Page 110 of Trailer Park Billionaire
Robyn cocks her gun for emphasis. “Start walking.”
I look at him one last time, my pulse so loud I can hear it in my ears. It’s hard to see through the oncoming tears, but first it seems like he’s struggling to make sense of all this, then like he might be struggling to keep it together as well.
Then I shut the door and lock it.
I lean against it and slide down until I’m on the floor, knees to my chest, hands tangled in my hair.
Robyn is leading him away. The steps grow more and more quiet until there’s just silence. Nothing but silence. For minutes. The absence of sound stretches long enough to convince me it might actually last. That maybe—finally—I’m alone. Like I was supposed to be the entire time.
Which is when the dam breaks.
I don’t sob. I seethe.
Tears spill, but they don’t feel soft or sad. They feel erosive, like turpentine sliding down a canvas. I press my palms into my eyes, hard enough to see sparks.
How did I get here?
I tilt my head back against the door, stare up at the blurry ceiling like it might give me answers.
Ben. Fucking. Lyon. My. Ass.
Benedikt St. Clair.
From the moment he walked into my museum, pretending to be interested in that godforsaken artist—which should have been the first red flag—I should’ve known. No one that cheerful ever has any good intentions. But he somehow won me over anyway.
And for a moment—several, really—I believed. I let myself get swept up.
Because I am an idiot. And maybe because I was vulnerable after my grandpa’s death.
Mostly the idiot thing, though. I mean, how fucking dumb do you have to be to fall for a con artistafterthey literally tell you that they cheat people for a living?
I should have just called the police and let them handle it. But no. I let him in. I let myself hope.
Only to find out that he was a literal billionaire after all. Sort of. His family is.
Only to find out that all of it was just a long, elaborate act of revenge for him. That I was getting used in it.
I’m not even mad that he lied. I’m mad that I fell for it.
Every sweet moment, every dumb joke, every time he looked at me like he actually cared—it was all just... theater. Performance art to get me to help with his heist.
I wrap my arms around my knees and curl in tighter. The worst part isn’t even that I was used.
The worst part is that it somehow meant something to me.
That he meant something to me.
And now I’m not just alone again.
I’m alone and in pain.
The kind of pain that crawls into your ribs and rattles around in there like it owns the place. The kind that makes you wish all you had to worry about was a grief-related knot in your stomach and a villain threatening to beat you up over 100k. The kind of pain that makes you think even prison was easier. At least in prison, no one pretended to care about you before they stabbed you in the back.
I don’t know how long I sit like that—curled up on the floor, cheeks damp, brain spiraling about all the ways I’ve been an idiot—before I hear it.
“Knock, knock,” someone says from the other side of the door.
A pause.
