by JA Huss
“That,” she says, in a low, even tone, “is a man I never thought I’d have to see again. And right next to him is my… mother.”
Huck looks at the couple as they approach our table. “What the fuck?”
“The one who kidnapped you?” I ask.
“No,” the man says. “The one who sold her.”
“Why are you here?” Brooke seethes. “What the hell?” She looks around, presumably for Michael Conner, but there’s no way to know which one of these white-masked freaks is him.
“Did you even know that, Brooke?” the man continues.
“Know what?” she says.
“That he bought you. That he came to me asking for a girl.”
“Miklos?” Brooke squeaks.
“Did you really believe that story he told you? Did you really fall for the dying daughter bit?” He tsks his tongue. “Where did you think he got that passport with your picture on it? I warned him that you’d see through it. I insisted that it would never work. That you’re smarter than that. But you really weren’t, were you?”
Brooke stands up so fast her chair topples over. “Fuck you! Just fuck you!”
“It’s hard, isn’t it,” the man says, walking towards her. Huck gets to his feet first, ready to push him back if he gets any closer. But Wald and I follow. “It’s hard to hear the truth,” the man continues.
Brooke is shaking her head no.
“I know what he told you. He sent us letters every six months. Pictures, everything.”
“Letters?” Ehhh, God. I don’t even know how to process this.
“I know you believed him,” the man continues. “But everything he told you was a lie.”
“You’re the liar,” Brooke says. Then she looks around. “What the hell is this? Who invited him here?”
“Who invited me?” the man asks. He’s tall, olive-skinned. Clean-shaven and muscled, even though he’s older. Maybe mid-fifties. “Who invited you?” he scoffs.
“I invited her,” I say.
“Oh, yeah. You. Mr. Joey Boston. The whole reason we’re all here dealing with this bullshit the night before a birthday party.”
“Bullshit?” I say. “Not my bullshit, asshole. I didn’t sell my daughter. I came here to get her back.”
“What the actual fuck is going on here?” Wald interrupts.
“Don’t you know?” Michael says, suddenly reappearing, his white mask in his hand. “Don’t you know who your friend is, Wald? Didn’t he ever tell you? I suppose not. But are you really that fucking stupid that you have no idea what they do?”
I look at Wald. He’s squinting his eyes at me. “What’s he talking about, Joey?”
I don’t know. But I can’t even say I don’t know because no one would believe me. So I just say nothing.
“Ask him,” the woman says, jutting her chin towards me. I have now figured out this is Brooke’s mother. “Ask him why I had to sell you.”
“What?” I say. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Her mother start’s forward, hands raised like she’s going to climb on the table, crawl across it, and choke me the way I pictured choking Michael this afternoon.
I am so sure she will actually accomplish this, I flinch.
But the boyfriend pulls her back by the arm and shoves her behind him. “He did this, Brooke. He made us sell you. I owed them and when I couldn’t pay, their father came to me and gave me a choice.”
“What choice?” I growl. I want to know.
But then again, I don’t want to know. It can’t possibly help me to know this.
He looks me dead in the eyes and says, “The mother or the child. Miklos paid our debt and we gave him you, Brooke. All because the Boston family needed their money.”
“You make me sick,” Brooke says, getting to her feet. And for a moment I get this nauseating feeling in the pit of my stomach because I think she’s talking to me. “You both make me sick. Who in their right fucking mind sells a child! No one forced you to sell me! No one forced you to come here and tell me these things! You did that! Miklos saved me!”
“Saved you?” her mother laughs. “Why do you think middle-aged men buy little girls, Brooke? Think about it.”
And all I want to say is… You’re the one who sold her to him, lady.
But I don’t. Because again, it can’t possibly help me to say this.
Brooke locks eyes with me and she looks like she’s about to cry. “He didn’t do that to me. He never touched me.”
Huck takes her hand and pulls her into his chest. “We know, Brooke. We know.”
And then there’s Michael. Mask in hand, face twisted up into some ugly expression of anger and hatred. All traces of the loving, doting father gone now.
He looks at me. Points to me. Singles me out as other. As bad. As evil. “They take everything from us. We give them anything they ask for. Without question.”
Murmurings from the crowd. And they appear as a bunch of restless, caged-up carnivores. Angry, and tired, and hungry, and trapped. Ready to turn and pounce on the hunter who tamed them.
Which, apparently, is me. Since I’m the only person here with the last name Boston.
“And now”—Michael turns around to face the crowd—“now he’s here to take my child. Just like he took theirs!”
Which… is fucking insane. These two lowlifes just admitted they sold their kid to pay a debt. And they both thought she’d be used as a sex slave. So… again. Who are the sick fucks here?
Yet, this is all my fault?
I suddenly know how Jesse felt all those years trapped in the paparazzi net. How he took the fall for all of it. It didn’t matter how hard he protested. How tirelessly he tried to explain that he’d changed, no one cared. No one listened.
He was who he was and deserved all the blame.
