Chapter 13
It was Thursday,and I was trying not to think about my wedding that was fast approaching on Saturday. I”d been doing class assignments in the condo the past few days. I emailed my professors Monday to let them know I was having family issues and that I’d return to class in a week, which I hoped was true. I apologized that I would miss classes and begged them to work with me. I was extra thankful that I’d worked hard since school started, and all my professors allowed it.
Lucas made a good argument about being out in the open when we knew Marco Moretti had already sent someone to kidnap me. Not only would I be putting myself in danger, but my classmates would be as well.
I didn”t want anyone to get hurt because of me, so I was sitting on the couch, wrapping up a paper that was due the next day, when Thea drifted in.
How many women had she saved since the Kalantzis’ began their crusade against trafficking? My chest swelled with pride for her and her siblings. She was everything I wasn’t. Tall, beautiful, smart, and confident. Brave.
“You need to get dressed.” She floated to the chair adjacent to me and perched on the end. “We’re going out.”
“Out? Lucas?—”
“Lucas is fine with it. I’ll be with you. Remy and Dimitris will be close by if anything happens, but I can’t in good conscience let you get married without a bachelorette party.”
To say I had zero interest would be an understatement. “Oh, no. I’m okay.”
She leveled her eyes at me. “Claire, do I need to get snippy?”
I set my laptop aside and moved closer to her. “I really don’t like clubs.” Or people rubbing against me when I didn’t know where their hands had been.
“Then we won’t go to a club. We’ll go to a nice restaurant and drink until we need to be carried home.”
“I’m only twenty.”
“Not tonight, you aren’t.” She smiled. “Now, come on.” She clapped her hands. “Get dressed.”
Thea wouldn’t take no for an answer, and honestly, I was a little scared of her. “All right.” I stood and walked to the closet.
His sister was right on my heels. “Been staying in the master, huh?” When I looked over my shoulder, she was wiggling her eyebrows.
“Well, yes, but I don’t know him well enough for that.” Nor did I trust him enough for that. I stopped where my clothes hung and browsed. I had no idea what to wear. “Where are we going?”
“Where do you want to go? It’s your bachelorette party.” She looked at her phone. “Aunt Helen is meeting us wherever we decide.”
“Helen’s coming?”
“Helen, our cousin Athena, Marianna, Elana, and Ari’s bride-to-be, Anna.” Thea lifted an eyebrow. “I’m not sure how Anna will behave, but if she causes trouble, I’ll take care of it.”
I turned from the clothes, my mouth agape. “Ari’s getting married?”
Thea snickered. “Yep. The Kalantzis’ are uniting with the Georgious.”
“That’s good, right?” I wanted it to be. For Lucas. Though, I wondered if this other family knew about the exploits of the Kalantzis’.
“It should be. They’ve taken some hits in the past few years, and this union strengthens both of us.”
Turning back to the clothes, I began looking through them again. “I don’t know a lot about my father’s business. I’ve heard him complain about vigilantes, and if I could, I’d personally finance them. I hate him.”
“What happened to make him treat you the way he does?”
“He thinks my mom cheated on him.” I looked at her over my shoulder and smiled. “She was like you. Graceful and beautiful.” I returned my focus to finding an outfit. “She was Brazilian and heavily took after her mom. No one would have known she was mixed race. She would say that she never cheated on him, but my father didn’t believe her.”
“What happened to her?”
I was suddenly overwhelmed with a downpour of grief. “She had cancer. It started in her breasts, and she had a mastectomy and all the treatments that go with it. It was in remission until her fourth checkup. There was a mass in her lungs. She fought it for a year.
“You’d think I’d hate Franklin Benoit because of how he treated me, but…” I shook my head. “It wasn’t that. It was the way he treated my beautiful dying mom. If I’m ever given the chance—I want him to suffer. I want to put him through all the misery he put my mom through. I want him to beg me to make it stop and milk his agony until there’s nothing left but a dried-up shell.”
