I swallowed the acidic saliva pooling in my mouth. “The more time that passed, the larger the secret became, and revealing it after all those years felt…weird. Like they would suspect me. Why hadn’t I come to them after the first time? You always see it in comments on the internet when someone tells their abuse story. When Hera and Craig got engaged, for instance, the tabloids claimed I was extremely jealous of her. It’d have been the perfect time to come clean…if it wasn’t for the terrible motive the press would have slapped on this kind of move.”
“Bet you my dick Craig himself planted the idea that you were jealous,” Ransom said.
I scratched my cheek. “Probably. He loves the media attention.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “The first time I saw you…you thought…”
“Yeah.” I stood up swiftly, collecting my purse. “I thought you came for me. I was ready to kill you if you tried something. What happened with Craig…it really screwed me up.”
“Did anyone ever suspect? A friend? A teacher? A boyfriend?”
“No one.” I wrinkled my nose. “All my L.A. friends, even Keller, are just skin deep. It didn’t seem right. And I didn’t trust anyone else. As for boyfriends…” I sucked in a breath. “I’ve never had one.”
“Never had what?”
“A boyfriend.”
Ransom gave me a GTFO look. “Bullshit.”
I shrugged, smiling miserably.
“But you’re not a virgin.” Ransom frowned, his cheeks tinting pink. “Iknowthat. I—”
“Not anatomically, no. The proud owner of my V-card is my rechargeable JoyStick. I don’t have any sexual experience to speak of, other than self-pleasure.” The words rushed out of me, each confession tumbling after the next. It felt good to get it off my chest, even if the person I was confiding in was my enemy.
“The first time I felt anything resembling sexual attraction to anyone was that night, when I caught you in that dirty L.A. alley…” I waved my purse in the air, chuckling. “Well, anyway, that was a mistake. It’s fine, though. I never needed a relationship to be satisfied sexually. I can take care of myself.”
He opened his mouth, about to say something, but I couldn’t bear to listen to what it might be.
“Hey, do you think it’s safe to leave?” I looked around us. “The smell is starting to get to me.”
“Hallie…” Ransom trailed off, looking miserable and disgusted with what I’d just told him. Maybe a little bit with himself, too, for his treatment of me. I couldn’t stand it. The pity.
“Please don’t be a sap.” I rolled my eyes. “Can we get out of here, or what?”
He nodded once, waltzing over to open the door for me.
Then.
Lawrence was the first to go solo.
When he turned eighteen, he got a full ride to college. We all thought Moruzzi was gonna change his tune. Sweeten up the deal for him to make him stick around in Chicago and do his biddings.
Not so. Moruzzi had decided, instead, to steal all of Lawrence’s savings and told him if he moved, his life would be over.
Lawrence moved, anyway. Tom and I chipped in to help him. Together, we both had about two grand, which wasn’t going to get Lawrence far, but it would buy him some time to find a job before he started his school year.
The night Lawrence left, Moruzzi drank. A lot. Mrs. Moruzzi wasn’t home. She’d gone to Toronto, to spend some time with her lover. I wondered why people stayed together. Marriage looked like a terrible cage to be trapped in. I vowed to never marry.
Moruzzi decided Tom and I should fight. We had no choice, so we did. Normally, I came out on top. But this time, I saw how down and depressed Tom was about the whole thing, so I let him win.
Later that night, Tom crawled over to my bedroom to stitch me up and share a bottle of whiskey he’d stolen from Moruzzi. We did it a lot—drank his booze. Moruzzi never paid attention. He was too much of a drunkard to keep track of his liquor stash.
“We need to kill him,” Tom said, after a long silence. “Or he’ll kill us. I know he will. When I went to get this whiskey from his office, I saw his desk. He is trying to figure out where Law lives. I think Law’s in danger.”
If Tom and I killed him, we wouldn’t have anywhere to go. Plus, we’d be the immediate suspects, after the police looked into it and found out what we did for him.
“We’ll need to get creative first.” I shook my head. “Buy time before we both turn eighteen.”