Page 120 of Joey

“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.”