Thea’s hand came to rest on my shoulder. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
“Me too,” I whispered.
“Is that why you were crying in the middle of trying on dresses?”
I nodded. “She’s supposed to be here for this.” Inhaling deeply, I dried my eyes on my shirt. “But she’s not, and I can’t bring her back.”
“I lost mine too, but it wasn’t from fighting cancer. It was a drug overdose. She was addicted when I was born. A few times, she tried to get clean, but it never lasted long. It wasn’t until Lucas rescued me that I slept in a house. Until then, I’d either slept at a shelter or the street.”
Thea would not have liked it if I had whirled around and hugged her. She was telling me this because she didn’t want me to feel alone, and she was the closest thing I had ever had to a friend. I resisted the urge to get emotional and pulled out a blue, knee-length dress. “I think this will work for wherever we go.” I turned around and smiled.
My new sister stared at me. There was appreciation in her eyes. She shared something deep and personal with me, and I respected her. “That dress is perfect.” Coating the words was an unspoken thank you.
“Are there any restaurants I need to stay away from?” she asked.
“As long as it’s not French, I don’t care.”
Thea chuckled. “All right. I’ll tell the gang to meet us at Whispering Cove. I’ve heard so many good things about it, and this seems like the perfect night to find out.” She walked to the door of the closet. “This is going to be fun.”
“Thank you, Thea.”
She winked and closed the door.
As odd as it sounded, I was carving out a family for myself. A real one. For the first time in six months, I felt like I belonged. They were all wickedly dangerous, and I had never felt safer.
“I love this restaurant,”I said. The global-inspired menu featured seasonal ingredients, and the atmosphere was casual. It was my definition of the perfect place for a bachelorette party.
Lucas’s family was nice. His cousins had been nothing but kind to me so far. Poor Anna looked miserable, but I understood it. I had to give her credit. She had been friendly and gracious to all of us. She stood and excused herself. I waited a minute and then followed her to the bathroom. When I stepped inside, she was at the sink, hands braced on the counter, with her head down. Misery was coming off her in waves. When she looked up and saw me, she was startled.
“It’s okay. I just came in here to see how you’re doing.” I smiled.
Anna, in some ways, reminded me of Thea. She was the light version of Thea. Tall and sleek and blonde. I envied that God was generous with her in the boob department. Her legs were long and lean. I wondered if she’d been in competitive sports. She had the body type for long jump or cross country.
“I don’t know. I found out last night I’m getting married, and that I had a bachelorette party to attend. I’m?—”
I stepped closer. “You don’t have to explain to me. I understand, and it’s okay to be upset.”
She wrapped one arm around her middle, braced her elbow on her forearm, and touched her fingers to her forehead. “How could Jason do this to me? I’m his sister, and he acts like I’m not a person.”
“I know. You feel used and trapped and a bunch of emotions that don’t even have words.”
She lifted her gaze to mine. “Yeah.”
“I wish I had better words of encouragement or could help, but I don’t, and I can’t.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I do know that if Ari is anything like Lucas, it may not be as bad as you think.” My words didn’t make even the slightest dent in her mood.
She sighed.
“Can you tell your brother no?”
“Yeah, that’s not how it works in this world.” She threw up her hands. “I even understand why Jason’s doing it. I just hate that I have to marry someone I don’t even know, let alone love.”
Stepping closer, I took her hand and sandwiched it between mine. “I didn’t think I could either. Lucas scared me. We’re so different, but he’s nothing like I thought he’d be. He’s gentle and sweet and affectionate. I know it’s hard but keep an open mind.”
“I’m supposed to have dinner with him tomorrow.”
“Okay, don’t panic yet. See how the date goes, and then, if I need to smuggle you out of the country, I will.” I gave her a big cheesy grin.
Anna chuckled, and a little of her sadness lightened. “Maybe if I have you for a sister-in-law, it won’t be so bad.” She leaned in. “Thea scares the crap out of me.”
