My anger swirls around in my chest, yet funnily enough, I believe him. Even though I’m fighting against myself, I don’t think Cohen ever intentionally hurt me. He wouldn’t have wanted me to have a bad life, he thought he was doing the right thing. Yet still, it burns. It hurts so god damned badly when I think about what he did.
“Why did you kill all of them?” I ask, my voice tight.
“Because they were all in on it. They had a fuckin’ buyer and everything, you were goin’ to get sent away and nobody would have ever seen you again. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“I just don’t understand, Cohen. If it was as simple as taking my family out, why did you send me away?”
“It wasn’t until the day I went to take out your family, that I learned other people knew about your father’s plan. Those two men knew and they were going to take you before he could sell you, then they were going to force you into marriage so they could have you sign it all over to them. It’s fuckin’ genius, really. After it belonged to them, you’d be dead and that would be the end of it.”
I shake my head, struggling to process any of this.
It’s almost unbelievable, like it has been made up for a story.
Like it couldn’t possibly be real.
“I had to get you out of there, because no matter what way I looked at it, you were going to end up in trouble. If I just killed your father and brothers, those men would have found you. It all happened so fuckin’ fast, and I never planned on you endin’ up where you did. I was goin’ to hunt down those men, and then bring you back, but I couldn’t get hold of them ...”
“So, you forgot about me,” I whisper, pain clogging my throat.
“No, I never fuckin’ forgot about you. Not for a single fuckin’ second, but I didn’t know where you were. I had to trust you ended up somewhere safe, and I accepted I’d never see you again.”
“You could have checked!” I cry.
“I tried,” he barks. “I couldn’t find you, which is exactly how it was meant to be. I had to believe the best.”
“You believed whatever made you feel better!”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue.
He doesn’t argue because he knows I’m right.
He did do what made him feel better. Believing I was in a good place made him think that he had done the right thing, but deep down, I’m sure he knows he didn’t.
“Are those two men the only two that know?” I ask, my heart racing.
“As far as I know, yeah.”
“Then we need to have them taken out.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, his voice tight.
“What about the rest of it?”
“All the things you own?”
I nod, unable to fathom the amount that has been left to me.
“It’s up to you. You can do whatever you see fit with all of that, one thing is for sure, you’re a fuckin’ rich human.”
Yeah.
Rich in money ...
But what about the rest of it?
Life, love, happiness?
What about that?
Will I ever be rich in that?
13THEN – COHEN
“What’s goin’ on?” I ask, standing at Aviana’s front door.
She has puffy eyes and she looks upset about something. I’ve never been to her house but have been trying to find a way to get over here since I started digging around in her family history. I need to know more about what her father is up to, and the only way for me to do that is to bug this place. I need to get in to bug it, and now is my chance.
I hate that I’m being dishonest with her, but she’s safer if she simply doesn’t know what I’m starting to learn.
Once I know the truth, the full truth, I might be able to tell her but, for now, it’s safer this way.
“I went on a date with this guy,” she hiccups. “He was really aggressive.”
My back goes up, and I find myself on high alert immediately. “What do you mean aggressive? Who is he? Where is he? Did he fuckin’ hurt you?”
She swipes under her eyes. “Well, we went on this date and after dinner he was driving me to the movies and when we stopped he started getting really grabby. I couldn’t get him to stop, I was really scared.”
“Did he do anything to you?”
She shakes her head. “I managed to punch him in the balls and get out. I ran off.”
I grit my teeth. “Who the fuck is this dick? I will take him the fuck out.”
She looks up at me, and a small smile spreads across her face. “I don’t know his full name, and I’m sure you would.”
“Find his fuckin’ name, give me his number, I don’t give a fuck. I’m payin’ that dog a visit.”
Her cheeks grow pink. “You’d do that for me?”
“Do fuckin’ anything for you.”
She stares at me like I’m giving her the fucking world, but all I’m doing is promising her nobody else will take that world from her.
“Give me his information, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt another woman.”
She bites her lip, glances past me, and then says, “My dad and brothers are out of town tonight, did you want to stay for a movie and pizza?”
I shouldn’t, mostly because I don’t trust myself around her, but also because I’m not being honest, but the fact is I need to plant these bugs and the only way to do that is to have access to her house. So, I nod. “Yeah, got nothin’ on.”
She smiles and steps aside. “Well, come in then.”
She shows me around her house, her very fucking big house, and then we settle in on a very big, very comfortable couch and start watching a movie while we wait for the pizza to arrive. She must get lonely in this fucking big house by herself, it feels like it’s
