Chapter 12 Nova
NOVA
“Mr. Eastman isn’t going to like this.” The tall, broad-shouldered, flat top-wearing guard looked at me like I was suggesting cannibalism or something equally outrageous, and all I had done was announce I needed to stop in to see my father while Vaughn was having dinner with a handful of high rollers currently visiting his casino.
“He gave me orders. No going over there without telling him first.”
I remembered clearly the so-called boundary Vaughn had set five nights ago on Friday. “Under no circumstances can I allow you to go to your father’s casino alone.” He never said anything about going with one of the men watching over me. My personal guardian angels.
It was wrong of me to be sarcastic about them, even in my head.
Without the benefit of their reassuring presence on my living room sofa these past few nights after I’d spent the weekend with Vaughn, there was no way I could have slept.
The nightmares were bad enough on their own without having to wake up alone.
“I’m only going in to say hi and have dinner with him in his office.
Everything is going to be fine,” I insisted, lying through my teeth.
Truth was, this was the only night this week when Vaughn would be busy.
I wanted to finally get this over with without him strutting around like the only rooster in the chicken coop demanding he come with me, or at least that he be aware of my every move.
Was it easy to keep a lighthearted tone?
Absolutely not. But I was running out of time, and I needed to get up there while Nico was on his dinner break.
He always took it at eight o’clock without fail.
He would be back around a half hour later, giving me plenty of time to see Dad, but I didn’t want to take chances, either.
With my luck, this would be the night he came back early.
It was time to stop hiding.
Avoiding the truth wouldn’t make it go away.
And that was what I’d been doing.
“Listen to me. You can stay down here. If I’m not back in thirty minutes, feel free to come up after me,” I offered.
We couldn’t continue this conversation much longer, standing in the lobby where anyone could see.
For all I knew, the guys in the control center who monitored the video feed could have given Dad the heads-up that I had arrived unexpectedly, uninvited, which would make things all the worse.
“Max, right?” I asked him. His head bobbed, wariness touching his eyes.
“Max, I need to see my father. He’s going to start looking for me…
you know he is. I mean, you’re in the security game.
He has security people too. Do you know what I’m saying?
I need to show my face. Let’s not make your job more difficult than it needs to be.
If I go see him, he has no reason to worry about me.
” My feet were starting to hurt from all the tap dancing I was doing, but I seemed to be getting through.
He was between a rock and a hard place. While I hated to do it to him because he seemed like a decent guy, this mattered more.
He might end up in hot water with Vaughn if he left me unaccompanied, but that couldn’t be my problem.
Just like it wasn’t my problem if Vaughn thought he could decide what was and wasn’t right for me.
“You have thirty minutes,” Max reminded me, relenting. “And then I’m coming up.”
Success. I tried not to let it go to my head. “I would hope so because I’d need you.” All I could do was pray that wouldn’t be necessary and that Nico hadn’t chosen tonight to deviate from his rigid schedule.
My heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings as I went to the elevator, barely breathing the whole way, my heart in my throat as I used my badge to gain access to the top floor.
I could do this. It had to be done. Dad had to know I knew.
It didn’t hit me until I was halfway to the top floor that I’d been hoping all along he might have a change of heart.
Maybe I could get through to him somehow.
The floor was quiet, Dad’s office door open.
I hesitated for a second once I stepped out of the elevator, listening for the sound of voices.
I heard nothing but soft music coming from the stereo, something from the sixties.
I would never listen to oldies without thinking of him and Mom.
Back when we used to take day trips in the car when she would sing slightly off-key but with more gusto than anybody I had ever known.
She lived with gusto, never giving a damn if she looked silly.
And then she left us with no warning or explanation when I was all of ten years old. I couldn’t help but think of her fondly, though, no matter how much it still hurt to be forgotten.
Get it over with. I forced myself to approach the door since my discomfort was a hell of a lot less important than the agony those girls were going through being shuffled at gunpoint. I could not let him get away with another one of those shipments.
