16. Serenity
Unknown: You want to know one of the disadvantages of having a traceable cell phone?
The blood ran cold in my veins as I read the text, and even though it was from an unknown number, I had no doubt who was on the other end of the line.
Unknown: You can be found. Pick up.
My hands trembled as the phone rang with the same unknown number, and I swiped it open, bringing it to my ear.
“Hello, daughter,” my father said without needing me to verbally answer.
“What do you want?” I glanced around the room, as if he might manifest at any minute.
I knew that wasnt possible. Gareth had gone to meet up with Dante, but he’d left me with a plethora of guards surrounding the house. If my father was on the grounds, I would’ve already heard gunfire.
I took a steadying breath at that realization.
“Now is that any way to talk to your father?” His tone held that same holier-than-thou air that had my muscle memory locking up, battling with my newly found strength as it tried to fall back into old habits.
“What do you want?” I was proud of myself for asking again and not submitting to that tone.
“Its funny, in the three years I sat in the billionaire’s game, I never once considered that Gareth may be gunning for you. He was always so careful, never really approaching you in a way that I would find suspicious. I have to give him credit, he was smart in that regard. But there are other ways in which he was stupid.”
Anger sizzled through me at the insult, but I bit down on the retort that built on my tongue. He wanted a reaction. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“He did a half-assed job at covering up where he got his money to buy that NFL team, and his pharmaceutical company. Obviously, it was clean enough for those outside our world not to notice, but to someone like me? Easy enough to find the proof.”
Bile swirled in my stomach.
“Your silence tells me everything. Now, this is whats going to happen. Im going to send you a little snippet of video I have that proves how deep he was in his family’s Chicago business, and youre going to watch it.”
The phone buzzed against my ear with an incoming text, making me jump. I quickly swiped away from the call, pulling up the video he just sent.
My heart clenched as I spotted some raw footage of a much younger Gareth working alongside Dante while they shook hands with another family I didn’t recognize. They were in a back room of some warehouse, stacks of cash on the table and a black duffel bag with what was clearly illegal product inside it.
It wasnt hard evidence, but it was enough that if anybody watched it they’d want to dig deeper into his past. A past I knew hed worked the last decade trying to bury and separate himself from.
I brought the phone back to my ear, taking a deep breath to steady my voice. “What are you going to do?”
“Im going to send it to the proper authorities, of course,” my father said. “Unless…”
He kept the sentence hanging there, and I clenched my jaw.
“Unless what?”
“You leave him. You come home where you belong.”
“Why? Im no longer of value to you.”
“He disrespected me,” he said. “Not only by taking you, but by kicking me out of the game. And after weeks of digging, I’ve finally found the ex-prince of Chicago’s only weakness. He has a reputation for being one of the most feared men in Illinois, as well as one of the most intimidating billionaires in the US. Who would have thought that my daughter would be the only thing he actually cares about?”
Tears welled in my eyes, and rolled down my cheeks. “You cant do this.”
“I can,” he said. “Either way, I win. If you refuse me, then your beloved husband will go to prison. With the amount of proof I have on him, even his money wont be able to save him. Plus, you know I have friends in the judicial system. They’ll help with the rest.”
My entire body shook with rage.
“And if you leave him? Hell be devastated. And Ill have won.”
“This is about winning,” I said through clenched teeth. “Youve always used me as a bargaining chip, but I never thought you would stoop this low. Especially since I hold no value?—”
“Im well aware of the way youve whored yourself out, Serenity,” he cut over me. “That’s no longer a concern to me. If you want to play that role, I’ll have plenty of interested parties when this whole scandal blows over.”
A trickle of fear dropped down my spine. He planned to sell me to an entirely different kind of buyer now.
“The question is, will you let him rot in a prison cell so that you can be free? Or do you care about him enough to come home and do what you were raised to do?”
My mind spun, desperately lashing out for a solution that wasnt there.
There was no part of me that would ever let Gareth be arrested, let him be trapped while I was free.
There was also no part of me that was going to go home quietly, but my father didn’t need to know that.
So fucking be it.
Id come home, and I’d find the proof he had and burn it.
“Ill leave tonight,” I said unable to keep the devastation from my voice.
Good, let him hear it. Let him assume I was the same cowering child hed terrorized for years. “I have to make it believable, or hell come after me. Im sure you dont want that.”
“Interesting,” my father said. “Im almost impressed.”
“Thats a first,” I said sarcastically.
“I said almost,” he repeated sternly. “There is a ticket under your name for the red eye flight. If you don’t make that flight, Im sending all the proof I have to the authorities.”
“Ill do my best,” I said. “Not only will I have to make him believe that I dont want him, Ill have to slip my guards.”
“Well, we all know youre very good at that. At least youre good at something. I hope youve learned how to lie. Dont disappoint me.”
The line went dead, and I chucked my phone on the bed where I’d been sitting.
Oh, I was most certainly going to disappoint him, but before I could do that, I had to do something infinitely harder than face my father.
I had to make Gareth believe that I didnt want him anymore.
I contemplated telling him the truth, but I knew that he’d never let me go. Hed never let me back into my fathers house so I could get incriminating evidence to destroy it. He was all about giving me freedom to make my own choice, but his protective instincts ran deep.
Id have to make it about my choice to live separately from him with the freedom hed offered me. He’d already told me that if the day ever came that I decided I needed to be alone to figure out who I was that hed let me go. And even though I had assured him every time that I was happy right where I was, I wasnt sure he ever fully believed me.
Always believing the worst about himself, that he’d drive me away eventually.
Just the thought of doing this to him was breaking my heart, but the idea of him losing everything hed worked so hard for hurt worse. Especially because it would be all my fault.
Because I’d been the one to ask for a favor and had a father who was a cruel bastard.
I glanced at the clock, then hurried to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. Gareth would be home soon, and I had no idea how I was going to tell him.
If this was going to be my last night with him, especially if things went wrong and my father caught on to my true intentions, I was certainly going to make it count.
I just hoped to hell I had the strength enough to do it all in the end, because it was my turn to protect him.