I beg the numbers to move faster. Heat crawls up my spine. The suit feels like it’s shrinking around me.
Floor 25.
“Don’t you want to see her all the time? It’s got to be hard on her. On you.”
Floor 20.
I swallow. “We’re making it work.”
Floor 15.
“I was impressed with her ideas for marketing in Asia. It’s something I’ve been kicking around.”
Floor 10.
“But my dad didn’t want to take the risk.”
Floor 5.
“She’s very smart.”
Floor 3.
I nod.
Floor 1.
The elevator lurches slightly, rocking me. The doors slide open. And behind me, I hear him say, softly and fondly, “I liked that she called me Zeus.”
“I remember.”
The words hang in my mind, then fall with a sickening, wet thud. My journal still rests in my lap. I flip to the page where the paper curls from pressure and too much ink. A sea monster fills the page. It looks a lot like Terk, looming over a nearly naked girl. She isn’t flinching. She isn’t cowering from certain death. She looks resigned.
A few people glance at the drawing. Silence spreads. Like steam rolling off a lake, realization hits everyone at once. Lena squeezes my arm. A soft, grounding hold. She needs something solid.
“So, Terk sexually coerced the girls in exchange for skyrocketing their boyfriends’ careers,” CJ whispers. A broken laugh slips out. “Shit, this explains every relationship you had in your early twenties. No one lasted more than nine months. You never brought them to events. It’s probably why you started hooking up with guys. You didn’t have a serious relationship until you were with me.” His voice tightens. “Terk wouldn’t go near me.”
I can’t look at Alana. I don’t want to see her face. The horror. The fear. Would she be relieved? Am I relieved? I didn’t cheat on her. Not really. I was trying to protect her. Lena’s grip tightens on my arm, squeezing until it nearly hurts.
“She would have done anything for you,” Amanda says but drops her head and whispers, “For us.”
Quiet blankets the room.
I was protecting her. That’s how much I loved her. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to her. Relief spreads through me. Almost joy. I did something good. Something worthy of her. But Alana’s head is bowed, shoulders rigid. Her hair hides her face.
I take a step toward her, reaching out. “It was never because I didn’t love you.”
She knocks my hands away. Her eyes blaze with a rage I’ve never seen. Not her cool, quiet anger. Not her righteous fury in defense of others. This is different.
“No,” she says. “This is worse.”
I recoil. It feels like standing in front of a machine gun. “What?”
Alana destroys people with words. When she does, her voice is cold and surgical. She slices at insecurities without ever sounding wounded. Now her body trembles. Every word bleeds. “You let a monster into our home. Your lives were tormented by Terk fucking Henderson. Abused. Used. Thrown away.”
“He would’ve done that to you!” I snap. The words don’t land.
“You didn’t trust me,” she hisses. “I had to protect you from a distance for years because you sent me away. And you made him stronger.”
