Locked.
I check that I’m still alone, then pull out my pocketknife and make quick work of the lock, silently thanking my ex as I always do when I pick a lock. I step inside and pull the door closed as quietly as I can. Then I tiptoe to the big wooden desk, my heart hammering. What if someone hears me? Are they loyal enough to Mr. Dolce to tell him, or do they hate their boss? Would they sympathize with a poor upstart like me or be disgusted that I’d betray him after all he’s done for me?
I crouch in front of his desk and check the drawers. Two of them are unlocked. There’s a wide, short one above the chair, so I start there, rifling through quickly and finding nothing of note. To the right, there are two more drawers, one relatively shallow and the other deep. I pull open the top one and stop when I see a Glock. My heart hammers harder as I pull my sleeve over my hand and pick it up. I don’t know if he’s shot anyone with this gun or where it’ll be used next. I’m sure as fuck not leaving fingerprints on it.
I check it and find it loaded. I put it back where I found it and check the last drawer, the deep bottom one. It’s locked.
I drop to my knees and work the lock open after a few minutes. Pulling it open, I see a bunch of hanging files. I go through the tabs quickly—taxes, property, vehicles, receipts. My heart skips when I see a tab with my name on it. I pull it out, feeling the weight of the thick file before I flip it open.
Last year’s school picture is stapled to the top corner of the paper, along with a few more pages. When I flip through, I see that it’s receipts and terms for the scholarship he gave me. I start to breathe again. Royal said he gives a handful of scholarships, so maybe he keeps a file on all of them. I scan the pages. It wasn’t a one semester scholarship, like Mr. D said. He said for spring semester he was paying my tuition monthly, that he’d take my scholarship if I didn’t get him the info he wanted. But the scholarship is for a whole year, and the terms say it can’t be revoked by the donor and is non-refundable. Student behavior, attendance, and grades could have put me on probation, had me expelled, or kept my scholarship from being renewed, but it was already paid.
That fucking bastard. I was never in danger of losing it. He was just making me jump through hoops for the fun of it.
I flip to the next page. It’s a printout of an email, and when I manage to decipher it despite the atrocious grammar, spelling, and lack of punctuation, I realize it’s the letter they found from my mother to Grandpa Darling. So, at least that part was true. She says she’s pregnant and that it’s his and he “better take care of it or else.”
Sounds like Mommy Dearest.
Obviously she didn’t have the resources to follow up on her threat, and since it wasn’t actually his, she couldn’t do shit about it. But there’s proof of why they targeted me.
The next page is a very convincing DNA test result saying that the samples are a match. I flip to the next page and stop. It’s a printout of my first conversation with Mr. D. At the top of the page, scrawled in adult handwriting, is the username and password for his account. I take a quick picture on my phone in case I ever need it, though I’m not sure what I’d do with it. Then I sink down on the floor and fan through the pages and pages and pages of conversations. So, their dad knows all of it. Maybe he wasn’t the one behind the keyboard, but he must have read all of these, the jerkoff fantasies, what I was doing with his son, what I was telling his other son I was doing. It makes me feel sick and humiliated.
The sound of footsteps in the hall sends me into panic mode. I shove everything back in my file, slide it back into the drawer with shaking fingers, and push it closed. I don’t have time to lock it before the office doorknob rattles. I slide under the desk, my heart banging so loud I’m sure he’ll hear it when he walks in. I pray it’ll be like when I hid under the desk in the school library last year, that he’ll walk by and not notice me.
Footsteps cross the room, and I hear his heavy breathing. It makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. He has a loaded gun a few feet from my head.
I have one in my belt, though. Royal told me to keep it, and I did.
I focus on breathing as quietly as I can while he goes to the liquor cart and pours himself a drink. When he lets out a fart and a satisfied sigh, I have to hold back laughter. He moves closer to the desk, and I slide my hand behind me, cursing myself when I feel that I’m sitting on the edge of my shirt, so the gun is trapped. If I move enough to get it out, he’ll hear me. I squeeze my eyes closed, praying so hard it hurts that he’ll go in the other room.
As if in answer, he stops walking. My heart thuds in my chest and I hold my breath, wondering if he heard me.
“Mr. Dolce,” says a perky, accented voice I recognize as Helga’s. “Do you require a beverage?”
“I’ve got it, sweetheart,” he says in that Tony Soprano voice of his.
“A snack then?” she asks. “You’ve been working all day.”
Go away, go away… I will them silently.
“Bring me something, would you?” he says. “Surprise me.”
Then he steps around the desk, moving his chair back further before pausing.
Fuck.
I’m caught.
He leans down, his eyes fixing on me. “Well, what do we have here?”
I don’t have a single smartass comment. He caught me in his locked office, going through his locked drawer. He grabs my wrist and drags me out, his grip unbreakably strong. My heart is hammering in my chest so hard I think I might pass out. My mind is flashing back to that day when Royal grabbed my wrist, when he broke my hand and dropped my knife in the swamp, when the world spun so far out of my reach that I was lost for six fucking months.
Tony sits down in his ergonomic leather chair, pulling me down on his lap. “You’re not dressed up like my daughter anymore,” he says, holding me on his knee while I squirm to free myself. “That’s too bad. She was prettier than you.”
“Let me go,” I grit out, straining to break free of his strong arms that are wrapped tight around me, pinning my own arms at my sides.
“But you have one thing going for you that she didn’t,” he says against the back of my neck. “You’re not my daughter.”
I lean my head forward and then slam it back against his face. He curses and grabs the back of my head, forcing it forward again. My neck aches with the strain of how hard he’s pushing, but now only one of his arms pins mine, which gives me a little more leverage, even if my body is crushed against his. I struggle harder, twisting my shoulders to try to break free.