Page 37 of Tormented Diamonds
“I didn’t kidnap those girls.”
“You didn’t stop it, either!” I shout, the realization that my father was complicit in a sex trafficking ring coating my throat with bile. “Silence carries just as much guilt as blood. Don’t you see that?”
“Don’t you dare lecture me about not caring about those girls,” he warns, his eyes shining with something I haven’t seen in twenty-two years. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t pray for them. Judge me all you want, but I’m not sorry for choosing you over them. After hearing their screams, I would’ve sacrificed more than my morals to ensure that would never be you.”
It’s his phrasing, rather than the emotion behind it, that knocks me off my righteous pedestal. “That’s why Dagger made the threat.”
“What do you mean?”
“He saw your reaction that night and knew it was the key to controlling you. He’d already killed your wife. If he killed me, that’d be it. You’d have nothing left to lose, and they’d have nothing to hold over your head. But threatening to make me part of what you saw on the docks tapped into a part of your psyche he knew he could manipulate.”
He’s silent for a moment, then his shoulders fall with a low, drawn-out sigh. “Sometimes, I wish you’d chosen another profession.”
“Huh?”
“That whole antiseptic-latent speech you just gave. It’s like you were reading a stock report rather than talking about your mother’s murder and trafficked women.”
Because it’s the only way to remain standing on a floor crumblingbeneath me. My mother’s death taught me to see dark where everyone else saw light. Within every human lay a monster. Behind every smile lay fangs. In every hand hides a weapon. Eventually, I found solace in psychiatry, where all my fears got sliced down the middle and put in neat, orderly boxes.
Right and wrong.
Black and white.
Good and evil.
The boxes stayed sealed until Gianni and my father turned them upside down.
But I don’t tell him any of that. Instead, I give him the concise, palatable answer he needs.
“I’m not being cold. I’m being direct and calling a spade a spade.” The word slips out so easily, I don’t even realize it until his lips flatten. “Twenty-two years of coating the truth brought us here,” I say, tapping my index finger against the table. “Don’t you think it’s time for a new approach?”
“You’re right. How’d you get to be so smart?”
“I chose the right profession.”
He huffs out a low chuckle. “Well played.”
“You know, you and Gianni really aren’t that different.”
His smile fades. “Becca, I’m not?—”
“Just listen to me for a minute,” I say, holding both palms up. “Both of you are arrogant, proud, and sometimes insufferable to be around… Did I mention arrogant?” My attempt at humor is met with rolled eyes. “But you’ve also both sacrificed all that and more for me. You both try to protect me from the dark by standing in front of it, but what neither of you understand is that shielding me doesn’t keep monsters away. It makes it easier for them to attack from behind. I know you did what you thought you had to do back then, but this is now. I’m not a child anymore. It’s time to fightwithme, not for me.”
“You remind me so much ofyour mother.”
“I do?”
“She was so strong and brave—always held people accountable while still finding worth in their faults. They took her because they knew she was the best part of me,” he says wistfully. “I see so much of her in you. I think I always did. That’s why I risked everything.”
The lump in my throat swells.I’m such an asshole.All this time, I’ve only cared about my pain. “You couldn’t lose the only piece of her you had left.”
“It’s ironic, isn’t it? In trying to save you, I lost you.”
It’s a confession that leaves us treading uncharted waters. We’ve avoided anything resembling honesty between us for so long, I don’t know how to process it. Considering my current predicament, I’m the last one who should cast stones.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him toss his napkin on the table, then slide his chair back. By the time I turn my full attention on him, he’s on his feet, his wallet in hand.
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of dining inside a snow globe.” He motions toward the bar area where four servers watch us like we’re the entertainment. “You ready to get out of here?”
