“Yes! How could you do that to me, Ronan?”
I exhale slowly as I run a hand over my jaw. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I needed space and a second to think?—”
“Well, now you have all the time and space you need. Enjoy.”
“Fuck, Ciara, wait!”
“No! You don’t get to dangle half-truths in front of me then walk away like it’s no big deal. Like I’m not a person. If you know something about my father, I have the right to know it. You owe me that much, Ronan.”
“I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this.” I rake a hand through my hair. “Ineverwanted you to know.”
“Then we have nothing else to discuss. Goodbye, Ronan.”
“No, wait!”
She’s right. God help me, she’s right.
“Are you finally willing to tell me what you meant?”
I groan. “You’re not going to like what I have to say.”
“I’m already pissed off, Ronan, you can’t make me feel any worse than I already do.”
Trust me, I can.
I sigh. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you, and don’t shoot the messenger.”
“Enough with the stalling tactics. I have a plane to catch.”
“Fine. Your father…” I pace back and forth in front of the emperor-sized bed, my eyes focused on the Vegas skyline beyond the glass. “He was involved in trafficking. And I don’t just mean drugs.”
I stop for a moment to give Ciara a chance to change her mind, but when she remains silent, I know that there’s no turning back.
What I’m about to tell her won’t just ruin the memory she has of her father, it might just ruin any chance we had at building a real relationship.
And that’s what kills me. The fact that telling her the truth is the only way to make her stay, but it is also what will drive her away.
I can’t win here.
“He was selling women, or rather girls.” The words are like poison on my tongue. “He would take them as young as fourteen, and he auctioned them off to the highest bidder the second they turned eighteen. Virgins. Usually, to men who didn’t give a fuck about limits or consent. The kind who like to take what they need and dump what is left. And those are the ones who are not turned into personal slaves. Or worse.”
The silence on the other end of the phone feels suffocating.
“You’re lying…”
I don’t miss the way her voice trembles.
“I wish I were.” I perch on the edge of the bed, the weight of what I’ve just told her so heavy on my shoulders. “But how would I possibly benefit from making something like this up? What angle does that get me?”
Ciara is silent.
I wish I was telling her this in person, not only so I could gauge her reaction, but so I could be there to comfort her, to wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly against me.
I want to be able to catch her when the reality of her father’s dark past hits, but I can’t do that if she’s all the way back in New York.
“Ciara?”
She draws in a sharp breath, then lets it out like she’s been punched in the stomach. “I need to go.”
