I hated this story. I wished we could just go back to kissing, to forgetting. This is better, I told myself. If he knows everything, there’s nothing left to hide. He can accept my messed up life or walk away before I’m too attached. Part of me knew it was too late. “Every night that Callum sees me up there, twirling on his damn pole, dollar bills showering over me? It’s a reminder to him that he’ll never, ever get what he wants from me.”
I waited for him to tell me I was insane; because I certainly was. Or maybe he’d say I was stupid. I sometimes felt that way, too. I waited for him to cut me open and see that I was full of dust inside. His lips made a “y” shape and I rapidly prepared for his sentence to be: “You’re wasting your life.”
“You’re a fool.”
“You’re worthless.”
Jack said, “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
My ribs hurt; my heart wasn’t small, it couldn’t be with how much it made my chest strain to keep it from bursting. “What?”
“How else could you spend all of this time throwing his loss in his face? That’s powerful stuff, Harper. There’s just one thing I’m wondering about.”
I swallowed, noticing how I’d leaned closer to him. “What?”
“Why did you stop singing in the first place?”
My voice came out flat. “I can’t answer that. I don’t know you well enough.”
Jack didn’t press it. Letting go of my wrists, he took my chin, gazing down at me like he could read the grooves in my brain. “Has Callum ever hurt you?”
“Not physically, but I’d let him make me suffer as long as he left Cena alone.”
His touch vanished. Jack paced the kitchen, his hands knotted at his sides. They were coiled springs, waiting to unleash their power on anyone who dared to get in his way. I watched with fascination, but not fear—angry men didn’t frighten me. More than that… Jack didn’t frighten me.
When he came back my way, I heard he was whispering. I caught none of it, just that he was talking to himself in a rapid, disgust filled tone. Words were chewed up, spit out, forgotten so he could make room for more.
Finally, he whirled on me. The ferocity in his eyes paled next to his hard-set jaw. “No more of this. I can’t let a monster like him hurt anyone else. You deserve better, Harper. Someone as kind as you deserves the damn world.”
My head began to float away, my voice distant to my ears. “You can’t know that. You don’t know me, Jack. Deep down I’m horrible. I’ve ruined lives.”
“No,” he snapped, standing over me, but never touching me. It was like he feared I’d shatter in his grip. “You’re an angel. You saved my life… you gave me a second chance.”
I was definitely floating away now. My skin felt too tight over my skull. “What are you talking about? A second chance at what?” I wished I could read his mind the way he seemed to be able to with mine. I never saved him… we just met a few days ago. I chased my memory for any tail-end hints of what he was speaking about. Then I locked up, recalling something with vibrant unease. “Jack, last night, you said you were at the club for revenge.”
Jack didn’t stir. He watched me expectantly.
My lungs struggled, my breath getting quicker. “You want revenge on Mister Big. I’m right, aren’t I?” It made sense, all these questions about my boss… about if I loved him, if he’d hurt me. I was right and I knew it before Jack said a word.
Bending closer, he took my hands, spreading my fingertips on his face. Slowly, he brushed them over his jaw and forehead. There were fine, raised lines; old scars. “Do you remember a young man lying in an alley?” he asked softly. “A fool who thought life would reward him just because he’d known nothing but suffering?”
A trumpet wailed in my head. Sound waves hammered on my memory until they molded it into something diamond-clear. Someone was brutally beaten and lying in an alley. His face was swollen, more crimson than tan-skin—nothing like the hardened jaw of Jack now. Yet I knew them to be one and the same.
In my memory, sirens screamed. I’d hung around just long enough to make sure the ambulance got to him. The last I’d seen of the young man was his body strapped to a gurney.
Until now.
At some point I’d yanked my hands away from him and moved them over my lips; I whispered through them in desperate fear. “What did my step father do to you?”
Every line in his face told a story with the same tragic ending. This was a man who’d been unquestionably wounded. How had I not recognized our kinship? “He stole everything from me. But that’s fine, because I’m going to return the favor tenfold.” The way he smiled made my heart stop. “Mister Big has lots to hide. I’ve got a plan to make him admit to the worst shit. All I need is some leverage.”
Sparks of paranoia went off in me, traveling along my spine until I was lit up from within. I needed to know his plan, because as intriguing as this was, as tempting as hearing him muse over destroying a man I hated was, I suspected his plan was dangerous.
He considered me, watching for my reactions. “I was going to kidnap the one person that I thought meant something to him. His only daughter.”
I choked on a wave of bile. The room swam, but only for a second. “No,” I said flatly, stepping towards him. “You need to leave.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Leave. Or I’m calling the police.”
The confusion in his eyes hurt me more than I expected. “Don’t you hate Callum as much as I do?”
Marching to the front door, I grabbed the knob, yanking it open. The air that swirled inside caught my hair so that it blinded me. It was brief, and I wished it lasted forever. Seeing Jack so… betrayed… it was too much. “I do hate him. But I love Cena more.”
Jack’s face went slack. “I wouldn’t hurt her. It’d be an act, and with you in on it, she’d—”
“She’d be terrified. And what if your plan failed? What if Callum’s vengeance is worse than yours? Jack, I’m not going to put her through that.”
He drew himself up. “She doesn’t have a clue who he is, does she?”
“She’s eight fucking years old, Jack. Of course she doesn’t know. And if I get my way… she never will.” I couldn’t imagine the way Cena would change if she got a whiff of how corrupt her own father was. The guilt would sweep over her, staining her soul. She deserved better.
On long legs he came my way. I readied myself for fight or flight, his approach setting my heart into hyper-mode. “I get it. Your grand plan is to sit here and suffer until she’s old enough to legally leave with you. How fucking long is that, ten years? Until she’s eighteen?”
My shrug was heavy. “I’ll take the misery now if it means I get the future I want.”
“You’re wrong, weren’t you listening to me?” He slapped his chest with an open palm. “I suffered, I lost everything… my home, my own mother… that’s what suffering gets you. Life doesn’t care if you put in your dues, Harper. Hoping for a happy ending just because you went through hell to get it is a fool’s dream.”
His words smothered me, pulling at my confidence until I wondered if my path was the wrong one. Jack took another step; when he did, I saw past him, spotting Cena’s room. She’d covered the outside of it with music notes and pink flowers.
I thought about the mother she’d never known.
How that was all of my fault.
Calmly, I said, “I’m never going to put my sister in danger.”