Page 54 of Stolen Sin

“Yes, you are. It’s totally stupid not to. I can’t help you become the Don, but that girl can, right? That’s everything you want. Why would you give it up for me?”

He takes a deep breath and seems to compose himself. When he looks at me again, his face is calm, but the tension in the room hasn’t dispersed. If anything, it’s worse.

“You’re my wife, topolina,” he says, voice low and resonant with a thousand different emotions, all of which shudder down my spine. I hug myself tighter, trying to keep my body from reacting to his every word, but it’s impossible. “I’m not going to divorce you because I don’t want to. There’s nothing in this world that could convince me to leave you, much less to marry some other woman. I don’t give a damn about my end of the deal anymore. I want you, and I have you, and I’m not giving that up.”

That’s what I’ve wanted to hear since I ran from the house. Those exact words have been playing through my most pathetic fantasies, and now he’s said them, but somehow, they don’t do anything but make me want to cry.

Because he’s wrong.

I don’t think he’s lying, but he’s wrong. “Marrying that girl gives you everything you’ve dreamed of. I can’t let you give that up for this.”

“You don’t get to make that decision.”

“Simon—”

“I want you, Emily. I need you. I don’t fucking know when that happened or how you managed to crawl under my skin, but I’m too fucking into you.”

I back away, skirting the bed, putting space between us. “Stop saying that. Okay? Just stop. It’s meaningless. We were never forever.”

He only stares at me, and he doesn’t say it, but I know what he’s thinking.

I’m thinking it too.

We could be.

But that’s stupid and childish. It’s a silly fairy-tale ending. This relationship is a business deal, and now that our goals are no longer aligned, we have no real reason to stay together. Which means we should end things and move on before it gets worse.

“He figured it out,” Simon says, and the abrupt change in conversation takes me a second to catch on.

“What do you mean, he figured it out? That crazy-person shit in there actually makes sense to you?”

Simon nods and looks back at the closet thoughtfully. “Your dad’s pretty fucking smart, I have to admit. And probably very paranoid. But all that in there, it’s the web of shell companies and fake corporations I set up in order to funnel money into your father’s account while pretending it’s extra Social Security payments. None of them are directly linked to me, but he definitely realized that those checks aren’t coming from the government. Honestly, I’m impressed, because I put a hell of a lot of work into making this look as real as possible.”

I let that sink in. Dad’s not having a breakdown. He’s not getting scammed again.

He just saw through our stupid ruse.

I start laughing. I can’t help myself. I move past Simon and head into the closet, and I start to see what he means. Dad took the tiny little breadcrumbs Simon left behind and unraveled the whole thing via Google searches and public information, which is honestly impressive. I lean against the wall, laughing with my head thrown back, laughing because it’s better than crying and I sure as fuck need a release.

Simon stands nearby watching with an expression that suggests he thinks I’m one second away from making my own crazy-girl closet.

“What the hell are we going to do now?” I ask him, finally getting myself under control. “If he didn’t cash that check, he’s going to fall behind on payments soon.”

“We’ll need a new scheme.” He hesitates and smiles a bit. “Assuming you don’t want to just tell him the truth.”

I laugh again at that, throwing up my hands. “What’s there to tell him? Oh, hey, Dad, sorry, we were reverse-scamming you, whoops. My ex-husband and I just wanted to put more money in your pockets but you figured us out. Aw, shucks, our bad, Pops.”

Simon rolls his eyes. “I’m not your ex-husband. I keep trying to say?—”

I wave my hands and interrupt him. “Not the point. I’m seriously trying to come up with some reasonable way to spin this, because we obviously can’t just leave things like this.”

Simon seems to consider it, but he doesn’t get the chance to answer, because downstairs I hear the front door open and slam shut. And my father’s voice drifts up the steps: “Emily? I’m back. Damn doctor says I’m the healthiest man he’s ever seen. He says I’m the first human to live to three hundred. Go figure. You hungry?” His voice tails off as he shuffles back into the kitchen.

I stare at Simon, and he stares back. A smile quirks at his mouth and he shrugs. “Just go with the truth.”

Chapter 33

Emily

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