Chapter 20 #2
I pull his hand off my thigh. My fingers are steady. My voice is steady. But inside I am a shivering mess. "No lying. Not about the danger. Not about anything. You wrote it in your own handwriting. Remember?"
“I do.” He doesn’t try to argue his stance. Good for him. At least he doesn’t have a problem admitting he’s a liar.
Lorenzo leans back in his chair, a performance of casual entertainment that makes me want to put my fork through his hand.
"While we're clearing the air." He swirls his wine.
"Sloane, you might want to ask your father about his membership at Society 69. It’s not good to keep skeletons in the closet. "
The words bombard my ears and every fiber of my being goes still. My lungs stop pulling air. My heart stumbles over a beat and picks back up at double speed. My hands drop to my lap and grip each other so hard my rings bite into my fingers.
Society 69.
I know what Society 69 is. I've known since I was old enough to understand what happened to me at fifteen. The auction houses. The viewing rooms. The pipeline that feeds women into rooms where men sit with cocktails and decide what bodies are worth. Then they buy them, use them and discard them like rags that belong in the trash. I did a huge deep dive into rape cases, disappearances and murder cases. The Society came up often, but no one can ever prove who is part of the human trafficking ring. I was obsessed back then. I’d heard about the Society among the whispers of a few of my father's friends too.
But I never thought…
My heart shatters into a million pieces.
"Society 69 never held a window viewing your father didn’t attend." Lorenzo smiles at my father. "Harrison was quite the regular before things got complicated. Isn't that right, Harrison?"
I turn to my father. His face is gray. His whiskey glass sits untouched for the first time tonight and his hands grip the edge of the table with knuckles that have gone white. His mouth opens and nothing comes out.
The nausea hits so hard I have to press my tongue against the roof of my mouth and breathe through my nose. My vision narrows until the only thing I can see is my father's guilt written all over his face.
I splay my hand across my stomach to keep the bile from rising.
I look at Harrison. He can't meet my eyes.
I turn to Massimo and his eyes don’t leave Lorenzo’s.
"Did you know this too?" I say it to Massimo and watch the truth carve through his face confirming the answer before he opens his mouth. "The Society 69. You knew and you didn't tell me."
"Sloane, I was protecting—"
Lorenzo’s laugh is sadistic from his side of the table.
I shake my head, sick to death of all this back and forth. "Don't." The word cuts through the restaurant quiet enough to turn heads at the next table. "Don't say you were protecting me. Every man who has ever hurt me said the exact same thing."
The table goes silent. Lorenzo watches with bright-eyed satisfaction. He lit the fuse and he's enjoying the show. My father stares at his hands. Massimo looks at me with an expression that might break my heart if I let it, but I won't. Not here. Not tonight.
The pattern crystallizes in my chest with a clarity so sharp it takes my breath.
The guard at fifteen decided my body was his to use. My father decided my future was Lorenzo's to buy. Lorenzo hired killers to enforce a contract I never signed. And Massimo, the one man who I trusted, the man I gave every vulnerable piece of myself to, took my honesty and repaid it with lies.
“You didn’t protect me. You took choices away from me. That’s not what a partner does."
I hold Massimo’s gaze despite wanting to wither inside and cry.
I want him to see the pain he’s caused, because frankly his is the betrayal I didn't see coming.
"That's what my father did when he signed that contract.
That's what Lorenzo is doing with his runners and his deadline.
And now you. You decided what I could handle.
You decided I was too fragile for the truth.
You made the same choice every man in my life has made and you made it while I was lying in your arms telling you I trusted you. "
The acid in my throat burns with bitterness. I hope Massimo understands what I’m actually telling him. Men like him think they decide everything and their word is final. Men like him, my father. Lorenzo. Well, fuck them.
Tears line the edges of Massimo’s eyes. His jaw works and his throat moves on a swallow and he reaches for my hand.
I pull it away.
"Sloane. Please," he tries.
"No." I stand. My chair scrapes against the floor and the sound cuts through the quiet restaurant. I pick up my clutch. My hands are steady and for once there’s not a drop of doubt in my movements.
I will not give Lorenzo the satisfaction of watching me break and I will not give Massimo the comfort of knowing I fell apart where he could catch me.
I look at Lorenzo. "I am not a contract. I am not some deadline for anyone. And I am not being delivered anywhere."
I look at the man who raised me. "You stopped being my father the day you signed that paper. And apparently long before that. You're dead to me. A monster. I will never welcome you in my life again."
I look at Massimo. And this one costs me. This one takes everything I have because his face is the face of the man who washed my hair and fed me on his lap and pressed his forehead against mine and called me tesoro and meant it. Or at least I thought he did.
The rat bastard lied to me.
"I loved you long before you ever saw me for me." My voice doesn't break. I'm proud of that. "I gave you everything and all I asked for was respect."
I turn and walk toward the door. My legs feel disconnected from my body, moving on training and muscle memory and eleven years of practice at walking away from rooms where men have taken something from me.
My heels click against the floor, steady and measured, and I focus on the sound because it's the only thing holding me together.
Left foot. Right foot. Don't stop. Don't look back.
If I look back I will see his face and it will break me.
With each step I breathe in and let my armor hold me up because it's the only damn thing that can right now. Frankly, it’s pinning together my shattered heart, too.
I'm done waiting for someone to fix this. I'm done trusting men who decide what I can handle and think my life is theirs to control.
I step out of the door and welcome the night air. Cool and sharp and smelling like rain on concrete. It feels like it's been raining forever. Yesterday I wished for sunshine, but tonight I welcome the rumbling of thunder in the distance.
The clearest thought I've had in weeks takes hold.
Cinderella lost her slipper and we all know she watched out the window hoping her prince charming would find her and rescue her from all the evil in the world.
Fuck that. I'm keeping both of mine. And I'm walking straight into the fire with my own agenda.