Chapter 42 Jenna
I watch it all. I don't look away. I don't flinch. I don't cover my ears or close my eyes like some fragile thing that needs to be spared. I stand there and let it carve through me, because if I don't face it now, it will own me forever.
My father did this. The truth quietly locks into place revealing something that has always been there, waiting for me to be strong enough to name it.
Ten years. Ten years stolen. Ten years of silence, lies, and choices that were never really mine. Ten years during which Amauri never knew his real father. Ten years where Massimo suffered—alone, broken, furious—because of a decision made in a room I wasn't allowed into.
And they knew.
All three of them. If not all of it, then parts. Enough to have eased my pain. Enough to have given Amauri his rightful father. They watched my life rot in slow motion and called it necessary. Called it protection. Called it for my own good.
Marianne is the worst. She was there on my wedding day, adjusting my veil, telling me how beautiful I looked. Smiling. Lying. Pretending she didn't know the marriage was a farce, that I was being sacrificed to preserve a reputation, a career, a legacy that was never mine.
She fucking knew!
She knew I loved Massimo. She knew he wasn't gone by choice.
She knew I was pregnant and terrified and cornered.
And she smiled anyway while she fed me lies.
Something inside me goes cold and sharp.
Carter screams my name, and it barely registers.
He is nothing now. Less than nothing. A footnote in a story that never belonged to him in the first place.
When I step forward, it isn't hesitation that moves me. It's clarity. Massimo doesn't stop me. He doesn't reach for me. He lets me choose. That matters more than he'll ever know.
I look at Marianne. Really look at her. At the woman who stood beside me and watched me burn.
And in that moment, I understand something with terrifying calm: this isn't just about what was taken from me.
It's about what was taken from him. From us.
From our son. Ten years of lies don't get forgiveness.
They get reckoning.
It's time they paid the piper.
"Jenna, please. Please. I swear, I didn't know. I didn't." Carter pleads as the gurney moves closer to the oven.
"Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. It doesn't matter. Don't call me." I nod at Enzo, and he pushes the button.
Call me. Call me. Echoes inside my head.
Carter leads me down a corridor, our footsteps echo off the walls lined with glass shelves filled with sports trophies where they're not plastered with team photos, championships, smiling athletes, Coach Brent Cafferty with his arm around players, grinning like a man who owns the world.
We stop outside the heavy locker room door. Carter swallows hard. "Ready?"
"Sure," I say, even though something inside me whispers don't go in there.
He reaches for the door. It opens before he touches it, and Coach Cafferty greets us with a wide smile. "Hey, kids."
"Hey, Coach." Carter nearly squeaks, and I shoot him a funny look. Coach steps aside to let us in.
"Ladies first," his voice is smooth as snake oil.
Nervousness overcomes me. Something is off. Something isn't right. "Carter?"
He lifts his hands, not touching me, just raising them as if surrendering. "I'm sorry," he breathes. His eyes shine, like he might cry. "I'm so sorry. I love you. It'll be okay. I swear. Call me."
Those were his parting words as he left me with his coach.
As payment for playtime on the field, the coach got to play with me.
Carter knew exactly what was about to happen.
He didn't stumble into ignorance or hide behind misunderstanding.
He made a choice. The man I thought I loved.
The man I trusted. He sold me out, not for money, not for survival, but for minutes on a field and the illusion of a future he wanted more than he wanted me.
To his coach.
For playtime.
The memory slams into me now with brutal clarity, and the old indignation snaps back into place so hard it steals my breath.
How dare he? How dare he use me like an object he could barter away?
How dare he strip me of my fear, my consent, my humanity, and call it a transaction? What kind of man does that?
I was a virgin. He knew it. We had talked about waiting, about wanting it to mean something, about choosing the moment together.
I trusted him with that. With my body. With my first yes.
And he was prepared to throw it away like loose change.
Not because he didn't understand what it would cost me.
But because he did and decided it was worth it.
That realization is the cruelest part. Not that I was hurt.
But that my pain was calculated. Accepted.
Written off as collateral damage for his ambition.
Standing here now, watching the truth crawl out of their mouths, I don't feel weak.