I want to say all the things. I want to say, It’s not me. I’m not the one taking anything from you. That’s my brother. But it doesn’t matter. It’s not even true.
I take their money. Every cent of my money is theirs.
And I am here to take his child. Because she’s mine.
“Do you know what Joey Boston did this week after he didn’t get his way? Do you know what he did?”
A woman takes off her mask. I recognize her from that weird ceremony Johnny made us watch up in the Bossy Building spire.
Then a man takes off his mask. And another. And another. And two more women.
And they glare at me. They look at me like I am filth. Like I am evil incarnate.
“He bought a girl,” Michael says, pointing to Brooke, “to be his girlfriend. But that’s what they do! He bought her then he bought her that ring on her finger so he could convince the world she was his. He bought a seven-million-dollar house to keep her in. The same place he will keep my daughter if we don’t do something to stop him. And he told Johnny.”
That is the only part that makes them all start whispering.
“He told him,” Michael continues.
“You said,” someone shouts from the back, “that Johnny Boston didn’t know about this!”
“You told us he’d never find out!” a woman adds.
Several people get up and start to walk out.
“Wait” Michael says. “Wait! We have to stand together! Right now! This is it! This needs to stop!”
A guy very close to our table—a young guy, maybe even my age—says, “Fuck that,” and turns his back.
“Wait!” Michael insists. “I will pay him. I will make him go away. But we need to stand together. We all need to stand together or he’ll go back to his brother and things will get worse.”
Michael snaps his fingers and dozens of footmen appear wheeling trunks. They set them down in front of our table. Those who were leaving pause. Several are standing in the doorway of the ballroom. Hesitant. Maybe hopeful that this will all turn out OK and second-guessing their immediate first reaction of surrender.
“What the hell is going on?” Wald whispers
.
“I don’t know,” I say. Because I don’t. Not really.
But I have a very good idea of what’s coming next. Because I’ve already seen it once. Not like this. Not exactly.
But it’s all close enough to be familiar.
A footman opens the first trunk. But it takes four more—six men total—to pick it up and dump it out on the table.
It’s cash. Bundles and bundles of cash.
“One hundred million,” Michael roars. But he’s already motioning for the next trunk. The footmen appear and dump it out.
“Two hundred million,” Michael yells.
And then it happens again, and again, and again until most of the money is piled up in front of the table because no more can fit on top of it.
“One point five billion dollars,” Michael says through clenched teeth. “That’s my personal contribution. Just for you. Keep it,” he says. “Just take it with you when you leave, Mr. Boston. Put it all in the back of that truck and drive away and promise that you’ll never come back. That you’ll never soil this place with your disgusting face again. That you will not ruin my daughter the way your family ruins everything they touch by forcing her to leave her home and take your filthy name.”
He pauses.
I clench my jaw.
“That’s all I ask,” he whispers. “Just leave us alone.”
I say nothing.
“What?” Michael asks when I don’t react. “It’s not enough? You need more? How much more? What will it take to make you go away?” He turns to the crowd. “Which of you would help me? How many of you are tired of this? How many of you want out? Do you even know why you pay them?”
I look at the crowd. Silent. And then sit down.
I know what they see. I know what that silence and my sitting says.
They see a thug. My silence and sitting implies we have an arrangement.
But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just… confused. And angry. Because this really was just about my daughter and now it’s turned into something else. Something dirty and disgusting. Like Brooke’s happy memories of the man who didn’t kidnap her to replace a dead daughter. Bought her. Probably for reasons she’d rather not know about.
And then the added insult that her mother and the boyfriend not only allowed the fake kidnapping to take place, but coordinated it.
With my father.
If I was alone right now I’d lean over and vomit.
But I’m not alone. And if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s pretend.
So when a man steps forward and says, “I’ll help,” That’s what I do. I pretend. He takes off his mask and throws it on top of the pile of money. He’s old. Seventies? Eighties? Maybe even nineties. He’s just fuckin’ old.
He reaches into his suit coat and pulls out a checkbook. Writes a check in an unsteady hand, rips it off the pad, and then walks around the table to place it on my plate.
I look down at it.
Nine zeros after the number one on that check.
Nine. Fucking zeroes.
I look up at him and he says, “Make it stop. We’re tired of living like this. Just… stop.”
And then there’s someone behind him. Writing a check. Placing it on my plate. Giving me money. Just like those people did—these same people did—up in the Bossy spire that night.
Only this time they’re giving it to me, not Johnny.
There’s more. More. More of them come up and place these checks on my plate.
I can’t even begin to imagine how much money is sitting in front of me.
Sometime during this whole procession I realize they are leaving the ballroom after they pay me so when it’s finally over, when the last person places her check on my plate—which is just a haphazard pile of thick paper now—the room is empty of everyone but me, and Huck, and Wald, and Brooke… and Michael.
Brooke, Huck and Wald have been standing behind me the entire time.
And that’s loyalty right there. I tell you what, that’s some real fucking loyalty.
