Page 19 of Saved By the Rogue

I closed my eyes. So much had happened this last day or so, it was so much for me to wrap my head around. I didn’t even know where to start.

"What about your father?" he asked me softly. "You think he would really do something like this?"

I grimaced but nodded.

"Yeah, I think he would," I admitted. "I mean...if he was willing to sell me out to that Lombardi guy, why would he let me just walk away? He’s an important donor for my father, Dad’s not going to let me fuck this up for him."

"It’s just so fucking twisted," he muttered. "What is this, medieval England? He’s selling you off like you’re not even your own person. I don’t see how any father in his right mind could do that."

A small smile flitted over my lips.

"I don’t think he’s been in his right mind for a long time," I admitted. "I think he’s been stuck in his head. Trying to figure out how he can keep hold of his power, how he can get the support of the people he needs. I don’t think he cares about anything else in the world right now."

He shook his head.

"It’s fucked," he told me. "You see that, right? It’s totally and utterly fucked."

"Your parents never asked you to do anything you didn’t want to?" I joked. He managed a small smile.

"Shit, I don’t think my mom would have noticed if I had been trying to marry her off, she was so drunk all the time," he replied, shaking his head. My lips curled downward.

"That’s awful," I told him. He blinked, shrugged, as though putting it quickly to the back of his mind.

"We don’t need to think about her right now," he replied. "We need to figure out what to do about your father. What you want to do about this."

"What are my options?" I asked him.

"You...you can run," he replied. "I can get you out of the city. Get you far enough away that you can start over somewhere else. Might not be easy, but you can get out from under his feet, make it harder for him to find you..."

"But not impossible," I finished up for him. That much went without saying. My father, I knew, was stubborn as all hell – it was where I’d gotten it from, that bad attitude that led me to land in more trouble than I could handle. I knew he wasn’t going to stop, no matter how much distance I put between us, no matter how far I tried to flee from him.

"Yeah, not impossible," he admitted. "There’s no guarantee that he’s going to back off or give up. And if he’s already got guys looking for you...he’ll keep going. He’ll send them out to every corner of the country if that’s what it takes."

So where did that leave me? If I couldn’t outrun him, then I had to stand my ground.

I had to take him down.

The thought of it almost came as a shock to me, a shiver running down my spine as the notion crossed my mind. I – could I really do something like that? Really pull it off? I had no idea. It felt impossible. Taking my father on, ending his legacy, with all the power and influence he had in this city...

All the ill-gotten power, though. Nobody else might have known the extent of it – hell, I doubted even I really understood how far down it went – but at least I had access to something, some of the information that might have gone some way to expose him. As I sat there, it all started to fall into place, everything clicking in my head. I locked eyes with Jaxon once more.

"I want to take him on," I murmured to him. Jaxon tensed.

"How?”

"I’m going to expose him," I replied. "There have to be newspapers in this city who would want to hear about how the city councilman is involved with some of the worst criminals in the state, right?"

"If he doesn’t have them all in his pocket already..."

"An independent journalist, then," I suggested. "There’s got to be someone out there, there just has to be...I don’t care how hard it is, I don’t care what it takes, I have to do something. I have to try."

He reached for my hand, gripping it tight.

"You’re not in this alone," he promised me softly. "Whatever you choose to do, I’ll help you, Star."

I stared back at him.

"You know what kind of man he is, right?" I asked him. "You know...you know what you’re getting into?”

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