I feel burningly alive.
Because whatever they took from me that night, whatever they tried to reduce me to, they failed in one crucial way: I survived. And the man who thought he could trade me like property?
He's finally about to learn what that decision was worth.
Carter screams. The sound rips through the room, raw and animal, as he's moved forward. He thrashes, begging now, all the arrogance and entitlement stripped away in seconds. Whatever he thought he was—husband, protector, man—burns off fast.
Marianne breaks. Her sobs are loud and ugly, collapsing her in on herself.
Sean fights the bindings, his chair rattles against the floor, and curses spill out of him in a frantic stream.
The stench of fear fills the room as he loses control completely.
The man who manhandled and drugged me countless times, who touched me whenever and however he thought he could, is reduced to fear so great he pisses himself.
I should feel pity for him. For Marianne.
I don't. They not only knew. They collaborated to have Massimo killed.
My Massimo. And if they had succeeded, I would have never known.
Amauri would still be a prisoner of the Venezuelans, a sacrificed pawn in my father's game.
They deserve every ounce of pain coming to them.
"Her next," Massimo orders calmly. "Then him."
"No—no, no," Sean wails. "You said— you said if I talked, I wouldn't be—"
"Next," Massimo corrects coldly. Sean freezes as understanding blooms.
"And you're not," Massimo continues, unhurried. "You're not next after Whitford." Relief flashes across Sean's face, brief, pathetic. "You're next after her."
The meaning lands. Sean breaks down completely, screaming, pleading, bargaining with anyone who might listen. Marianne's cries rise to match his, desperation feeding on desperation.
Massimo turns to me.
"Ready?" he asks, holding out his hand.
I'm trembling. There's no denying that. My hands shake, my heart pounds, and every nerve in my body feels raw and exposed.
But I straighten my spine. I don't let them see it.
I won't give Marianne the satisfaction of my tears.
I won't give Sean the comfort of my fear.
Whatever emotions are tearing through me stay locked behind my ribs, contained, controlled.
"Ready," I nod once, taking his hand. His grip tightens, solid, grounding, a silent promise that I am not alone in this.
We move forward together, and I understand something with absolute clarity: This isn't mercy. This is consequence. And I will not look away.
The car door shuts behind us, sealing away the noise, heat, and screaming like it never happened. The city slides past the windows, indifferent.
"Are you okay?" Massimo asks.
I shake my head. "No." My voice doesn't wobble. I'm past that. "But I will be."
He nods once, accepting it.
Then I turn the question back on him. "Are you?"
He exhales slowly and drags a hand through his hair; the gesture is tired, unguarded in a way I haven't seen before.
"I killed my uncle. And my cousins. Over this lie."
The words hang in the air between us, heavy and irrevocable.
I don't know what to say. First, the fact that he's telling me this at all, not just admitting it, but offering it, trusting me with something that raw, that damning?
That's monumental, almost eclipsing the words themselves.
Then I think of the lie. How big it was.
How far it spread. How many lives it warped. How much blood it cost.
"I don't know what to say," I admit quietly.
He nods again, like he wasn't expecting absolution.
"It was inevitable," he admits after a moment. "Really." Then his mouth twists, just slightly. "But I don't like someone setting my terms for me."
That, I understand too.
I glance at him, something dark and familiar settling in my chest. "Yeah," I say softly. "I get that."
"Now what?" I ask after a few seconds.
He lets out a short, humorless chuckle and finally looks at me. "You're asking me?"
I lift a brow, unsure of his meaning. He shrugs lightly, but his eyes are serious. "He's your father." A pause. "What do you want to do?"
The question lands heavier than anything else today.
Because for the first time in my adult life, it's actually mine to answer.
I don't answer right away. The truth is, I don't know.
Not yet. The question is too big, too layered, to unwrap in the space between traffic lights.
My father's face flashes through my mind, not the monster from today, but the man who lifted me onto his shoulders when people were watching, smiling for the cameras like I was something to be proud of.
The man who once fixed my broken toy at the kitchen table, silent and focused, like it mattered more than he ever let on.
The man who decided, somewhere along the way, that my life was a problem to be managed.