My stomach clenches.“Yeah, I told you—he would ask me to date those guys?—”
“No.The paparazzi taking your picture,” he cuts in.
I blink at him, the words not quite landing.They circle me like wasps, stinging before I can even react.
“I was half-naked,” I mutter, confused, pissed, and nauseous all at once.“I doubt my father would be doing that.”
Barret’s eyes lock on mine—unblinking, haunted.“Your father hiredescortsfor a photoshoot that happened before a concert,” he says, voice razor-thin.“One blew Roderick while he was high—and another rode me, so it looked like we were in the middle of an orgy.”
The air leaves the room.
Sound warps.The low hum of whatever album’s spinning on the turntable blurs into static at the edge of my awareness.Bass thuds, distant and muffled, like it’s coming from underwater.I don’t breathe.I don’t blink.I just stare at him like he’s spoken in a language I don’t understand.
No.No, no, no.
He can’t mean that.That’s not what he’s saying.
But he is.
And the world tilts.
I stare at him, blinking, trying to reboot my brain.Trying to shove his words into the version of my father I’ve been dragging behind me like an old suitcase—too fucked-up to repair but too personal to throw away.My father was a manipulative bastard, sure.Ruthless.A career puppeteer.
But this?This isn’t controlling.
This is evil.
This is scorched-earth destruction.
I press my hand to my chest, leaning back against the counter to keep from sliding to the floor.Something rattles behind me—maybe glass—but I can’t turn to check.My pulse is everywhere.In my ears.In my throat.In the pit of my stomach, where everything is starting to unravel.
“Wait ...”My voice catches, cracking like ice under pressure.“That’s how I found him—no.”
But I know.
I fucking know.
The puzzle pieces don’t fall together.They collide, explode into a thousand jagged truths.My lungs pull at the air, trying to find enough to explain the way I felt that night.How I showed up backstage and everything inside me shattered.I thought it was just bad timing.A cruel coincidence.But it wasn’t.It was planned.
“Dad asked me to go that day,” I whisper.“To the concert.He said it was important ...told me to get there right on time.He said it would bring Roderick good luck.”
Barret’s expression doesn’t change.Not even a flinch.“On time to see him cheating on you,” he says quietly, like it’s a fact he’s repeated to himself for years.“So you two would break up because that relationship wasn’t convenient for him.”
I shake my head, slowly, like maybe I can dislodge the memory trying to climb out of the dark.“He wasn’t even coherent when I found him.His eyes were—vacant.I thought he didn’t care.”
“He cared,” Barret says.“He just couldn’t fight anymore.”
My stomach flips.
“That wasn’t the first time your dad did something like that.‘Just a kiss, Wilder.We need them to think you’re available,’” he mimics, voice hollow.“It made him throw up.Every fucking time Connor made him do something like that, he would take a few shots, maybe a pill, just to numb himself enough to go through with it.Because he believed him.”
My knees go soft.I grip the edge of the counter like it might hold me together.
He believed him.
Roderick believed my father—trusted him.
Trusted me.
