“I told you to go to the club and handle business,” Mr. Black says demandingly.
“I’m headed there right now.”
“See that you do.”
Enzo turns. His eyes leave the room. He looks straight at me, and my heart freezes again.
Enzo sees me. He has to.
Do something.
Stop this.
Save me.
I beg Enzo to do something, anything. Just don’t leave me here alone.
The seconds creep by in extremely slow motion. But a second later, Enzo turns, and he’s gone.
Enzo’s gone.
I’m alone.
With his father.
In Enzo’s bedroom.
“Good girl,” Mr. Black says, loosening his grip on my neck.
I still don’t speak, though. I’ve grown up poor. I know what my mother does to earn extra money, and I know how evil this man is who is holding my neck.
I can see in his eyes what he wants to do with me.
Enzo is gone.
The house is empty.
There is no one to save me.
He’ll rape me. Torture me. Kill me if he wants to.
For a split second, I think about fighting back, but what can I do really? I have no muscles. I can’t get free. If I yell, no one will come.
So I do nothing.
I surrender, hoping it will be over faster, that it will hurt less if I give in.
“Good girl,” he says again, watching me silently crumble before him.
I must blackout.
Or maybe my brain blocks it out.
The rest comes in flashes.
My bikini being ripped apart.
Him palming my breasts.
Shoving fingers inside me.
Grabbing my throat so hard it left marks.
Beating me so hard I can still feel the bruises.
Forcing my mouth open to suck him.
Being tied up so hard it left marks on my wrists.
And the violation.
Over.
And over.
And over.
That day was both the longest and the shortest of my life.
In the moment, it seemed to last forever, but huge chunks of the night have been taken from my memory that it makes the day feel too short.
Slowly, I start coming back to reality, realizing that I’m not in Enzo’s room. I’m in the woods with Langston.
The part of the story I’ve spoken so far is known. I could keep going; I could get to the part that he still knows, but if I take it far enough, I could speak a truth he doesn’t know.
But I can’t.
I’m drained from telling that much of the story.
The pain that comes after is too much. It’s not something I speak about.
I won’t be able to gain myself more time. I’ll be sleeping in the dirt on an uninhabited island with my enemy, who will punish me for lying.
At least I can lash out at him with the end of my story.
I glance over at Langston. He’s still sitting on the log; his eyes focused on me through the flames of the fire. He’s motionless, expressionless—almost like a statue.
He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t rush me. He doesn’t call out any part as a lie. He doesn’t tell me that I’ve already told this story before.
My eyes meet his for the first time since I’ve been talking. Actually, I have no idea if my eyes have met his or not. When I was telling the story, it was like I was reliving it.
Now, though, is about delivering a blow to Langston.
“I was angry at Enzo when I thought he knew what happened to me and didn’t stop it. When he didn’t help me. Didn’t save me. But I still wanted him. Still thought I could fall in love with him. He was still the better man, the better choice.”
I pause.
And I notice Langston’s shoulders tense—disagreeing with me.
“You know why? Because Enzo didn’t know what his father did. I just thought he did. He should have known, but he didn’t. But there was someone who did know. Someone who watched it all happen from the security camera.”
I glare at Langston.
“You. You watched me get raped by that sadistic devil. You watched my life be torn apart. You saw what happened next, and you did nothing.”
My voice shakes as I speak. This isn’t new. I’ve told this story to our friend group. Langston was there. But I’ve never screamed it in his face. Never confronted him with what could be the truth.
Langston is always watching. He’s the best at security. He knew what happened to me. He was either watching in real-time, or he watched a recording.
He knew, and he did nothing.
My body shakes, but tears never come. I don’t feel sadness, pain, or fear. Not after that night. Not after my worst night, still yet to come.
Langston watches me through the fire.
And for a moment, I think he’s going to say nothing.
“I was just doing my job,” he says.
“You’re a heartless monster.”
He stands up. “And you’re a liar.”
16
Langston
Liesel is a liar.
A schemer.
She knows how to draw men in with her words. She knows exactly what she’s doing. She chose her story well and spun the web of lies so tightly that it’s hard to make out which parts are the truths and which parts are the lies.
It pisses me off. I should be able to tell. I know practically everything there is to know about this woman—except for one missing piece. A piece she will eventually tell me, but not without a fight.
She won’t fight with her fists. She’ll fight with lies. Cruel, merciless lies that will be carved into my heart forever. There is no way to verify which parts are true and which parts aren’t.
But I know she lied.
I can verify at least one part of her story that isn’t true. And the fact that she didn’t fight me when I called her a liar tells me she did indeed lie.
But how much of it was a lie?
I march through the darkness away from the fire, away from her. If I stay, I’ll do something I’ll regret.
I start jogging as my eyes adjust to the darkness. Working for Enzo and Kai has trained me to see through the jet black night, but it’s still careless. I shouldn’t leave Liesel alone. I shouldn’t run when one wrong step could mean I fall off a cliff or get attacked by a wild animal.
I run from Liesel, but it’s more like I’m running from her words. God, how her words cut me deep.
It hurts.
It all hurts.
Liesel blames me for the rape, just like she blames Enzo.
I should have been there for her. I should have saved her just like Enzo should have.
But I wasn’t watching her on the security cameras. I didn’t know. At the time, I was in charge of security at the clubs, not at the house. I was good at hacking back then, but the cameras at the house were the most sophisticated we had. I’m not even sure if I was capable of hacking the system to watch out for her then.
Liesel knows that.
But her words cut me nonetheless. They hurt because despite what she says, I do have a heart—one I’ve tried to eliminate every chance I’ve gotten. My life would be much easier if I could. But as hard as I’ve tried, it’s still there.
It just doesn’t feel the same way about Liesel as it once did.
All her words rip through me, shredding me to pieces.