AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Fourteen out of eighty units,” he says. “After all these years, only fourteen apartments have been bought or leased.”
My stomach drops. “Oh, wow.”
“Yeah. So, all that lying, all that backdoor dealing, all of it—”
“—for nothing,” I exhale sharply as I finish his sentence.
Raylan chuckles. “Well, Daddy got his commission and then never answered my calls again. He was happy about it. The investors, not so much. I hear they’re donating to Mayor David’s opponent in the next election cycle. They’ve got money stuck in this place, and for some reason, they can’t seem to find enough buyers.”
“I have to ask why,” I reply, staring at the buildings again. “It’s a beautiful complex. It looks clean and ultra-modern. I thought there were plenty of jobs in the city for people to move in from out of town.”
“It was advertised in all of your father’s election campaigns, all of the literature,” Raylan says. “All fluff, though. Talking out of his ass, promising things he knew he couldn’t deliver. It isn’t as easy as you might think to bring a corporation to Everton. First, there are no tax incentives whatsoever. Second, the local authorities and the local government are a mixed bag, and miscommunication between departments tends to make every single process unnecessarily tedious. Third, the crime rate in Everton is going up, not down. People look at the statistics before they decide to bring their businesses here. The same for people who think about moving here.”
“I thought he was savvier than this.”
“He probably is, but the people he’s beholden to aren’t. They’re ancient, Ariana. Old Freemason descendants with money and ties behind the political scene, their filthy fingers dipped in so many pies that it makes them seem all-knowing and always right. But they’re not. They’re dying out, and they’re struggling to draw fresh faces in so they can keep the system going, to keep the favors flowing, to keep the money coming into their bank accounts.”
I give him a skeptical look. “Is this about the Black Hand, whatever, whoever they are?”
“You have no idea how powerful, how influential they are,” Raylan says, his gaze briefly darkening. “And you’re still not ready to have that conversation.”
“How can you tell?”
“That smirk you keep putting on whenever you mention them speaks volumes,” he replies.
The fact is if I admit they’re right, if I give them that benefit, then it would mean that everything I was raised to believe was built on a lie. It would mean that my father is, in fact, the monster they claim him to be. And what will that say about me? That I’m a monster like him, or that I am irreparably stupid? Either way, it doesn’t bode well for me. It hurts. The mere thought of having my own reality questioned has become unbearable.
It has also become unavoidable.
The crash is coming. And when the walls do fall, brick by brick, I wonder what will be left of me. Where will I stand when the truth becomes so big, so glaringly obvious, that it will be impossible to ignore?
Another week passes. Another news cycle.
I’m allowed to watch the cable news now. I haven’t made any further attempts to escape. I’ve been a good girl, sitting in my room or spending time with the guys downstairs eating and drinking, or just keeping to myself, reading and watching movies. Sky, Kendric, and Raylan take me out once in a while to show me what they’re up to.
My face shows up for a minute, at most, on the news before they cut to another segment of my father tearing up and telling the talk show hosts about the excruciating efforts he’s making to find me. A minute later, they’re asking him about his senate run, and I see it on his face—that brief glimmer of excitement before he goes back to playing the grieving father—saying that’s the farthest thing from his mind.
I try to tell myself it’s in his nature. It’s who he is.
Turning the TV off, I blink back the tears, wondering what my mother would do in this situation. My guess is she’d be out driving all around the city, all day, every day, asking anyone and everyone until she picked up a lead.
She wouldn’t have time to do interviews on TV. She’d set her job and everything else aside, turning the whole of Everton inside out to find me. I miss her now more than ever.
But my day is only just beginning, and judging by the pensive look on Raylan’s face when he comes up to my room, it’s about to get interesting. “I need you to meet someone,” he says.
“Who?”
“Not here. Come with me.”
I trust him wholly and completely. I do not question his decisions anymore. I don’t question Sky or Kendric’s, either. I only accept what they give me and return their affection every time. I live in the moment, and I let them take me just as they let me take them. It’s our secret, our unspoken sin. But I sleep well at night. For some reason, to me it makes sense. It feels good. It feels right.
It’s Raylan that hasn’t gone over the edge with me yet. He’s almost there, though. I can sense it.
The sexual tension between us is downright palpable. His touch is pure electricity coursing through my body, jolting my heart into a frenzy whenever he puts his hand on me to help me on or off his bike.
We go to the ugly side of Everton this time—a place I’ve not been through in quite a while—and it looks just as bad as it did when I last saw it.
Abandoned rundown townhouses line the narrow, potholed streets. Unkempt bushes and damaged metal fences line dried-up front yards. Some of the houses’ windows are boarded up. A couple of vagrants push carts loaded with whatever they could salvage from their repossessed homes and junk they find in the trash at night.
