Chapter 20
The penthouse feels cavernous once he's gone.
Too much space. Too much quiet. My footsteps echo as I pace, back and forth, the silence pressing in until I can't stand it anymore.
Massimo's presence lingers everywhere, in the air, in the furniture, in the way the walls seem to expect him to fill them.
My thoughts won't slow.
Massimo.
Amauri.
Carter.
I push through the glass doors and step onto the terrace.
The night air hits me, sharp and still warm.
A pool stretches out before me, black and glassy under the lights, a hot tub steams quietly in the corner like it's waiting for someone who isn't coming.
The city sprawls beyond the railing, all neon and illusion, pretending nothing is wrong.
My hands grip the stone edge as my mind races ahead of itself. Amauri is somewhere far away. Massimo is walking into hell. And Carter—
The memory comes uninvited. I hadn't seen him in months when my father arranged the meeting.
He was already in a wheelchair by then. Pale.
Bitter. Reduced. Daddy had smoothed everything over the way he always does, press statements, medical silence, a neat narrative about an accident no one was allowed to question.
Carter looks up at me when I walk into the room, eyes sharp with spite.
"Well," his voice is tight and venomous. "Looks like you're going to marry me after all."
I broke up with him the day after he pawned me off to his coach for playtime on the field. A few weeks later, he had the accident on the football field. Naively, I'd thought: Karma.
"And I'm supposed to raise Coach's bastard," he continues, lips curling. "Funny how things work out."
I don't correct him. I let him believe it. It's his punishment, just in case there's any conscience or decency left in him.
Him.
The man who tried to break me. For everyone who thought my body was something they could use and discard.
Carter didn't deserve the truth. In his bitterness, in his humiliation, he clung to that lie like it was the only power he had left.
I turn away from the pool, heart pounding, chest tight.
God, I was so young then. So tired. So determined to survive that I didn't care who I hurt as long as my baby was safe.
I stand by the railing and stare out at the thousands of lights that rule Las Vegas every night.
How many times have I seen this view? From how many different angles?
How many versions of myself have stood exactly like this, pretending the city wasn't swallowing me whole?
But only one memory matters now. My wedding night.
Or what passed for one. Carter was still recovering from surgeries, his body broken in ways no one was allowed to talk about, so there was no honeymoon.
No travel. Thank God. Just a suite high above the Strip and the expectation that we would play our parts convincingly.
Which, perversely, was a relief.
I didn't need romance.
I didn't need touch.
I didn't need lies dressed up as love.
Most definitely not from him.
That weekend, I learned how to take care of him.
Not as a wife or a partner, more like a nurse, as a penance.
I learned how to help him dress and undress.
How to lift him just enough to change the sheets.
How to empty his urine bag. How to place a catheter without flinching, without crying, without letting my hands shake.
He told me he was impotent. I was relieved.
Not that I would have slept with him either way, still, it was a relief.
I did all of it without complaint.
Because that was the deal.
He married me because he needed a wife. Because he needed legitimacy.
Because it was the only way he could claim a child as his and keep his political future intact.
A man like him needed a family. And how convenient was it anyway that America's Golden Boy did get his happily ever after?
Especially after the horrendous accident on the field that broke his spine.
I married him because it was the only way I was allowed to keep my baby.
I never doubted my father would have made good on his threat.
I could see it in his eyes when he said it, how easily he would have dragged me, kicking and screaming, into a clinic if I forced his hand.
How small my pain was compared to his ambition.
So I agreed.
I smiled.
I survived.
But that night—hours after I said my vows—I stood on the balcony of a different hotel, staring out at a different sea of lights, and all I could think about was Massimo.
Where he was.
Why he had left me.
How he could have vanished without a word.
I cried then. Not for the first time. Not for the last. Up until the moment I walked down the aisle, I'd been hoping—stupidly, desperately—that he would appear. That he would interrupt the ceremony. That he would take one look at me and end the farce.
When the priest said the words or forever hold your peace, my lungs locked. I held my breath through Carter's careful, chaste kiss. Through the applause. Through the congratulations and well-wishes and the sound of my own name changing forever.
I knew—I knew—that the moment I allowed myself to breathe freely, I would fall apart.
So I didn't.
I held it in until I was alone on that balcony, high above a city that never cared who it destroyed, and only then did I let the tears come.
They came hard. Silent. Uncontrollable. I cried for the man who didn't come.
For the life I wasn't allowed to choose.
For the girl I had been that morning, who still believed someone would save her.
And now, standing here again, years later, staring at the same glittering illusion, I realize something that makes my chest ache even worse.
I've been holding my breath ever since. I press my hands to my face, drag in a breath, then another.
Tell myself over and over that I'm not the girl who stood on that balcony anymore.
That girl learned how to endure.
This woman?
This woman is done enduring.
Amauri needs more than my survival now. He needs my teeth.
My memory. My willingness to burn whatever stands between us.
I straighten, the city lights blur for a moment before sharpening again.
Whatever this war becomes—between Massimo's world and my father's, between the past and the present—I'm already in it.
But I'll be damned if I let them move me around like a pawn any longer.
I'm a fucking Queen, one who doesn't need a king, and they will learn that.
My hand drifts to the band on my finger.
Carter's ring. Heavy. Cold. A symbol that never fit, no matter how many times I tried to convince myself it did.
I stare at it for a long moment, remembering the girl who slid it on, telling herself she was being practical.
