Chapter Five
Harper
He came back out, his face a map of turmoil. I didn’t know Jack well and I had to keep reminding myself of that. Our connection was all in my head, and I was great at making poor decisions. But I wanted to know what was going on… why he was acting so weird… so I sat there, perched on the stool, and waited.
Jack paused in front of me, stiff as a statue of armor. “Your stepdad, do you love him?”
Again and again, Jack left me guessing. “Why does that matter?”
“Just tell me.”
I leaned away, scrunching up my nose. “No. I don’t love the man.”
“Then why the hell do you work for him?”
“Jack, if you’re about to try and pull some ‘Save the poor stripper’ bit on me, I don’t need it.”
“I’m not trying to save you. I’m trying to understand you.”
Jack sought me out with a raw, genuine expression of concern. Only Cena looked at me that way. My guard cracked, every reason I had not to tell this man about my situation falling into the shadow cast by my heart. “It’s not a happy story.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Few of them are.”
I closed my eyes and breathed. In my ears was the low ring of white noise, the stuff that filled the gaps between memories. I scooped it out of the way and let myself talk. “Callum wanted me to be a singer. He always wanted that… he said I was special, knew I’d make him rich. When he discovered me, I felt blessed. But that meeting was what linked him to my mother.” Wincing, I uncurled my fingers; my nails had dug into my own flesh. “When I realized that singing had ruined any happiness my family could have had, even if we remained poor… I decided I no longer wanted to sing. I convinced Callum I’d lost my ability due to… grief.” I glanced away, not ready to expand on that part of the story. “It infuriated him. But he wasn’t going to let me off free of charge. If I wanted to see my sister, I had—have—to work for him.”
“He doesn’t know you can still sing?”
“Only you and Cena know.”
Jack blinked. “It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around, choosing stripping over singing.”
My laugh was hollow in my chest. I wondered if that meant my heart had shrunk, and all I had inside of me was useless air. “I’d choose it over and over, and then I’d choose it again.”
“But you’re voice… it’s amazing.”
“This amazing voice ruined my life, Jack. Stripping my clothes off for strange men isn’t torture. Callum can’t hurt me by making me get on that stage. If anything… I relish it.”
He scooped my hands up where I’d folded them in my lap. His fingers brushed the sensitive undersides of my wrists. “Explain that for me.”
I hated this story. I wished we could just go back to kissing, to forgetting. This is better, I told myself. If he knows everything, there’s nothing left to hide. He can accept my messed up life or walk away before I’m too attached. Part of me knew it was too late. “Every night that Callum sees me up there, twirling on his damn pole, dollar bills showering over me? It’s a reminder to him that he’ll never, ever get what he wants from me.”
I waited for him to tell me I was insane; because I certainly was. Or maybe he’d say I was stupid. I sometimes felt that way, too. I waited for him to cut me open and see that I was full of dust inside. His lips made a “y” shape and I rapidly prepared for his sentence to be: “You’re wasting your life.”
“You’re a fool.”
“You’re worthless.”
Jack said, “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
My ribs hurt; my heart wasn’t small, it couldn’t be with how much it made my chest strain to keep it from bursting. “What?”
“How else could you spend all of this time throwing his loss in his face? That’s powerful stuff, Harper. There’s just one thing I’m wondering about.”
I swallowed, noticing how I’d leaned closer to him. “What?”
“Why did you stop singing in the first place?”
My voice came out flat. “I can’t answer that. I don’t know you well enough.”
Jack didn’t press it. Letting go of my wrists, he took my chin, gazing down at me like he could read the grooves in my brain. “Has Callum ever hurt you?”
“Not physically, but I’d let him make me suffer as long as he left Cena alone.”
His touch vanished. Jack paced the kitchen, his hands knotted at his sides. They were coiled springs, waiting to unleash their power on anyone who dared to get in his way. I watched with fascination, but not fear—angry men didn’t frighten me. More than that… Jack didn’t frighten me.
When he came back my way, I heard he was whispering. I caught none of it, just that he was talking to himself in a rapid, disgust filled tone. Words were chewed up, spit out, forgotten so he could make room for more.
Finally, he whirled on me. The ferocity in his eyes paled next to his hard-set jaw. “No more of this. I can’t let a monster like him hurt anyone else. You deserve better, Harper. Someone as kind as you deserves the damn world.”
My head began to float away, my voice distant to my ears. “You can’t know that. You don’t know me, Jack. Deep down I’m horrible. I’ve ruined lives.”
“No,” he snapped, standing over me, but never touching me. It was like he feared I’d shatter in his grip. “You’re an angel. You saved my life… you gave me a second chance.”
I was definitely floating away now. My skin felt too tight over my skull. “What are you talking about? A second chance at what?” I wished I could read his mind the way he seemed to be able to with mine. I never saved him… we just met a few days ago. I chased my memory for any tail-end hints of what he was speaking about. Then I locked up, recalling something with vibrant unease. “Jack, last night, you said you were at the club for revenge.”
Jack didn’t stir. He watched me expectantly.
My lungs struggled, my breath getting quicker. “You want revenge on Mister Big. I’m right, aren’t I?” It made sense, all these questions about my boss… about if I loved him, if he’d hurt me. I was right and I knew it before Jack said a word.