But it’s misplaced, this loyalty. They don’t know it yet, but it’s wrong.
I look at Michael.
He says, “Is it enough? Will you go away and never come back?”
I slowly shake my head. Then clear my throat to find my voice. “No,” I say. Whispering the words. “It’s not enough. Because I didn’t come here for this. I came here to meet my daughter. That’s it. That’s all I wanted. Just a chance to know her. And you’re the one who turned that into this.”
Michael’s face is red with rage. He points his finger at me. “You’re the bad guy, Joey Boston. You. Not me. Not us. You are the bad guy here. You know why you can turn your nose up at this offer?”
I have a feeling he’s going to tell me.
“Because you already have it,” Michael seethes. “You don’t need it because you already have it.” His narrowed eyes are locked with mine. He works his jaw. Clenching it. I wait for him to take a swing. I might not be much of a fighter, but I know what a man looks like when he hates you. When he wants to knock your teeth out. When he maybe even wants to kill you.
And now I also know what a man looks like when he defiantly has no intention of letting you be a father to his child. Part-time, or otherwise.
“I never asked for it,” I say. “It probably doesn’t matter to you, but I never asked for it.”
Michael shakes his head, looks at each of us. Me. Then Huck, then Wald, then Brooke. “If I were you,” he says. Talking to them. “I’d cut your losses and throw this one back.”
And then he walks out.
I watch him leave. I watch him throw open the ballroom doors and disappear.
“And then there were four,” Brooke says.
“What. The. Fuck. Just happened?” Huck asks.
“Nothing,” I say, getting to my feet. I take a deep breath, straighten my jacket, and then turn to face my friends. “Nothing happened. And we really are leaving now.”
I start to walk away but Brooke reaches out and grabs my arm. I look down at her hand. Then up at her eyes.
She shakes her head. “You’re not walking out of here like that.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Alone.” Then she takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “Some secrets break people apart. And some bring them together. I have no idea what I just witnessed, but… do you even know who we are?”
I don’t laugh. She’s not saying it as a joke.
“We’re Huck,” Huck says, taking Brooke’s hand.
“And Wald,” Wald says, taking my hand.
“And Brooke,” she says, giving mine another squeeze.
I nod. Frowning. Nod again. Then say, “And Joey.”
And that’s how we leave.
Once and for all, we are four.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - BROOKE
“Why do you think they brought him there?” I ask. I’ve been thinking about this the whole ride home. How did my mother’s boyfriend end up here? It makes no sense at all. I just don’t understand it. “Why him? Why now? Why did they need to hurt me like that?”
“Just… let it go,” Wald says. “Those people are fucking insane.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” I say.
“You don’t think they’re insane?” Huck asks. “Or you’re running reasons through your head and can’t agree on one? Because listen to me, Brooke.” He turns around in his seat so he can look me in the eyes. “That was a shit show of epic proportions. I can’t even make sense of it.”
“I didn’t do anything to them. I don’t even know what that was about. All I did was stand with my friend. That’s it. And they planned this. They found them—”
“They didn’t find them, Brooke,” Joey says, cutting me off. He’s sitting in back with me. Just staring out the window. “They were part of this before you came along.”
“How do you know that? And part of what? What was that?”
“Just… drop it for now, OK? I don�
��t have answers for you. And even if I did I don’t think I could tell you.”
“You don’t have answers? How do you not understand? That whole thing was about you!”
“I know,” Joey says. “I get that much. But everything else… I just don’t know.”
He growls the last part. Maybe he’s angry. I’d be angry. But Joey’s growl isn’t anger. It’s frustration.
“OK,” I say. “Fine. I’ll drop it.”
But even if he isn’t angry, I am. They brought my mother and her boyfriend to that… dinner. Meeting. Whatever it was. Just so they could rip apart my memories. All my good memories.
And they were real memories. That was my real life. Wasn’t it? Suddenly I have no clue which parts were the lies and which parts were the truth.
I don’t know what that means. I don’t know how to process that. Because lies… I’m good at those. I know them. They’re my family now. Or they were. Now I can’t tell the difference and everything is upside down and backwards.
When we walked out of the ballroom there was no one in the house. Not one person. Not a single family member. Not a single child. They weren’t even outside. There were no carousel rides happening. There was no pre-party celebration.
We headed straight for the door and we could see that Wald’s truck was waiting for us in front of the house. Our luggage was lined up neatly on the curb.
They packed us up and brought them down and got our car because they knew we’d be leaving.
And you know what the added insult to injury was?
That guard didn’t wave goodbye when we passed through the gates. We didn’t even have to stop. The gate was open. And when we drove through I could almost hear Michael Conner say, Don’t let it hit you in the ass on the way out.
We were never invited to that party. We were never going to spend the weekend at that special place. They wanted us here tonight so we’d go away and let them have their party tomorrow.
We were never part of the family. We were never going to be a part of that family.
It was an ambush.
“I don’t get it,” I say.
