by JA Huss
“Fuck. How the hell do you write a check for five million instead of fifty thousand, Tori?”
“Online bill pay?” I laugh. I have to laugh. It’s so fucking sad I have to laugh. “I just don’t know how it happened.”
“Do you think…” He stops, shakes his head a little. “It’s stupid, but… do you think someone fucked up your payment on purpose?”
“Who would do that?”
“I dunno,” West says. “Maybe a jealous mob boyfriend?”
“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” I snap.
“Sorry, I know that. I just don’t have another label for him.”
“Abuser,” I say. “You can call him my ex-abuser.”
“OK,” West says. “Him. Do you think it was him?”
I want to say no. I want to say he’s been out of my life for too many years to care what I’m doing. I want to say I got away and the past is in the past.
But I can’t.
So I say, “Yes,” instead. “I have always thought it was him. And I think he was the one who set me up with the Liam contract too. I think all of this goes back to me, Weston. Not you. The rape, the island, everything. It’s all my fault.”
Chapter Forty-Two - Weston
We hold hands on the way back down to the living room where Five, Oliver, and Pax are sitting at the bar, drinking as they watch televised horse racing on the flatscreen TV.
They all stop talking and look at us when we come towards them.
“I think we have a problem,” I say. Tori squeezes my hand and I squeeze hers back. Her squeeze says, No, please, don’t tell them. My squeeze says, Trust me.
She stands still by my side, for once in her life taking my promise at face value.
I want to kiss her right now. I want to kiss her long, and deep, and softly. So softly, she will melt into my arms and we will float into some other life where shit is not hitting the fan and people are not trying to kill us.
But that has to wait.
So we tell her story again. Together.
Five stops us at the phone call at her work, asking, “Who was it? Did you recognize the voice?”
“No,” Tori answers. “But he sounded young. Our age. I think it was one of Lucio’s men.”
Five walks over to a briefcase, pulls out a laptop, opens it up on the bar, and starts typing.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Checking her phone records for that day.”
“Go on,” Pax says, unable to keep the impatience out of his voice.
“He said he’d give me a fair chance at that contract to rebuild my business and he’d pay my debt off. All I had to do was keep West busy for a couple days.”
“So they could rob him,” Oliver says.
She shrugs.
“It’s not your fault, Tori,” I say. “The part you guys need to know, the part I never told you because Five insisted we not share stories, is what’s important here.”
“What’s that?” Oliver asks. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I saw her,” Tori says. “I was there that night she said she was raped, you guys. I was standing in the trees in the back of the house. It was dark that night, remember? So no one could see me. I was freaked out because my… rapist…” She stops talking and shakes her head, drawing in a breath like oxygen contains the courage she needs. “So I was hiding. Just waiting for West to come outside so I could see him.”
It takes a lot of courage for Tori to use that word in front of my friends. So much fucking courage. I pull her in tighter and give her a hug.
“Lucio was looking for me. He attacked me the night before you guys were accused. And I have a feeling he is the one who set you up. I know Weston never touched that girl. She was drunk by that time, but I saw the entire interaction. West was with some buddies out back. They were drinking and laughing. Then they went inside and I was just about to make myself known when she came stumbling up. She had her hands all over West, but he pushed her away and asked her if she needed a cab home. She took a swing at him, missed, and fell down. That’s when I came out of the shadows, and we went up to his room.”
“You knew this?” Pax asks, looking at me.
“This was my story. I always had a witness. I was never worried about it. But Five told us to shut the fuck up, so I shut the fuck up.”
Everyone looks over at Five, who is still typing away. “Keep going,” he says, without taking his eyes off his screen. “I’m listening.”
“It was him,” Tori says. “It was Lucio Gori Junior who set you guys up. It was Lucio Gori Junior who raped me, over and over as a child. And if I had to guess, I’d say it was Lucio Gori’s friend who called me and offered me that contract.”
“Bingo,” Five says, spinning his laptop around. “That call came from a bar owned by Lucio Gori Senior.”
“That motherfucker set us up,” Pax says. “I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna fucking kill that asshole.”
“No,” Five says. “No, we’re not killing him. The last thing we need is the mob on our asses. And we don’t have any evidence, other than Tori’s story, that any of them were involved in the rape accusations.”
“Then we need to get that evidence,” Pax says, walking towards us. “I want my fucking name cleared, do you understand me?”
He’s looking at Tori like this is all her fault.
“Hey,” I say, putting my hand up in front of Pax’s face. “She didn’t smear your name. That Lucio asshole did.”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s the one who can get the evidence we need. She’s the one who can get close to him. Not us,” Pax says.
“She’s not doing anything, Pax, so back the fuck off. And don’t give me this ‘I’m innocent’ bullshit again. We all know you’re not innocent.”
“Fuck you,” he roars. “You don’t know shit.”
“I know you’re one twisted dude.”
“Fuck—”
“Hey,” Oliver says, coming between us. “Knock it off, Pax. Just calm the fuck down and let us figure this out.”
