“I’m sorry,” I say, my throat tight.
His eyes fixate on my chest, and I take a step back, my skin crawling. I know he’s a perv, but eye-fucking the tits of a girl he just thought was his daughter is next level.
“Where’d you get that necklace?” he asks.
And then I feel like a colossal dick for thinking he was looking at my tits.
I hook my finger through the chain, pulling the charm away from my skin. I could tell him it’s none of his fucking business, and to go creep on some girl who hasn’t fucked his sons, but I feel bad for the guy, so I just lie instead. “I don’t remember.”
“Can I see it?” he asks, stepping closer again. I can’t back up without hitting the next person in line.
“Why?” I ask, my fist closing around the diamond ballerina charm.
“My daughter had a necklace exactly like that.” His eyes meet mine, his gaze hard. In that moment, it’s easy to see where the rumors about the mafia got started. He’s scary as fuck, and I’m not immune. I don’t do parents. I don’t like cops or authority figures or other powerful adults. He’s not just a man who lost his daughter. He’s a man who made his son into a whore to benefit his business, manipulating him by threatening his younger siblings to gain his cooperation. He’s a man whose own daughter sent a letter to the police saying that he orchestrated Royal’s kidnapping, the event that probably made Royal the monster I know, the one who would go on to repeat the cycle against me.
“You think I stole from you?” I ask. “That while I was at your house, I went into your dead daughter’s room and went through her jewelry box and stole this?”
Mr. Dolce cocks his head to one side. “Did you?”
There’s something so repulsively familiar about him that it sends a chill down my spine.
Is it because he looks exactly like Baron, minus the glasses and plus twenty-odd years? Or because he looks exactly like Royal, minus six inches and plus those years? I didn’t just fuck Royal. I loved him. And he’s a product of this man every bit as much as I’m a product of my mother. I should never have fucked with this family, never have taken the scholarship in exchange for getting in with them, never have expected anything less than what happened to me when Royal found out my betrayal.
Suddenly, I feel dizzy and sick, and I wish I hadn’t eaten that food. I keep repeating the words I said to Royal.
Monsters make monsters make monsters. It never ends.
“Fuck you,” I say to Mr. Dolce, turning back to the concession stand, where it’s finally my turn.
“That could be arranged,” he says quietly.
I pretend not to hear as I order popcorn and a drink I no longer want. All I want is to turn and run away, to run back to my shelter, my savior, the other Mr. D. But I don’t know if Preston would open the door if I came knocking.
My hands are shaking when I take my food. I take a step away, but Mr. Dolce steps in front of me. “Did Royal give it to you?” he asks.
I stare up into his eyes, and I feel that monster inside me, the one Royal put there. The monster he made, that was made by his father before him.
The crowd shifts at the concession stand, and Mr. Dolce waves them to go on, skipping his place in line. A few people give us curious glances, and he steps further from the crowd, drawing me with him like some sick magnet. Why can’t I walk away from this whole fucked up family and be done? Why are they still a part of me, even when I’ve exorcized Royal’s demon?
The rest of them are still there, spiders watching me fight against their sticky web until I exhaust myself and become easy prey.
“You. Don’t. Deserve. Him.” I grit out the words one at a time, glaring my hatred back at Mr. Dolce, wishing I could hit him the way I hit Baron, knock him the fuck out right here in front of everyone. But I’d be arrested. He’s a powerful man with connections to everyone from the governor right down to the boys who run my school. And I’m a girl like me.
“You think you’re protecting him?” he asks, cocking his head again. “From me?”
“I think somebody needs to.”
Mr. Dolce stares at me like he doesn’t understand the meaning of my words. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he doesn’t know how much I know about his sons. Maybe he doesn’t even know some of the things I know.
“After what he did to you,” Mr. Dolce marvels aloud, shaking his head and staring at me with a mixture of disbelief and something way too fucking close to admiration.
So, they did tell him. Shame burns through me, silencing any smart retort on my tongue.
“And what you did to him,” Mr. Dolce says. “How could someone who claims to love a man do such a thing?”
I stand there like a scolded child while he walks away. I reach for the anger I felt just minutes ago, but all I feel is a cold knot in my belly. I’ve never been so ashamed. He has every right to hate me, to do more than scold me, for what I did to his beautiful, broken son. Maybe Mr. Dolce is a monster, but that doesn’t mean he can’t love his children, despite what he’s done to them. I’m the last person who should be passing judgment.
I’m the one who doesn’t deserve Royal.