“How’s the investigation coming along?” my mother asks me, but my reply comes in the form of a groan. Balancing my body on one foot, my cellphone pinned between my shoulder and my ear, I somehow manage to get the other high heel on my foot.

“It’s coming. These things take time, mom,” I tell her as I look at myself in the mirror. I smack my lips together, satisfied with their crimson color, and then grab my cellphone with one hand and pat the front of my dress with the other.

“Got anything from the gala?” she asks me, and I wait for a very long second as I look for a suitable answer. Yeah, in case you’re wondering, I still haven’t told her that I’m about to have dinner with my stepfather. And I still haven’t decided if I’m going to tell her—at least for now. I already know everything she’d say if I told her I’d be having dinner with him, so I figured I could skip that step.

“Well, you know,” I start, grabbing my purse and heading out the door, making sure it’s locked behind me. “He made his speech, and everyone ate it up. The usual. I can’t say I expected to find any dirt at a gala for the NYU’s children wing, you know?”

I look at myself in the mirror as I enter the elevator, once more examining my lips. God, why am I so nervous? It’s just a stupid dinner with a man I hate. A man who’s my stepfather.

“Figured so,” she sighs, and I can almost picture her in her living room, her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. “But we’ll get him. You can do it, can’t you, Penny?”

“Of course I can do it!” I reply in a heartbeat, trying to pretend that I’m slightly offended. I’m not—and that’s because I’m not so sure anymore if I can (or want) to pull this off.

I hail a taxi and get inside, throwing my purse into the backseat as I prepare to hear my mother the whole ride to Agave’s, the restaurant where I’m supposed to meet Magnus.

“I sure hope so, Penny … a man like him should pay for what he’s done. And you know what I’m talking about.”

“Yes, mom… he cheated on you,” I sigh, already getting slightly tired from that story. It seems that ever since we decided to go after Magnus that she takes every opportunity to go on a tirade about how Magnus ruined her for love. Yeah, mom, I get it, he’s the Devil.

“He didn’t just cheat on me, Penny! He made me look like a fool… He can’t keep it in his pants, you know? He’d stick it in everything that moved, and while telling me he was busy with work. You don’t do that to a woman—marry her so that you can break her heart and, just few a months later, dump her.”

“I know, he --”

“How many women have suffered at his hands? I don’t even want to think about it. He treats us like cattle. As if we’re a thing!”

I start drifting off after a few minutes, my mind fleeing back to the gala. He sure looked like the kind of man who loves to play the rogue, but as weird as this may sound, he didn’t seem like someone as evil as my mother paints him. I might be wrong, though; there’s probably a road somewhere paved with the broken hearts of the women who believed in the kindness of Magnus’ heart.

But it’s not like that matters to me anyway. Not today. I’m meeting him as his stepdaughter, and he’s meeting me as my stepfather. Before I move in for the kill, I want to find out for myself what kind of man Magnus Davion really is.

Guilty until proven innocent; if it’s good enough for the courts of public opinion, it’s good enough for me.

Has something like this ever happened to you? The whole world tells you that someone is X and Y, and then you meet him and you start having doubts about what’s real and what’s not? Maybe it’s a feminine thing. We never trust others to appraise the character of men for us. It’s simply a job we can’t delegate.

Ever since my mother’s marriage with Magnus fell apart, I’ve heard countless horror stories about him. How he’s a self-centered asshole who only cares for himself, how he ruins the women who fall for his sweet talk, and yet… Would a man like the one I just described donate a cool $1 million for charity, just like Magnus did at the gala? I know he probably sleeps in a bed made of cash, but still!

Maybe he just does it to save his ass. That makes sense too, doesn’t it? He knows that with his crazy antics it’s just a matter of time until the city turns against him, and perhaps he’s trying to put on a show for all of us. The charm he uses on women, maybe he decided to use it on a whole city this time.

Either way, I made up my mind. I’ll find out the truth about my stepfather on my own, without any foreign voices to cloud my judgment. That’s what a good reporter does; she digs for the truth, and she wants it raw.

“... Shameful, really,” my mother continues to drone on, almost as if she’s trying to teach my subconscious mind to hate Magnus. “And that’s why we need to bring him down. If there’s anyone who deserves it, it’s Magnus.”

“Yeah, mom,” I say just to appease her, nodding even though she can’t see me. And that’s when the taxi suddenly stops; I look out the window and realize that I’m already outside Agave, the discreet entrance to my right. I pay the taxi driver and, still listening to my mom, step out of the car.

And that’s when I see him.

Tailored suit, shoes as dark as the night.

“Mom, gotta run,” I whisper into the phone, my heart suddenly drumming fast, and end the call without waiting for her reply.

Memories of being in my room when I was 18, by myself, come back.

Having orgasms.

Thinking of Magnus.

“You look beautiful,” Magnus tells me, and I just stare at him without knowing what to say. There’s a kind smile on his lips, and he seems to have turned down his animal intensity for the night. Or, at least, it looks like it.

“Shall we?” he asks me, filling in my silence, and offers me his arm. I walk inside the restaurant with a smile on my face; arm-in-arm with the man I’m supposed to destroy.