Page 43 of I Would Die For You

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, big, solid palm on my back. “Let’s go. You have to put this behind you.”

From nowhere surges a flare of fire.

“Are you serious right now? I need to know what went on. I need the truth!”

“And what’s that going to help?”

“Closure,” I yell in the closed confines.

He’s clenching his teeth now, shaking his head as if I’m being unreasonable. Well, fuck him. This is my life, and I have to figure it all out. It’ll eat me alive otherwise, like it’s already doing now.

“What do you propose?” he asks.

I ignore the way his nostrils are flaring, the set of his jaw, his knuckles white where he’s clenching the steering wheel again.

“I need to speak with him.”

Stefano sighs. “So let’s wait until he heads back home.”

If he does.Neither of us says this, and it’s a good thing we didn’t jinx ourselves. It’s not an hour later when he comes out of the casino and hails a car, which we follow. It takes us right back to the trailer park.

So he’s still living in that squalor despite high-rolling with the big guns. Guess I now know where his priorities lay. It was never with me.

I know it, but I still need to hear it.

“Kaya,” Stefano grits out, hand closing on my arm when I go to open the passenger door. “Don’t.”

I know it, and he knows it, too—what I’ll find inside will break my heart. But what choice do I have? Not knowing is worse, right?

I shrug off his touch and push out of the vehicle. He’s doing the same when I come round the hood.

“I’m not letting you in there alone,” he states.

I sigh. “Stefano…”

Silence thrums between us, broken only by the sound of the nighttime insect life around us.

I can’t let him come inside. He’ll hear, he’ll know, and that, I can’t have. My humiliation will have to be mine alone.

“Please,” I beg softly.

Finally, he nods. “Two minutes, then I’m coming in.”

I’ll take it, turning toward the door of the trailer, taking one step, two. Not bothering to knock, I pull the latch and climb inside.

It smells like a distillery in here. Funny how the scent had only been funky dust and decrepitude earlier. So it’s him, then, carrying this stench.

“Hi, Dad.”

Grant Norton whirls around, and the way his eyes grow wide when he sees me, like I’m a ghost, crystallizes my worst fear. He did sell me off, never expecting to lay eyes on me again.

“Why did you do it?” I ask.

He rakes his gaze over me from head to toe. He’s my father, and I’ve been a prostitute, yet never have I ever felt so exposed and dirty before.

“Did good for yourself, it seems.” He sneers. “Always knew you’d catch some poor sucker’s eye. Maybe the big guy himself.”

A retch of bile touches my throat. He planned for me to be Monroe’s slut? Or worse yet, Daku’s?

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