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Royal
I stood in the middle of the living room of the guesthouse that Merce had brought me and Grams to. Sebastian’s name lit up the screen as the phone rang, and I wanted to throw it against the wall, scream at the top of my lungs, and answer it, all at the same time.
I’d do the latter if everything that Merce had told me weren’t perfect puzzle pieces to the things I hadn’t understood. The pictures my father had sent me of his battered face and the casts on both his arms also made it impossible for me to cling to the hope that he and Merce had lied to me.
“I have to paint today,” Grams said as she walked through the living room, looking around for something.
She’d been so happy to see me, and then she began showing me around as if Haven House were her new house and everyone there were guests. When I had told her it was time to go, she balked at me and said that was impossible. She had a party to host. Thankfully, she forgot about her party and asked me if I knew where little Vin had run off to. I had gotten her to leave by telling her we needed to go pick him up from school.
The front door opened, and my head snapped up from my phone to see Merce walk inside with a bag of food he’d said he was going to get.
He held it up. “As promised. There should be enough until I get back tomorrow. I have an event tonight and can’t stay long.”
Good. The more I looked at him, the sicker I felt. Of all people for me to have to rely on.
Dad had sent him to get me, and I refused to leave with him. Until he told me that if we didn’t go get my Grams, then the mafia would use her to draw me and my dad out. Dad had escaped because Merce had sent some people in to help him. But Dad had to hide out too. We couldn’t even go home.
I nodded my head, but said nothing more.
Merce glanced at my Grams, who was still searching for her art class. She made him uncomfortable. Just like when we had been dating.
“Uh, okay,” he said, then pushed back open the door. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
He hurried out, as if I might ask him to stay. The lock clicked in place.
What had I done? This was all my fault. I’d believed Sebastian. Even after he abducted me and told me he was in the Mafia, I trusted him. All because … all because I’d fallen in love with him.
I placed a hand on my stomach when I thought of how Dad had said Sebastian had broken his arms. What kind of sick person could do that? Well, I mean, I could imagine Thatcher doing it, even if his girlfriend had been so sweet and nice to me.
NO! They were all criminals. All of them. Even Maeme.
I had been fooled just to get to Merce and my father.
Sebastian had helped me look for my dad. He’d taken me places, gone with me to look for my father, and he was the one who had taken my dad. God, had I really been so blind?
My phone began to ring again, and anger burned in my chest at his name taunting me. He kept calling. What was he going to say? My father had escaped. Was he supposed to use me now to find my dad, just like he’d come to the pool hall to find me? To charm me and make me think he was interested in me just to get information?
I hit Accept and put the phone to my ear.
“Nothing you say—nothing—will ever make what all you lied to me about, everything you did to my family, and how you used me okay,” I sneered into the line. “I hate you. Leave me alone. You took my life away from me.”
I ended the call and threw the phone on the ground, then covered my face to hide my tears. Grams wouldn’t understand.
“Oh dear, you dropped your phone,” she said, shuffling over toward me.
She’d fall if she bent over and tried to pick it up.
“I got it, Grams. It’s fine. Come to the kitchen. I’ll fix you something to eat.”
“All right! I’ll go get the fine china,” she replied happily.
Right now, I wished I could live in that world of hers. Free of the pain that felt as if it was going to eat me alive. Taking all the horror of my reality with it. Leaving me a shell with no remorse.
My phone didn’t ring again that evening. No more calls came through. Long after Grams was asleep, I lay there, staring at the ceiling, battling every memory of Sebastian that haunted me. None of it had been real. That hurt more than anything. Even more than the fact that he’d tortured my dad. If nothing else, that was proof my soul was black.
When my dad had told me what had happened to him and where he had been, I’d almost defended Sebastian’s actions. Telling myself that he loved me so much that he couldn’t handle anyone hurting me. I had truly believed it too.
But that hadn’t been the case. Sebastian and the rest of his mafia family hadn’t believed my dad was telling the truth, and they broke his bones, sliced his face, broke his ribs, broke his nose, busted out two of his teeth, all because they were trying to get him to talk. Tell them about the Dancastles and some drugs.
