Page 93 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part One

“So you’ve turned on my father,” I grind out.

“And I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant what those victims are going through never happens to anyone else. It’s children, Storm. Girls and boys. Hundreds of them. He’s moving hundreds of them and making a shit-ton of money while doing it.”

The world starts to take on weird shapes as I hear his words, and I look around the too big apartment paid for by my father.

My father, who I am now learning, likely used money made off the skin trade to purchase.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say, rushing to the kitchen sink before expelling the contents of my stomach.

Once the heaving stops, I run the faucet, rinsing my mouth out with the cool water and bracing myself as the vomit swirls down the drain.

“This is horrific,” I say, staring at the stainless-steel sink for a moment before turning to face Riale. “And that is my father.”

Riale goes quiet, back in control of himself again, as he always is.

“Are you willing to live with this knowledge and let it continue, Storm?” He delivers the question with calm detachment, as if he were one of the therapists my father forced me to go to after Rainn died.

I’m bombarded with memories, images from my past, the times when my dad wasn’t the cold, aloof man he’s become more and more over the years.

I remember the man who, at one time, loved me like a father should.

Or, at least, close to what a father should.

How can I possibly accept this alternative version of who my dad is?

And at the same time, if what Riale tells me is true, how can I live with myself and let this continue?

It can’t be true.

“I don’t know, Riale,” I answer honestly, looking at the floor. “I don’t know what to think or say or do.”

He’s quiet for a beat before he says, “What about Shae?”

At that, cold panic covers my body like a wet, itchy blanket, and the act of breathing becomes impossible.

Shae.

She’s mixed up in all of this. Mixed up because of me.

“They won’t hesitate to use her, Storm. They will make an example out of her and make sure she bears the brunt of the consequences from your father’s sins. Shae is innocent. Kind. So damn good for this world. But you’d rather see her locked in a cage for the rest of her life?”

The idea is so repulsive, so repugnant, that the words have me wanting to set fire to the apartment.

They have me wanting to rage down the street.

They have me wanting to kill my father with my bare hands.

They have me wanting to fall to the ground and weep.

“You think the Feds would still go after her?”

Riale’s face turns grim.

“I’m not talking about the Feds.” And at that, a chill descends on the room, and by the set of his jaw, I know he’s not going to explain what he means by that at all.

“If you choose inaction, Shae will suffer the most. Are you prepared to do that to the woman you love?”

My heart stutters in my chest, racing and tripping over the rhythm.

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