Elegant Sins - Stasia Black Page 0,76
at her. Protected her,” my father said. “And I knew you were getting too close. You cared about her whether you wanted to admit it or not.”
He pointed to where Grace and St. Claire still remained hidden behind the sheet. “This right here should be a real lesson to you. She could have refused. She could scream for your help right now, and no doubt you would go running to her. She could resist, or even cry out, or use her safe word.”
He got right in my face with his liquor-foul breath. “But she didn’t. She chose to willingly walk with St. Claire and fuck him for the sake of a pay day. And do you know why?”
When I didn’t answer, he continued on. A male groan of satisfaction came from beyond the sheet and I wanted to tear the house down. But in front of my father especially, I would not show one twitch of emotion.
“Because money is all she cares about. She does not care about you. Money is all any woman will ever care about. With wealth comes burden. You can’t be a Prince Charming and have your princess too. You’ll be used your entire life, and the only way to counter that is to use them first so you don’t care. It’s the way of the world, boys. Fuck before you’re fucked.”
Either bored with the conversation, or annoyed he wasn’t getting anything from me other than engaging with an emotionless robot who did nothing but stare ahead, my father walked away to find a more entertaining audience.
“Ignore him,” Walker said. “He’s just trying to piss you off more.”
“He has a good point though,” Sully cut in. “That woman clearly is here for the paycheck.” He looked at me, and I could feel his eyes studying me. “Did you really care about her like your father said? If so, I’m sorry, man. This is fucked up.”
I shrugged and finally took a long drink. Breaking my stare away from the silver sheet, I refocused my attention back toward my friends. “She has her marching orders, and I have mine. We have to do what we have to do to get through this Initiation.”
“You’re a shitty liar,” Beau said as he patted my back. “But I suppose we’ll all have our turn battling the demons we’ll be faced with.
Beau was correct.
I was a shitty liar.
I was fucking dying inside.
But Grace and I had a mission. We had loaded the gun, pulled the trigger, and there was no stopping the bullet mid-shot.
22
Montgomery
The knock on the door had me shooting straight out of bed. Grace stirred but didn’t fully wake up. I had been tossing and turning for most of the night trying to get the image of Grace on auction out of my head, so it didn’t take much to wake me from my fitful slumber. We had gone to bed barely saying more than a few words to each other.
What was there to say?
We had to do what we had to do. She had to do what she had to do, just as I did.
But would we ever be the same when this was all over? Would the darkness swallow us up completely? As we approached the finish line, the walls were closing in on me and I felt like the suffocation would soon be too much.
“Montgomery?” Mrs. H whispered as she entered the room wearing a robe and slippers. She extended her hand and gave me a cell phone. “I think you better take this call.”
She then tiptoed out of the room as I put the phone to my ear.
“This is Montgomery Kingston,” I said, anxious to know what was so important to have to call me at this hour. I glanced at the bedside table to see that it was three in the morning.
God, please don’t let it be anything involving my mother. Please…
“There’s a shipment arriving at the warehouse in an hour that your father is meeting. The Feds know what’s on the cargo, and a bust is planned,” said a man’s voice that sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite recognize.
“Who is this?”
“A friend.”
“How do you know about the shipment? Who are you, and how do you know the Feds are coming?” Warning bells were banging in my head.
“Do what you want with the information, but in one hour your father and all the men he’s with will be arrested.”
A click. Silence.
“Hello? Hello?”
I put down the cell and stared straight ahead as I tried to process