Page 121 of Joey

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.