Bending closer, he took my hands, spreading my fingertips on his face. Slowly, he brushed them over his jaw and forehead. There were fine, raised lines; old scars. “Do you remember a young man lying in an alley?” he asked softly. “A fool who thought life would reward him just because he’d known nothing but suffering?”
A trumpet wailed in my head. Sound waves hammered on my memory until they molded it into something diamond-clear. Someone was brutally beaten and lying in an alley. His face was swollen, more crimson than tan-skin—nothing like the hardened jaw of Jack now. Yet I knew them to be one and the same.
In my memory, sirens screamed. I’d hung around just long enough to make sure the ambulance got to him. The last I’d seen of the young man was his body strapped to a gurney.
Until now.
At some point I’d yanked my hands away from him and moved them over my lips; I whispered through them in desperate fear. “What did my step father do to you?”
Every line in his face told a story with the same tragic ending. This was a man who’d been unquestionably wounded. How had I not recognized our kinship? “He stole everything from me. But that’s fine, because I’m going to return the favor tenfold.” The way he smiled made my heart stop. “Mister Big has lots to hide. I’ve got a plan to make him admit to the worst shit. All I need is some leverage.”
Sparks of paranoia went off in me, traveling along my spine until I was lit up from within. I needed to know his plan, because as intriguing as this was, as tempting as hearing him muse over destroying a man I hated was, I suspected his plan was dangerous.
He considered me, watching for my reactions. “I was going to kidnap the one person that I thought meant something to him. His only daughter.”
I choked on a wave of bile. The room swam, but only for a second. “No,” I said flatly, stepping towards him. “You need to leave.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Leave. Or I’m calling the police.”
The confusion in his eyes hurt me more than I expected. “Don’t you hate Callum as much as I do?”
Marching to the front door, I grabbed the knob, yanking it open. The air that swirled inside caught my hair so that it blinded me. It was brief, and I wished it lasted forever. Seeing Jack so… betrayed… it was too much. “I do hate him. But I love Cena more.”
Jack’s face went slack. “I wouldn’t hurt her. It’d be an act, and with you in on it, she’d—”
“She’d be terrified. And what if your plan failed? What if Callum’s vengeance is worse than yours? Jack, I’m not going to put her through that.”
He drew himself up. “She doesn’t have a clue who he is, does she?”
“She’s eight fucking years old, Jack. Of course she doesn’t know. And if I get my way… she never will.” I couldn’t imagine the way Cena would change if she got a whiff of how corrupt her own father was. The guilt would sweep over her, staining her soul. She deserved better.
On long legs he came my way. I readied myself for fight or flight, his approach setting my heart into hyper-mode. “I get it. Your grand plan is to sit here and suffer until she’s old enough to legally leave with you. How fucking long is that, ten years? Until she’s eighteen?”
My shrug was heavy. “I’ll take the misery now if it means I get the future I want.”
“You’re wrong, weren’t you listening to me?” He slapped his chest with an open palm. “I suffered, I lost everything… my home, my own mother… that’s what suffering gets you. Life doesn’t care if you put in your dues, Harper. Hoping for a happy ending just because you went through hell to get it is a fool’s dream.”
His words smothered me, pulling at my confidence until I wondered if my path was the wrong one. Jack took another step; when he did, I saw past him, spotting Cena’s room. She’d covered the outside of it with music notes and pink flowers.
I thought about the mother she’d never known.
How that was all of my fault.
Calmly, I said, “I’m never going to put my sister in danger.”
“Not even if it gets you both away from that giant monster?”
I narrowed my eyes, staring at his stoic expression. “Tell me what happens if your plan works.”
Jack perked up, his arms flexing as he gestured over his head. “I’ll bring that bastard to his knees. I’ll chop everything out from under him until he’s got nothing to stand on, nothing to keep him above our heads. Then when he realizes he has to do as I say or he’ll lose more than his reputation, I’ll make him sign the Golden Goose over to me.”
“The club? Why do you want that place?”
“Because it belongs to me.” His fists balled up, knuckles straining, bloodless. “He promised it would be ours together. Then he betrayed me. After everything else, I’m getting what’s owed to me.”
“And then?”
Jack’s eyes were foggy, like he was somewhere else. His tone was pure acid. “Death is too good for him. He’ll go to prison, and with any luck, be tortured by people who learn how evil he is.”
The man in front of me wasn’t the one I’d tangled with in the club. Certainly not the man who’d emerged from the darkness to rescue me in the parking lot. Jack’s aura burned the color of death; there was no way he’d consider Cena’s safety or my own on his path towards vengeance.
I thought about the mantra Mister Big had spit at me since I began working for his club. No court will award custody of an eight year old to a dirty stripper. Just try me. I’ve got friends in high places.
“It won’t work. If anything happens to him, Cena will get put into the system. I won’t see her for years, I won’t be able to keep her safe. Leave,” I whispered. “Just leave.”
For a minute I thought he wouldn’t. He shot one quick look over his shoulder, towards the hallway bathroom. The wrinkles around his forehead deepened. Jack stood so still he could have stopped breathing, and I wondered what he was thinking about.
Finally he brushed passed me. “I’ll go, but if you think I’m done, you’re wrong. The only way this ends is with him in a broken pile at my feet.” He looked at everything in the hallway but my face. “You’re willing to let yourself be hurt in order to save her. But she’s not as safe as you assume. As long as he can reach her… she never will be.”
Then he was gone.