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I CAN’T GO ON WITHOUT HIM.
I don’t remember what happened after that. I don’t remember calling Dad, but I must’ve because at some point he was there too, at the house, holding me, crying on my shoulder, stroking my hair as he held me against his chest. I can’t remember him doing that before or since.
“You think Malloy had something to do with Mom’s death?” I need to sit down. My head swims. But I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me affected by this.
“Your mother was a fighter. She had to be. She was married to me. I don’t believe she killed herself.” Dad swallows. “I have contacts with a dangerous man named Constantine Dio. He’s connected with one of the crime families my task force has been hunting. I told them I’d look the other way in Emerald Beach if they put the hit out on Malloy and his family. I would take from him what he took from me.”
My knees buckle. I grip the doorframe to hold myself upright.
My mother didn’t kill herself.
Howard Malloy took her from me, all because of this shipment. Howard Malloy destroyed my life, my family, and got clean away with it.
“What was this shipment?” Claudia demands. She keeps her body facing my father, but her eyes flick to me. I draw strength from her defiance. It takes everything I have to keep standing, keep breathing, keep my fingers from sliding around my father’s neck and squeezing the life from his cowardly body.
“I told you, I have no idea.” The senator shifts some papers on his desk. “Now, if that’s all, I have some work to get on with.”
She laughs. “That wasn’t my favor, Senator. We were just talking.”
He rises in his seat, his face murderous. Claudia twirls the tip of her blade on the corner of his desk. He sits back down again.
“I have fifty-three women and girls, brought here from various countries to be sold into sexual slavery. I want you to help them.”
He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again. Of all the favors he imagined owing Mackenzie Malloy, this never made the list.
He throws up his hands. “What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t care. What I want you to promise is that you won’t go after the people responsible.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s just say it will create trouble for me. And if I have trouble, you have trouble, Senator. You’re lucky; I’m handing you an opportunity. Imagine the headlines, Senator Marlowe rescues women from sex slavery ring. It’s an election-winner. Don’t forget to thank me in your speech.” She draws a thumb-drive from her pocket and sets it on his desk. “All the information about the women is on there.”
He palms the drive, his knuckles white. He nods to Claudia, then turns to me. His eyes swim with misery, but I refuse to acknowledge it. He lost the right to hurt for the loss of Felix and Mom a long time ago. “I’ll see you out, son.”
He walks us stiffly to the front door, holding it wide open for us. “Noah, don’t forget about the alumni event.”
“Huh?”
“It’s next month at that new club in Brawley, Vault. All my old college buddies will be there. It’s the perfect chance for them to meet you. Grace is expecting you to be there.” I notice he throws it back to my stepmother. He knows I’ll do anything for her. He averts his eyes. “I think it will be… good for you to see your options after graduation.”
I stiffen. How can he assume I’ll just waltz into this stuffy event at his side, his Felix-replacement son, after everything he’s told me?
I open my mouth to give him my mind, but Claudia bats her eyelashes and stays my arm. “We wouldn’t miss it.”
Claudia
As soon as we get home, I kick everyone out of the ballroom. Noah’s face is a storm of emotion – he’s dancing on the knife-edge of control. There’s only one thing he wants to do right now – kill, maim, destroy.
I can help with that.
I toss him one of the bastons I purchased for practicing Arnis, and take up my position facing him on the mats. We’ve been drilling Benjie’s lesson practically every day, but Noah needs more than foot movements and drills. He needs more than the joyful destruction of the rage room.
He needs to fight someone who’s not afraid of getting hurt by him. Someone who will welcome his fury. He needs his rage mirrored back at him.
As soon as Noah’s hands grip the baston, he understands what I’m giving him. He flies at me with a roar. Our bastons clash together, and it takes all of my strength not to collapse under the force of his onslaught. He doesn’t hold back, and I love it.
We dance across the mats, the clash of our sticks and the roar of adrenaline in my ears the only sound in the room. I misjudge a block, and Noah whacks my arm. The sting of it pools heat in my belly. The air between our bastons crackles with anticipation. Are we fighting or fucking? There’s little difference.