Even if this were the last thing I wanted to do, nothing would be the same between us. Then again, it already would never be the same. The second I accidentally witnessed that so-called shipment, he had ceased to be the man I thought I knew.
Still, seeing him eating his favorite dinner at his desk—a deluxe cheeseburger from the kitchen, salad instead of fries, extra coleslaw—stirred fondness in my chest. He was a creature of habit.
Before I could announce my presence, he looked up and noticed me standing in the doorway.
“Oh.” He put down the burger, wiping his mouth on the napkin tucked into his collar before using it on his hands.
“Nova, honey, what brings you here?” Was it my imagination, or had his voice gone slightly higher like somebody was squeezing his balls?
“I can’t say I’m sorry to show up unannounced.” I slowly walked farther into the room, closer to him. The desk between us might as well have been his shield. He sat up straighter in his swivel chair, arching an eyebrow as I approached. “But you’ve been going out of your way to avoid me lately.”
“Sweetheart. You know how busy I’ve been.” His excuse was weak, pitiful, and I couldn’t hide my disappointment as I shook my head slowly, still holding his gaze.
“I know exactly what you’ve been busy doing. I’ve seen it twice now.” My knees threatened to go out, but I fought through it. I wasn’t a little girl anymore. It was time to start facing some things. “How can you do it? When did it start?”
His forehead furrowing, he asked, “Exactly what do you think you saw? Maybe we should start there.”
How could he still sound so confused? Anger began to heat my blood, which had until now run cold. “I know exactly what I saw, Dad. The girls downstairs in the parking lot. I saw them. Who were they? Why are you doing this?” I demanded.
He wanted to keep pretending. I saw it on his tanned, lined face, the uncertainty flashing over it.
I hadn’t seen him looking like this since Mom left.
“Have you been doing it all this time?” I asked before he had the chance to come up with a lie.
“Is that why she left? Because she knew you were transporting these girls, selling them to people, and she couldn’t be part of it? ”
Jekyll and Hyde. That was what came to mind when his expression flipped all at once without warning.
What started as affable confusion hardened into something ugly.
“Why would you say something like that to me?” He had never looked at me this way before.
Other people, sure. Adversaries, employees who pissed him off, rivals he believed tried to take advantage of him, but not me.
Not with rage barely simmering beneath the surface.
“Because it’s what you do, isn’t it? They go out in a van.
How do you do it?” I asked. “Do you give them fake papers, pretend they work here? Is that why you’ve been urging me to take time off before I start working here?
What? You haven’t wanted me around, learning the ropes?
You don’t want me noticing the paper trail?
” It all made sense—twisted, ugly sense.
“You don’t have the first idea what you’re talking about,” he warned in a whisper that brought to mind a snake’s hiss. “What do you think this is, a game?”
“No,” I whispered back, shaking my head mournfully. “It’s not a game. Not to me, and definitely not to those women. Girls, even younger than your own daughter. How can you profit from their misery?”
His complexion darkened alarmingly, going from red to a shade of purple that couldn’t have been a good sign.
“I’m going to tell you one more time, and we are dropping the subject.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
You need to forget about it. Who are they to you, goddammit?
” he shouted, his voice loud enough to make me flinch.
My heart was breaking. That had to be where the pain in my chest was coming from. How could my father be so cruel? “It doesn’t matter who they are to me. What matters is what you’re doing to them. When did it start? Did Nico talk you into it?”
“Enough!” He slammed his hands against the desk once, twice, before bolting up from his chair fast enough to make it hit the wall behind him. “You don’t walk in here and question me, young lady. I am your father!”
“Just tell me the truth, Dad. I want to hear you say it.” I wept, almost choking on my disappointment in him. “The truth, whatever it is. Be honest with me.”
“You want the truth? People do what they have to do in this world,” he snarled, baring his teeth, an entirely different man than the one I thought I knew—the loving, devoted father, always eager to give me everything I wanted, never a harsh word.