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“Hear her out.” Sal takes an authoritative tone, holding his hand out between us like it has the power to settle me before he slowly releases her from behind him.
“I’m sorry that I lied to you, but I was too scared to tell the truth.”
“And what is the truth?” I stare down at the helpless little girl in disgust.
“The truth is that this baby is a Burlusconi,” she adds, her eyes welling up with tears and her lips starting to tremble.
“She belongs to your father,” she forces the words out before erupting into sobs and curling her body into an awkward-looking Sal.
“That’s not possible,” I seethe. The girl is brave, lying to me twice. She’s seventeen years old, this has to be some kind of sick joke.
“You're trying to tell me that you slept with my father?” I look down at her and laugh.
“Not by choice.” She stares back at me, and I recognize something in her eyes. It’s the same hurt and fear I saw when Evelyn told me what her mother’s boyfriend did to her.
“Your father sprung a surprise visit on my brother at one of his parties. He thought Damien was stealing from him, your brother was already at the party that night and he was partying really hard,” she starts to explain, and the room feels like it’s closing in on me. “I’d spoken to Rhett earlier in the night, we had some fun, but as soon as he found out how old I was he backed off and gave his attention to one of the girls that hang around my brother. I don’t think he even knew your father was there.”
Sal guides her over to the chair beside the window, encouraging her to sit down.
“When my brother came back to the party and sent me back up to my room, I assumed they had sorted everything out, and that your father had left. I went to my room like I was told and when I got there, he was waiting for me. He held a gun to my head, then he…” she breaks down as she recalls the memory, and I’ve heard about all I can stand.
“Shit.”
“I know I was wrong to blame Rhett, but he’d been so nice to me when I’d spoken to him,” she manages to continue. “He was so wasted, I figured he might have been too out of it to remember what he did and didn’t do,” she admits, wiping her eyes.
“Now I feel awful because he got hurt, my brother’s dead, and when your father finds out about this baby, he’s going to kill us both.”
“I told you, that’s not gonna happen,” Sal snarls like a caged animal.
“Why did you have to tell your brother the baby was Rhett’s? You could have lied, blamed it on someone else, then none of this would have happened. My father would never have had to know. He would have started looking for you the second he found out who stabbed Rhett.”
“I was too scared to tell anyone for so long and then when I tried to tell Damien, all he did was yell at me. He’d noticed me talking to Rhett that night, and he was the first person he accused of being the father. I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought maybe if I could make Rhett believe he was the father, he’d pay my brother off and I’d get to keep my baby.”
“That was a really fucking stupid idea,” I point out, trying real hard not to show how angry I am.
“Don’t speak to her like that,” Sal points his finger at me, and I swear if he wasn’t my cousin I’d break the thing off his hand and shove it down the back of his throat.
“And how do I know you're telling me the truth now?” I ask, daring her to lie to me again.
“Because I need your help. You just said it yourself, your father will guess that the baby is his, we aren’t safe here.”
“Raping a seventeen-year-old girl isn’t a very honorable thing to do, Raoul, I don’t need to tell you what this could do to that reputation your father values so much,” Sal explains the fucking obvious.
“He’ll kill us both,” the girl repeats, her hand trembling as it strokes over her rounded stomach.
“Please help me, if not for me, for your sister.” She looks down at her hand.
“A girl?” I feel my eyes widen.
“Doctor told her the sex,” Sal explains.
I sit on the bed and bury my head in my hands. This is all so fucked up, and the girl’s right, she’s not safe here. With snakes like Ludo lurking in the grass, it’s only a matter of time before my father finds out she’s here.
“What do you need me to do?” I look up and ask.
“She needs to get away from here, somewhere where no one knows her. And where your father will never find them,” Sal intervenes.
“You know that’s impossible, my father knows everything. If he wants something found he’ll find it. Besides, the girl will never manage on her own, she’ll need protection and help with the child. There will be medical bills to pay and if there are complications—”