“What we need,” Five says, head buried in his computer again, “is some incriminating evidence. Something to tie him to the whole rape thing ten years ago. Something concrete. Something irrefutable. Something that would stand up in court.”
“Something like… a confession?” Tori asks.
We all turn to look at her.
“Yeah,” Oliver says. “Something like that.”
She bites her lip, like she wants to say more, and when I look at Pax and Oliver’s faces, I realize what they’re considering.
“Fuck you both,” I say. “She’s not gonna be the bait.”
“How would you get a confession?” Five asks, walking away from his computer and towards us. “It was ten years ago.”
“She’s not gonna get anything,” I say again, only louder. “Tori, you’re not doing this.”
“I think he’s just arrogant enough to tell me the truth,” Tori says.
“Stop it, Victoria.” I look over at Pax and Oliver. “She’s not participating in this con, you assholes.”
“What if I go home to Brooklyn, let him know I’m there? Keep him in some public place. And then start telling him all these things about you guys that might lead him on. Make him talk?”
“Why the fuck are you ignoring me?” I grab Tori by her arm and make her face me. “Stop it. You’re not going near that guy ever again. I don’t care what kind of confession he might give up.”
Tori looks me in the eyes, then turns away and resumes talking to Five, Oliver, and Pax. “What if I get him to admit what he did? And get it on tape. Then you have me first-hand witnessing that girl coming on to Weston ten years ago, and Lucio’s confession. That’s more than enough to charge him with whatever.” She looks up at me, like she’s just remembering I’m here. “What kind of charges could we get him on, Weston? If he planned all that ten years ago?”
“We’re not doing this,” I say, trying to remain calm. “You�
��re not doing this. It wasn’t even Lucio—” I stop before I say too much. Everyone is talking at the same time, putting in their opinions, Tori arguing that she knows that neighborhood, and him. Pax yelling about his stupid reputation. So my blunder goes unnoticed.
“Felony obstruction,” Five says, answering Tori’s question once things calm down. “Conspiracy, maybe blackmail. If we find more people involved.”
“Tori, please. Listen to me. I’m not going to let you do this.”
Tory stays quiet for a few moments. I look at Pax, and Oliver, who are both refusing to meet my gaze. Then she turns to me and says, “You don’t get to make this decision, West. I love you, and I want to be with you. But we have these things,” she says, “hanging over our heads. And I can’t live my life waiting for him to come back and hurt me. And you can’t live your life waiting for someone to pop back up and try to nail this rape thing on you again. And before you say, Who cares, I didn’t do it—it doesn’t matter. If you’re a team,” she says, waving her hand at my friends, “then you stay a team.” She turns back to the guys and says, “It has to be done. And I’m the only one who can do it. It just has to be done.”
“He’s never going to confess, Victoria. Never. He’s not stupid. He’s the son of a major mob boss. You won’t be hunting him. He’ll be hunting you.”
“Well,” she says, turning away from me and towards my friends, “then I guess I better get some pointers from Mr. Mysterious here.” She looks me dead in the eyes for her final words. “Because I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of letting the memory of what he did haunt me. I’m tired of running, Weston Conrad. And you of all people should understand how that feels.”
“I do,” I say. “I fucking do. But we don’t even know how this fits into the plot with Liam. Maybe it’s nothing. Did it ever occur to you that Liam was the one who set us up?”
“Corporate’s right,” Five says. “It could be Liam.”
“But wait.” Oliver turns to look at Five. “We have to follow the trail from the origin. And the only origin we have right now is Lucio Gori. We should go with Victoria’s plan. And we should do it now.”
“Fuck you,” I spit at Oliver. “Just fuck you. The origin is Liam, asshole. Liam is the one everyone is connected to. And how much you wanna bet Liam and the Gori family are old friends. You’re not calling the shots here, Oliver. We should go after Liam first. We all agreed to listen to Five ten years ago, so let’s agree to that now.”
“You’re only saying that because he doesn’t like her plan,” Pax says.
“So? He’s the fucking genius, right? We should listen to Five.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Tori snaps, yanking her arm out of my grip. “How many times do I have to make this clear, Corporate? I’m not your property. You don’t dictate my actions. You’re not allowed to discount my opinions.” She lifts her chin up in defiance. “You’re not calling my shots, Corporate. I’m calling my shots. I’m doing this for me. Not your friends, me. I want Lucio gone and I want to be the person who puts him away. This is my fight, so stay the fuck out of it.”
She turns and walks towards the front door.
I wince as the glass doors slam shut and then look over at Five. “It’s your call. You let me know. But I’ll make this very clear right now. If you say yes, and she gets hurt, I will fuck you up.”
Chapter Forty-Three - Victoria
Why does he have to assume I’m going to get hurt? I am at least as dangerous as he claims to be. He knows this. I can handle myself. I can protect myself. I’ve worked my ass off for fifteen years to get to this point and if you ask me, this is like God telling me it’s my turn. It’s finally my turn to show Lucio Gori that he’s not in charge of me. That I’m not afraid of him and his threats. That he has no power over me anymore. That I will fight back and I will kick his ass.
“Kick his ass,” I say out loud to nobody.
