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“That’s not possible. You’re not going home today, or any time soon.”
My mouth goes dry, and my mind stops working, as if someone pulled the plug on it.
A sheet of blankness covers my mind, and I can’t move past it. All I see is him before me. Tall and foreboding, like a dark storm cloud drifting over the sea, getting ready to wreak destruction.
I stare at him, then, as if someone switched me back on, the gravity of the situation and what he’s actually saying hits me, striking my being like a bolt of lightning.
All at once, everything important—everything that depends on me—pushes to the forefront of my mind.
Grams.
Dru.
The restaurant.
Sebastian.
“What are you saying to me?” I choke out, trying to regain control of my voice. “Why the fuck are you doing this to me? I have people and a business who depend on me. I need to go home.”
“Let’s just say you’re needed here more.” His eyes darken, clouding any emotion I might have previously seen in him. It’s like a wall rises up, and it becomes impossible to preempt what he might do next.
“What do you want with me?” I cut to the chase, sounding braver than I feel.
He pushes his wide, powerful shoulders back and intensifies his stare. “I need you because of who you are. I know you’re Santiago Navarro’s daughter.”
And there it is, the thing everyone tried to protect me from.
Truth hidden in a secret that was never supposed to come to light. Truth that only my father could have kept me safe from. If he’d lived.
I’m about to deny it, like Grams taught me to do if ever I met anyone who found out my secret, but Malik reaches into his pocket and pulls out a picture.
He holds it before me, and I realize it’s of me and my father at the park.
I’m sitting on his knee, and we’re smiling, pretending we’re living a normal life where we hang out at the park all the time. That was the week before Christmas, the year before Mom and Dad died. On the edge of the picture are the words ‘Daddy and Gwen 2008. This was such a good day. I will love you forever, my princess.’
Mom took that picture, and Dad wrote those little messages to me, so I would remember those magical moments.
So I would remember him and how he loved me.
They were never meant to be used against me. But this is my fault again. I let the devil into my home. Into my bed, into my body. Into my heart.
I was the one who ran to him for help, not knowing he would discover my biggest secret that not even my best friend knows.
Malik was in my room when I fell asleep. I don’t know how he found my treasure box when I hid it so well. But that’s not the part I should be focused on.
Wilmington was my treasure box. The place where people who loved me hid me away from men like Malik.
Somehow, he found out where I was, meaning he was already looking for me that night we first met at the bar.
But he didn’t know who I was until I all but handed him my secrets on a plate.
Silence has drifted between us, strong and deadly. He’s looking at me, still holding the picture, and I’m staring back at him, trying to keep the ball of terror from rising in my soul.
He breaks the awkward moment by putting the picture back in his pocket, then he brings his hands together and cracks his large knuckles.
“I’m sure you know my father is dead.” I speak because I’m not sure what else to do.
“I’m very aware, and it doesn’t matter. You’re his heir, and that’s what I need.”