“Her bark is just as bad as her bite, but give her a chance. She’s no-nonsense and loyal. Every girl needs a Thea. She does the killing, and all we need to do is provide the alibi.”
Anna smiled. “Thank you, Claire.” She pulled me into a hug. “I was dreading tonight, but I’m so glad I came.”
“I am glad you came too.”
Taking a deep breath, she replied, “I guess I should go back out there.”
“I’ll see you in sec.”
Once I was alone, I leaned my hip against the counter and crossed my arms. I needed to take a moment to regroup. I loved being out tonight and all the new people, but it was a little overwhelming to go from nothing to a posse in zero point five seconds.
The door opened. I lifted my head and instantly plastered my back against the stall wall.
My father locked the door and then leveled his eyes at me. “I found that little speech very touching. It’ll be good PR for that young woman to talk about how kind and generous the Benoit family is.”
“You weren’t?—”
“Supposed to be back until tomorrow? Yes, well, schedules change.”
“What do you want?” I couldn’t believe that came out of my mouth, but I was in a nice restaurant, and my soon-to-be sister-in-law enjoyed maiming people. I figured if I was going to be sassy, now would be a good time to test it.
His head tilted, and that sick smile he got when he’d planned something especially awful for me stretched across his face. “I find it interesting that you like Lucas. I guess he’s better at getting in a woman’s pants than I thought.”
“Why are you like this? What did I do to make you hate me so much?”
His lips curled. “Your whore of a mother, that’s why.”
“She never cheated on you. Her dad was white. Haven’t you ever heard of genetics?” I didn’t watch my volume at all. He was the one who cared about appearances.
“Have you ever heard of a woman having a premature baby? Making the man she’s married think it’s his child when it’s not. She was pregnant when she met me.” He growled. “She said she didn’t know. That she’d just left the relationship, but I was wealthy. That’s why she targeted me. She was a used third-world tramp looking for her meal ticket and lied to me.”
“But I didn’t do that. Why hate me? I remember loving you. I remember you loving me and then…”
“I found out the truth, and I hated you both. The more I punished you, the more I punished her. You should have seen the look in her eyes when I told her about that night in the club.”
The room spun, and I struggled to stay upright. “You told me that if I ever spoke a word of it to her, you’d kill her.”
“And I told her if she ever told you she knew, I’d kill you.” He laughed as his eyes roamed up and down my body. All the sneering stopped. “I made it last. I made her final months as painful as possible, and I enjoyed every bit of her suffering. I’m only sad that it didn’t last longer.” He lunged for me and wrapped his hand around my throat. “No one gets away with lying to me. No one.”
“I hate you.”
“Not nearly as much as I hate you. You look like her, talk like her, and you’re young enough to endure a lot more than she could. Her agony didn’t last nearly as long as the heartbreak I suffered, knowing my wife was carrying another man’s child. She was a whore, and you were so desperate to be just like her, so I made sure you were.” He squeezed a little harder, and my airways were cut off.
I clawed at his hand, but it was too tight against my neck. Black spots blurred my vision. My lungs burned so badly.
He brought his face closer to mine. “You think Lucas just happened to show up at that charity that day? He was following you.” And like he could see the questions in my eyes, he added, “The only way their business survives is that trust fund. Marco, Lucas, and I plan to run this city, and for once, you’ll have been useful. Marco has so many plans for you. You think that night at the club was painful? Just wait until they string you up naked and sell you to the highest bidder.”
“He told me he followed me.” I forced out the words with the little bit of air I had left.
“He held you in his car, too, and spoke sweet nothings to you. That you didn’t need to tell him about what happened.”
I knew he could see the doubt building in my eyes. It was devouring my heart like acid. Had Lucas reported back to him?
Lucas told me that my father said I wasn’t pure. He’d looked at me like he didn’t have the whole story. Had I projected what I’d wanted to see in his eyes? I’d even let him hold me. The last thought that rolled through my head was how stupid I’d been. I knew he was working with my father, and I’d let him play me.
I was stupid and na?ve and useless. And used.