It took a while for his words to sink in. For them to register. My heart shuddered at what he was implying. I shook my head, faster and faster the more his hooked lip turned into a triumphant grin.
He didn’t mean it. He was fucking with me.
“I wanted you.” Ollie sighed. “But my old man thought my need for you was weird. Kept telling me to forget about you. That I was being a creep.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, a few days later my old man had a terrible, terrible helicopter accident and met his untimely end, leaving little old me in charge of our empire, of the organisation that was unthreading the underworld, one stitch at a time.”
Cold. All I felt was coldness. Shards of ice sank into my flesh and scraped down each of my bones, making them ache. It was excruciating. “Our business fell to me, and I had a few people I suddenly needed to pay up earlier than planned.”
My dad. Hugo.
“You guessed it.” He made sure I was listening as he said, “They didn’t take too much convincing. We all knew Hugo didn’t love you, not like that anyway. He only ever wanted the company. And dear old Dad was in such deep shit that I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
“You’re lying,” I hissed, but my voice lacked any kind of strength.
“It was simple really,” Ollie said. “To set it all up. You were due to get married—of course that wasn’t ever going to happen once the deal was done. But you didn’t have to know that.”
“You killed them,” I said, feeling that ice start to thaw, rage sneaking through.
“Or did we set that video up to make you think that?”
Every part of me stilled.
No … no, no, no … He was lying. He had to be lying.
Ollie nodded at his men, smiling at me as they left the room. I heard muffled voices outside the room we were in. Then, appearing at the doorway, risen from the dead, was my father and Hugo.
I broke. As I saw their faces, alive and well, I broke apart.
“Cheska,” Hugo whispered, and the colour drained from his face. The man holding his arm pushed him into the room. Hugo fell to the floor a few feet from where we sat.
“Cheska, no …” Gene said beside me. His voice was filled with sorrow for what I was seeing.
My stare moved from Hugo to my father. My father. Who had sold me. Who Ollie said had sold me.
“Cheska,” Dad said, and his eyes shimmered with tears. He tried to reach for me, but the man holding him brought him to his knees too, right beside Hugo. They looked the same as they always had. Rumpled from being brought here, but the same.
Where had they been living all this time? Had they even felt guilty for what they had done?
“No,” I said, refusing to believe the truth that was staring me in the face.
“Cheska,” Hugo said, face crumpling. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“You sold me,” I said, but I was looking right at my father. My father. The man who was supposed to care for me. Love me. But all he had ever been was cold. After Mum died, there had been no love in my world. For once, I was glad my mum was dead. If she were still alive, this would have killed her.
“Ollie said he was going to take care of you. He said he wouldn’t hurt you. That he loved you.” My dad swallowed. As if he knew the words he was spilling were utter bollocks. “You always liked Ollie.” Dad’s head dropped, and in my whole life I had never seen him look broken. He had never been anything but confident and strong. But before me now, he appeared weak, defeated. Finally, I saw the guilt pulsing off him in waves.
“You sold me,” I repeated, his look of apology bouncing off me like I was Teflon.
“The debts were too much.” Hugo’s eyes were like the girl’s had been on the floor. Devoid of life. And I knew, looking at my old fiancé, that he was wracked with the guilt he rightly should have felt. Hugo’s ambition had always been his Achille’s heel.
I’d just never dreamed that I would be the person they sold out to save their own skins.
“You see, Cheska,” Ollie said. “I was your saviour.” Ollie walked to where my dad and Hugo kneeled. “Your