off, she was so drunk all the time,” he replied, shaking his head. My lips curled downward.
”That’s awful,” I told him. He blinked, shrugged, as though putting it quickly to the back of his mind.
”We don’t need to think about her right now,” he replied. ”We need to figure out what to do about your father. What you want to do about this.”
”What are my options?” I asked him.
”You...you can run,” he replied. ”I can get you out of the city. Get you far enough away that you can start over somewhere else. Might not be easy, but you can get out from under his feet, make it harder for him to find you...”
”But not impossible,” I finished up for him. That much went without saying. My father, I knew, was stubborn as all hell – it was where I’d gotten it from, that bad attitude that led me to land in more trouble than I could handle. I knew he wasn’t going to stop, no matter how much distance I put between us, no matter how far I tried to flee from him.
”Yeah, not impossible,” he admitted. ”There’s no guarantee that he’s going to back off or give up. And if he’s already got guys looking for you...he’ll keep going. He’ll send them out to every corner of the country if that’s what it takes.”
So where did that leave me? If I couldn’t outrun him, then I had to stand my ground.
I had to take him down.
The thought of it almost came as a shock to me, a shiver running down my spine as the notion crossed my mind. I – could I really do something like that? Really pull it off? I had no idea. It felt impossible. Taking my father on, ending his legacy, with all the power and influence he had in this city...
All the ill-gotten power, though. Nobody else might have known the extent of it – hell, I doubted even I really understood how far down it went – but at least I had access to something, some of the information that might have gone some way to expose him. As I sat there, it all started to fall into place, everything clicking in my head. I locked eyes with Jaxon once more.
”I want to take him on,” I murmured to him. Jaxon tensed.
”How?”
”I’m going to expose him,” I replied. ”There have to be newspapers in this city who would want to hear about how the city councilman is involved with some of the worst criminals in the state, right?”
”If he doesn’t have them all in his pocket already...”
”An independent journalist, then,” I suggested. ”There’s got to be someone out there, there just has to be...I don’t care how hard it is, I don’t care what it takes, I have to do something. I have to try.”
He reached for my hand, gripping it tight.
”You’re not in this alone,” he promised me softly. ”Whatever you choose to do, I’ll help you, Star.”
I stared back at him.
”You know what kind of man he is, right?” I asked him. ”You know...you know what you’re getting into?”
He nodded steadily.
”I know,” he replied, almost calmly. ”I get it. But you can’t do this alone. You need my help. The help of the Dogs. We can help protect you, no matter what he throws at you.”
”I think Chuck might have something to say about that,” I remarked, laughing slightly. I still remembered the way he had glowered at me, like he couldn’t believe he had to put up with my annoying ass – hell, I couldn’t blame him, I knew I was a lot to take on.
”He might be stubborn, but he’s not going to turn his back on something like this,” he replied, a note of certainty in his voice. ”He’s dealt with a lot of shit over the course of his life. And he doesn’t walk away from real problems like this. He didn’t walk away from me when I needed it...”
He trailed off, stopping himself, once more, before going any further. My ears pricked up. There it was again, that hint at something else – that nod towards a past he clearly didn’t want to discuss, that only had me more curious than ever. I pushed it down. That wasn’t the point right now. No, the point was getting to the bottom of this, one way or another.
”He’ll help,” he finished up, simply. ”And so will I. Whatever you need. Whatever we can do.”
I lowered my gaze to the sheets in front of me and picked at them for a moment.
”This isn’t exactly how I saw my life unfolding,” I admitted to him. ”Working with a biker gang against my own family, I mean...”
”Just because you didn’t see it going like this doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do,” he replied, an edge of certainty to his voice. ”Trust me. Sometimes the last thing you thought you’d wind up in is the thing that makes the most sense.”
”Like your painting?”
He smiled.
”Sort of,” he agreed. I glanced past him, to where his easels were sitting, all his work laid out in front of us.
”I love your art,” I murmured to him.
”You’ve hardly seen it,” he laughed.
”Yeah, but I can already tell I love it,” I replied. ”I don’t have to see a lot of it to know that.”
I didn’t want to admit the truth to him – that I loved it because he was the one who had made it, I loved it because I adored the thought of him, hiding out in this apartment, working on these gorgeous pieces, stringing them together and creating something so beautiful, something so enduring. And I loved the thought that I was one of the few people who had ever seen them – one of the few people who had ever been trusted with this sacred sight.
I lifted my coffee to my lips again and sipped it, my heart thudding in my chest. I couldn’t believe I had just made the choice I had, to go against my father like this, to do what I had to do, take him down. But now I’d had a taste of freedom, I was certain I couldn’t go back to what I had known before, or even what he had planned for me next. I couldn’t risk letting this slip through my fingers.
And if I had to put up a fight to keep it - I would.