Chapter Twenty-Three
I’m lying awake in bed when I hear the commotion downstairs. A man’s shout. A disturbing thump. I peek out of my little room to find the large bed empty, the sheet thrown back. Is it Damon downstairs? Or did he already go down to investigate?
I find my answer at the bottom of the stairs.
Damon stands over a prone body. A large body. One covered in bruises and blood.
“Daddy,” I whisper.
He looks up at me with one bloodshot eye, the other too puffy to see. “There you are. I had to make sure you were safe. Had to make sure—”
“Don’t speak to her,” Damon says, his voice bored.
It’s a lie, that boredom. The casual look of him, loose pants and no shirt—that’s a lie, too. Everything about this man is deliberate and honed. He’s a blade, and the man on the floor in front of him is sliced into pieces.
I rush to Daddy’s side, helping him stand. “You need to go to a hospital.”
“No,” he grunts, leaning on me. “No hospitals.”
Damon gives a coarse laugh.
I glare at him. “Did you do this to him?”
“He deserves what happened to him. Worse, actually.”
How can my father’s weight feel both heavy and painfully frail at the same time? He seems to have aged a hundred years since I saw him last. “Daddy,” I whisper. “What did you do?”
He groans. “I made a mistake.”
“A mistake,” Damon says, mocking. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
Daddy shudders in my arms, and I lead him to one of the large leather chairs, sending Damon a dirty look. I know that I have no power here, not really. Only what he gives me. I still dare him to tell me no. That Daddy can’t sit down, that this broken man can’t rest here.
Damon leans against the wall, indolent and muscular, as if unconcerned with any of this.
I hold two larger hands in mine, terribly aware of all the times this has happened before. The chair was a lumpy armchair instead of leather, the floor thin carpet instead of an oriental rug. But the feeling is the same—the searing disappointment that my father has once again hit the bottom.
And here I am, kneeling with him. Always with him.
“I started again,” he says roughly. “I didn’t mean to. Not at first. It was only one game in the Cellar. Old friends, you know. And someone new.”
“It’s never one game, Daddy.”
He sighs. “I know. I should never have sat down at the table again. And then next thing you know I’m down five large.”
I manage not to flinch, but maybe that’s because this is too familiar. How can something that’s happened so many times still hurt so much?
“I think I could have done it, you know,” he continues. “I could have paid the money on the salary I was getting and still covered your tuition.”
“Why didn’t you?” I ask, my voice hollow. I know the answer. Addiction.
“You,” he says softly.
My gaze snaps to his watery brown eyes. “What?”
“The new guy, I didn’t even catch his name that night. Can you believe it? He shows up at my door the next night. Says he’ll tell Damon I’m gambling again, that I’m in debt. That was against the rules. He was real firm about that from the beginning.”
“Loyalty,” Damon says softly. “It doesn’t divide. Like an atom, the smallest unit of matter. It can’t be split apart. If it’s not with me, it’s with someone else.”
My father doesn’t look up. “This man says, all I have to fix it is call you home for a visit.”
I blink at him. “Why would he want that?”
“I don’t know,” he says slowly. “Not for sure. But I think… I think it’s because you mean something to Damon Scott. Or at least he believed you do. And he would have hurt you. He would have used you as leverage. And I couldn’t do that to you. Not when I’ve already hurt you so much.”
You mean something to Damon Scott.
I swallow hard. “What did you do?”
“I panicked. I thought maybe I could make the money back, pay it and no one would know the difference. I took out loans, gambled it all away. It turned out like it always did, Penny. And then I was so ashamed…. God, I didn’t know what to do.”
Damon pushes off the wall, prowling behind me. “Whoever this asshole is, he went through enough trouble to find your old gambling spot, to get your buddies to lure you back, and to make sure you lost. Even if you had made the money back, it wouldn’t have helped. He didn’t want that.”
“Daddy,” I whisper. “Who was this man?”
“I don’t know. I’d never met him before.” He shudders. “His eyes, though. There was something not right about his eyes. I knew not to look at him directly, even during the game. There was something… insane about him.”
A cold finger runs down my spine. Insane.
Daddy shakes his head. “The Russians, I borrowed money from them. When they found me tonight, I thought they were going to kill me. Instead they roughed me up and brought me here.”
“I had to call in quite a favor for that,” Damon says on a drawl.
My eyes widen, and I turn back to look at him. “You saved him?”
“‘Saved’ is such a strong word.”
“Why did you say you had beaten him?”
“I merely said that he deserved what he got. You made your assumptions.”
The air feels thin. “So what happens now?”
“Nothing,” Damon says, sounding weary. “Things will go back to the way they were. Your father will lay low until I can pay his debts.”
He leaves the room without even a goodbye. Daddy slumps as soon as he’s out of sight, clearly having used the reserves of his energy. He needs medical attention. Or at least rest. But I can’t stop myself from running after Damon.
I catch him halfway up the stairs. “Wait.”
He pauses, not quite turned toward me. Not quite turned away. “Yes?”
“Why did you bid on my father? If loyalty is so important to you, if he has a history of gambling. Why did you even want to win him in the first place? Why did you make that bet with me?”
A shake of his head, almost a helpless gesture from such a capable man. “You know the answer to that, baby genius. Because it was the only way I could help you. And you don’t just mean something to me. You mean everything. Understand? Every goddamn thing.”
As if he didn’t just shatter my world and put it back together, he heads upstairs.
I stay at the bottom, staring up at him for a long time before tending my father’s wounds, lost in contemplation. Daddy’s disappearance wasn’t related to Avery after all. It’s just the garden variety heartbreak of a man who chooses gambling over family. When does it end?
How does the cycle stop?
“Does he hurt you?” Daddy asks when I finish bandaging him.
Leaning back on my heels I consider the question. The emotional ache is almost unbearable, but can that really be on Damon’s shoulders? Is it his fault if I want more him than he can give? He doesn’t owe me anything. Not like the man in front of me.
“You hurt me,” I say gently.
He looks away, a familiar expression of shame on his ruddy face. “I’m sorry.”
“Daddy.”
I wait until he looks at me. “Don’t come back.” The words come out as tender as I can make them, as soft as I feel them. There’s no victory in this moment, only resignation. “You aren’t happy in this city. And you aren’t safe. Leave and don’t come back.”