Page 15 of Betray Me
“Please,” I whisper, trying to stand but finding that my legs won’t support me. “I won’t tell anyone. I’ll be good. I’ll be perfect.”
“You will be,” Father agrees, catching me as I collapse. “But first, you need to forget tonight’s conversation with Wagner. Forget what you heard about Luna Queen. Forget everything except your new role as our family’s eyes and ears.”
“No.” I try to fight, but my body refuses to obey. The drug is pulling me down into darkness, and I can feel my memories starting to fragment, important details slipping away like water through my fingers.
The last thing I see before unconsciousness takes me is Father’s face, twisted with something that might be regret.
***
I wake up in my own bed, sunlight streaming through the curtains. My head pounds like someone took a sledgehammer to my skull, and my mouth tastes like copper and ash. When I try to sit up, the world spins violently.
“Easy, darling.” Mother’s voice comes from somewhere to my left. “You had quite the celebration last night.”
Celebration? I try to remember, but there’s a gap in my memory—a hole where something important used to be. I remember talking to Father about becoming a spy, and I remember gathering information at the party. But everything after that is fog.
“My hands,” I whisper, looking down at my fingers. There’s dried blood under my nails—dark crescents that weren’t there before. “Why is there blood under my nails?”
Mother appears in my field of vision, her face composed and serene. She carries a bowl of warm water and a soft cloth.
“Some memories are better forgotten, Belle,” she says gently, taking my hands and beginning to clean them with practiced efficiency. “Your new role requires a certain… flexibility of memory. You’ll learn to appreciate that gift in time.”
The blood swirls pink in the water as she washes my hands, and I watch it with growing horror. Whose blood is this? What did I do—or what was done to me—during those lost hours?
“I don’t understand,” I say, but even as the words leave my mouth, I’m not sure what I don’t understand. There’s a shape in my mind where a memory should be, like a puzzle piece that’s been deliberately removed.
“You don’t need to understand,” Mother replies, drying my hands with tender care. “You just need to trust that everything we do is for your protection. Your new position comes with certain… requirements. Sometimes, you’ll be asked to forget things that might otherwise trouble you.”
Forgetting. Memory gaps. The same techniques they use on their victims, now being used on me.
But I asked for this, didn’t I? I chose this path to escape something worse. Even as my mind recoils from the implications, a part of me feels grateful. Whatever happened last night, whatever I did or witnessed, I don’t have to carry it. The weight of that knowledge has been lifted from my shoulders.
“Will it happen again?” I ask quietly.
“Only when necessary,” Mother promises, smoothing my hair with maternal affection. “And each time, you’ll wake up stronger. Safer. More valuable to the family.”
I nod, accepting her words because what choice do I have? This is survival in the Gallagher world—trading pieces of myself for protection, selling my memories to buy another day.
As Mother helps me dress for the day, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The girl looking back appears the same—blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin unmarked by visible trauma. But something fundamental has changed. There’s a new wariness in my expression, a calculating coldness that wasn’t there before.
I am no longer just Belle Gallagher, a victim of my family’s ambitions.
I am Belle Gallagher, an intelligent asset. Spy. Keeper of secrets—including the ones kept from myself.
And for the first time in years, I feel something that might be hope.
Even if that hope is built on a foundation of deliberately forgotten horrors.
Chapter 6: Damage Control
Now
The email arrives at 7:43 AM, stark and formal against the soft morning light filtering through my dorm room window.Ms. Gallagher, please report to the Dean’s office at 10:00 AM today to discuss recent developments regarding your family’s situation. Sincerely, Dean Selena Harpsons.
I stare at the screen until the words blur, my coffee growing cold in my hands.Recent developments.Such a sanitized way to describe the federal investigation that’s slowly dismantling everything my family built. The Queens may be behind bars, but their trial has opened floodgates that threaten to drown us all.
I dress with calculated precision—the school’s navy blazer, white shirt, pearls that belonged to my grandmother. The uniform of respectability, of old money breeding and proper upbringing. If I’m walking into an inquisition, I’ll do it looking every inch the Gallagher heiress they expect me to be.
The walk across campus feels like a funeral march. Students part before me like I’m infected with something contagious, which, in a way, I am. The Gallagher name used to open doors; now it empties rooms. I catch fragments of whispered conversations:
