I shake my head, admitting for the first time, perhaps in my life, that I'm not okay. I'm not okay at all.
* * *
Iskip my meeting with Zane. I skip work, too. For the first time since I was eighteen, I drive to the house I grew up in. It’s a monstrosity of an estate, built simply to appease my father’s ego. He wanted it to be the biggest, most ostentatious home in Silver Spoon Falls. He succeeded in part. It’s big and ostentatious, but it was never a home.
It’s a garish Italian villa that looks more like a prison or mental institution than a home. The only thing missing are actual bars over the evenly spaced windows and razor wire on top of the massive fence surrounding the fifteen acres of property. Not even the tennis courts and landscaping make it seem more inviting.
I park out front and let myself in before setting my bag down beside the front door. The house has been shut up for the last year, but it smells clean. Andreas has someone out here every week to keep it in order. I don’t think he ever visits, though. He keeps it only because he doesn’t know what else to do with the place. I don’t think he wants to saddle anyone else with it or lose the only memories of our mother we have left.
I hope her spirit doesn’t linger here. I hope she’s flying free somewhere far, far away. She deserves that. She always deserved that. Our father thought he could force her to love him again if he just kept her chained to him long enough. Instead, he slowly killed her. She died of an aneurysm at forty-two. Perfectly healthy one day, gone the next.
I drift through the house like a ghost, not sure why I even came here at all. At least until I get to my old bedroom. It’s still the exact same, as if it’s been frozen in time. All the clothes I left behind still hang in the closet. My stuff still lines the shelves, trophies and awards and girlish mementos that meant so much to me for so many years.
A tear slips down my cheek. I brush it away.
I know the exact moment those things stopped mattering. The year my mom died. That’s when everything changed. Andreas was away at school. It was just me and our father here. And suddenly, I wasn’t a little girl anymore. He had plans for my life. I was supposed to marry into a family of his choosing to turn Romano Shipping into an empire.
Another tear slips down my cheek and then another. I sink to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees as memories bombard me. I let them come. I think I need to remember this. I’ve ignored it for too long already.
I didn’t tell him about Jimmy for months. I thought it’s what he wanted. He certainly threw me at his friends and their sons often enough. Whenever he wanted something from them, he paraded me around. So, I didn’t say anything. Not until Jimmy sent me that picture.
“Autumn!” Zane shouts. “Where are you, baby?”
“Zane?” My voice cracks on his name. “Zane!”
His feet pound up the stairs.
“I’m in here.” I brush tears off my face, but more fall to replace them. Of course, I can’t stop crying now that I’ve started. Of course not.
Zane appears in the doorway like a dark, avenging angel, murder in his gaze. He takes one look at me and growls like a wounded animal before stomping into the room. “I heard what happened,” he says, dropping to his knees beside me. “Andreas said you were here.”
“I’m s-sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t ever apologize to me, little rebel,” he whispers, lifting me into his arms. “Not ever.”
I press my face to his throat, breathing him in as a shudder wracks my body and more tears pour down my cheeks. “I d-don’t know w-why I came here. I hate it here.”
He rubs my back.
“My f-father t-took everything from him when he sent me that picture when I was a teenager,” I whisper. “It took me m-months to tell him the truth. I thought he w-wanted J-Jimmy to talk to me like that. But when he s-sent me that photo, I k-knew it was wrong, so I finally w-went to my father. I’d never s-seen him so angry before. Or s-so triumphant. Like he knew he won that day.”
“Autumn,” Zane says. “You don’t have to tell me this, baby.”
“I w-want to tell you.” I realize as I say it that it’s true. I want him to know me in this way, like no one else does. “My d-dad didn’t take everything from him to protect me. I was just the excuse he needed to do what he wanted to do a-all along. That’s the way I was raised, Zane. That’s the men I know.”
“Jesus,” Zane growls.
“I’ve always been a pawn or a prize to be won. Even now, I’m a freaking pawn. Jimmy wants Romano Shipping, and he thinks he can get it by suing me.”
“He isn’t getting your company,” Zane vows, tipping my chin up until my eyes meet his. Steely resolve glitters in the depths of his. “He isn’t getting a goddamn thing from you, little rebel. You aren’t the only teenage girl he’s preyed on. We haven’t confirmed it yet, but there’s a rumor that he paid off a former employee after being inappropriate with her seventeen-year-old daughter.”
“Oh, no,” I whisper.
“We’re going to track her down and nail his ass to the fucking wall.” Zane brushes tears from beneath my eyes. “Defamation is only defamation if it’s untrue. We know he preyed on you. If we can get this girl to come forward, too, the judge will dismiss this case. And he’ll have to answer for a whole hell of a lot more than calling you a lying bitch.” Hatred sears his expression. “Though the motherfucker will be paying for that just as soon as I see his sorry ass.”
“He threatened to get my favorite barista fired,” I say. “I tried so hard to behave and not engage with him, but he was threatening her for no reason and I couldn’t just stand there and let him bully her.”
“Jace told me.” Zane’s jaw clenches. “He was in the coffee shop. Said he kicked Jimmy out.”