Strategic. Protecting her child. I was surviving.
Not living. Slowly, I twist it free. It leaves a faint indentation behind, pale against my skin.
A ghost of pressure. For a second, I just hold it.
The weight of it. The lie of it. It was supposed to make me safe.
Instead, it made me small. I step closer to the balcony railing.
The night air brushes cool against my face.
Maybe it'll bring luck to whoever finds it.
God knows it didn't bring me any. And then I let it go.
It disappears into the dark without a sound. No ceremony. No regret. Just release.
I turn back inside. Massimo's office waits exactly where I left it, cool, controlled, expectant.
I grab the laptop from his desk and carry it with me like something fragile and dangerous at the same time, then sink onto the couch.
The leather is soft and expensive. My stomach growls, loud enough to startle me.
When was the last time I ate?
I can't remember. It feels like forever.
The thought of real food turns my stomach, but I know better than to ignore it.
I push myself up and head for the kitchen.
The fridge is stocked like a fantasy: fresh fruit, charcuterie, leftovers plated like they were never meant to be reheated.
Food that would make anyone else's mouth water.
It does nothing for me. I stare at it, detached, then reach for a yogurt.
Simple. Manageable. From the wine fridge, I grab a bottle without looking too closely at the label. I don't bother with a glass.
Back on the couch, I eat a few spoonfuls, take a pull straight from the bottle, and feel the edge of the world soften just enough to breathe. The laptop warms on my thighs as it wakes. I open my email first. The inbox refreshes. I'm done holding my breath. Now I'm hunting.
I don't open Marianne's email again. Not yet. I don't know how to respond, or where I'd even meet her. I could tell her to come here—if Sean is any indication, this place runs on Massimo's permission, and mine by extension—but I look down at myself and snort softly.
I can't meet her in his shirt.
The thought of asking Max to take me back to my house to get some of my things makes my chest seize. I have no idea what condition the house is in. I'm not ready to step back into that yet.
Morning, then. I'll deal with Marianne in the morning.
Massimo mentioned something about Max and shopping.
I'll use that. I close the email and force myself back to the work I came here to do.
The files are endless. Campaign records stretching back years.
Decades. I start at the beginning—before the Senate, before the spotlight—when my father was just a lobbyist, learning how power moved.
Donations trickled in at first. Small checks. Predictable names.
It's tedious. My eyes burn. The wine bottle grows lighter in my hand.
Payments to printers. Marketing firms. Consultants.
The occasional plumber, a painter, and maintenance invoices that make sense on paper.
The kind of expenses no one ever questions.
I still do my due diligence, though, and Google every single name.
Some repeat over and over, making them a bit easier; others only appear once.
A cell phone repair shop that's still in business.
I look at the storefront. Granted, five thousand sounds high for a cell repair, but from the looks of it, they sell computer equipment too.
Still, this is how you hide truth, bury it in the ordinary.
I scroll. And scroll. Hours pass without meaning. My eyelids grow heavy. My head dips forward once, twice. I consider closing the laptop, calling it a night, telling myself I'll see clearer in the morning—
My eyes fall on an entry.
Thirty thousand dollars.
My spine straightens.
The name isn't familiar. Northstar Advisory Group.
The business doesn't ring any bells. I've seen so many like it; I have contacted them myself.
Everyone thinks they can run a campaign, and sometimes it doesn't hurt to give an upstart a chance.
You never know what ideas they might come up with.
But we never started with thirty grand. Fifteen, maybe, to see if they were a good fit.
Thirty is pocket change for an established company, one we've done business with several times, but not for a first timer.
I'm glad I started from the beginning now, so I know I haven't seen that name before.
I switch the screen to Google and search.
The company closed eight years ago, two years after we paid them.
Ten… my spine tingles and I know I'm on to something.
Ten years is the magic number. I click on more details about the company, and my pulse races.
The owner's name remains: Sean Carpenter.
I stare at the screen, then at the name.
Sean. Yes, that Sean. My father's bodyguard.
My breath leaves me in a shallow rush. I toggle back to the other screen, to the payment that was made one day before Massimo disappeared. Thirty thousand dollars.
That's not a campaign expense. That's not maintenance. That's not printing costs or consulting fees. That's payoff money. That's shut-up-and-go-away money. My hands start to shake as I lean back into the couch, and the room tilts slightly around me. Thirty thousand dollars to make a man vanish.
Is that all I was worth to him?
Is that all we were worth?
I picture Massimo's face from the photo booth, soft, in love, unguarded. I picture his smile. The way he looked at me like I was something sacred.
And my father?
My father would absolutely write that check.
Clean. Quiet. Efficient.
Did he buy Massimo off?
My chest caves in. That would explain how he knew who Amauri's father was, even though I never told him.
The tears come before I can stop them, hot, humiliating, unstoppable.
I clutch the laptop to my chest like it might anchor me, but it doesn't help.
The sob that tears out of me is ugly and raw and ten years too late.
Thirty thousand dollars.
To stay away.
To disappear.
To leave me standing alone on that balcony, waiting for a man who was paid off.
My body curls in on itself as exhaustion finally wins.
The wine bottle slips from my fingers, rolling empty and harmlessly against the couch.
The laptop tilts, the screen dims as my eyes close.
I cry myself to sleep with one thought burning itself into my bones: If my father did this—
If he stole Massimo from me—
Then I will destroy whatever he used to do it.
And I won't accept money as an answer.