“I’m sure you could.”
I whirl around to find Weston standing just outside the front doors. “You say that, Weston Conrad, but you don’t mean it.”
“Victoria.” He comes up to me and places both hands on my shoulders, gives them a little squeeze. He leans down into my neck. “It’s just…” he says, his warm words tickling my ear. “Something like this can’t be predicted. You’re a fighter. I know that. You’re tough, and strong, and probably very deadly. But you cannot predict him or his reaction. And a few advanced jujitsu moves will never change the fact that he will probably have a gun. That he could shoot you dead. And if that happens, I will die too, Tori. I will die getting revenge on him. Because now that I have you back I’m not letting you go. I won’t let you do this. I will tie you up and go take care of him myself if you try.”
I whirl around, so angry. So pissed off that he can’t see whose fight this is. “You have no idea the fear I had of him all growing up. You have no idea how many nights I still lie awake at night, wondering if he’s forgotten me or if he’s coming back. I need him to be gone, West.”
“Let me do it, Tori. Please, just let me do it.”
“And if you get hurt?” I ask, shaking my head. “If you get hurt doing what I should’ve done a long time ago? No. No, I can’t live with that either.”
“Then let the guys take care of it. We’ll sit this out and let Mysterious work his magic. Let Five do his thing. You don’t have to be the one who ends it to make it end.”
The door opens and we both look up to see Five standing in the doorway.
“Choose carefully,” West says. “I’m not fucking kidding, man. Do not make this choice lightly.”
Five stares at West for a moment, then shifts his gaze to me. How I ever thought of him as Vlad the pilot is beyond me. He’s one hell of an actor, because that persona is so far away from this serious man in black standing before me, it’s scary.
“I think we should take a night to sleep on it, Weston.”
I exhale, ready to blurt out all the reasons why I am the right person for this job. But West squeezes my shoulders again and says, “I’m taking her to my house in LA. We need to have a night alone. With no hurricane, or mercenaries, or any of this fucked-up shit hanging over us. So meet us there in the morning and we’ll decide.”
I expect a fight from Five, but he just nods his head, reaches into his pocket, and throws West some keys. “You can take my car. Mysterious can drive us up. But be ready at dawn. I’ll have Match set up the jet to pick us up from Burbank near your house. It doesn’t matter who we go after. The Gori guy or Liam. Both of them are on the East Coast, so that’s where we need to be. And we need to move fast. Before they’re on to us. Before they realize we’re on to them.”
We stand silent as Five retreats, and then I turn to West and slide my arms into his suit coat. The muscles of his waist are rock hard and his shirt is super-soft. I grab hold of the fabric and place my cheek on his shoulder.
“One night, Tori. In my house. With nothing between us. No lies, no secrets, no court cases, no hate. Just us, just the truth, just the love I know we feel for each other. I need that right now.” He sighs. “I just really need that right now.”
“OK,” I say. I don’t know how we can just put all this drama aside, but I agree. I need to decompress. I need to feel safe and loved. So I say it again. “OK. Let’s go. Let’s get the fuck out of here and just forget for a night.”
We drive all evening. West talks about anything and everything except what really needs to be discussed. But I give in about halfway through the trip and just settle. I listen, and we laugh about things. And talk about things. And I think it hits both of us, somewhere near Disneyland, that we’ve missed so many moments over the years because we’ve been too busy fighting. Too busy looking for what we want and not being grateful for what we have.
He talks about business and his grand plan to expand globally. How he wants to set up shop in all kinds of places I’ve never been to, like Russia, and Japan, and France. Places he’s already seen. He’s
familiar with. Places I haven’t even had time to dream about, let alone visit.
And I talk about the kids at the house. And when I tell him about one boy I’ve taken a liking to—Ethan, a boy I’ve been thinking about adopting as my own—he goes silent. Just like I did when he told me about his travels.
He wants a family and I’m about to get one without him.
“You don’t really need me, do you?”
“What?” I ask, as the darkness overtakes us and the city lights turn all this ugly traffic and urban decay into something beautiful.
“You don’t need me.”
“Why do you say that? I mean, I love you, Weston. I have always loved you. Before I even knew you were handsome. I met you in the dark when you were crashing. I didn’t know you had money, or good looks, or grand aspirations. But I knew, that night when we were sitting under those trees, that I was going to love you. That you would be my best friend forever. And when it started falling apart I used to cry, you know. Just cry about how lonely I would be when you finally moved on. When you got tired of me.”
“Tori,” he says, reaching for my hand. “I just want to give you a better life. That’s all. I don’t want to capture your heart, I want you to hand it over.”
“But you never asked what a better version of my life was. You never asked me anything back then. You wanted a family. OK, I do too. But I have a different vision of what family means, West.”
“I know that,” he says. “I mean, I guess I didn’t then. But I realize it now. I’m just so tired of hearing you say no to my help. Why can’t you just accept it with grace? Just say, ‘Thank you, West. I needed that right now.’ And let it go? Not have my help be an assault on your independence?”
“I don’t want to stay home with kids, West.”