Cal's brow furrows, managing to look offended by the idea that his best friend was keeping something from him. His eyes flit back to Katrina, seeking an explanation.
When she doesn't offer him anything, I decide to break the silence.
“Are you his ex or something?”
“His ex?” Katrina chuckles, but it's a nervous sound. “God, no. I, um…” She blows out a breath and then meets my gaze squarely. “He tried to kill me.”
Tried.
Clearly, he wasn't successful. Did he not try hard enough, or did he develop feelings for her too?
Cal looks like he'd like to disappear into the floor right now.
“Dex?” I ask because I feel like he's the only one capable of giving me a fair story right now. It’s a weird position to be in, particularly when my brain still isn't certain whether it's as allegiant to Cal as my body is.
“It was months ago... before you. Before the other one.”
“Other one?” Katrina grimaces and then looks at me apologetically.
Well, this is fucking awkward.
“I can explain.” Cal says, drawing my attention and Katrina's.
I gesture to him, showing him he's got the floor.
He opens his mouth, hesitates, and then shuts it. “Fuck. This is hard.”
“I'll handle this.” Dex says, bracing a hand on his shoulder like he's looking for permission. When Cal gives it in the form of a nod, he turns to me. “Cal was raised to take a place in his father's business.”
I blink, unsure what kind of business we're talking about. Does his father work in film too?
“It's not exactly a legal business. You understand?”
I squint, wondering what exactly he's trying to get at. When he realizes he needs to spell it out for me, he just sighs.
“He provides a front for human trafficking. His hotel casinos make it easy to launder money earned from girls who are brought into the hotel, where clients pay for their... services.”
Katrina shifts and crosses her arms over her stomach.
“When he was eighteen and it was time to start operating his own branch of hotels, he went out to Vegas for the week. He's never told me what happened that week.”
Dex glances at his friend, who doesn't seem bothered by the fact that he's speaking about him as though Cal isn't even here.
“But something about that time there changed him. He almost didn't survive, either. He was beaten pretty badly, suffered some bleeding on the brain. He just showed up on my doorstep half dead and refused to talk about it. But ever since then, I knew something about him was different... like he was exposed to something so sinister that it grabbed ahold of him. For years, I've watched him deteriorate. The old Cal is still in there, sure, but he's not the same. I've watched him escalate, turn into someone I was scared of... not for myself, but because he was doing things that could ruin his own life.”
He sighs. “I was by his side when he got engaged, completely on a whim.”
Engaged?
Cal was engaged?
That feels like a betrayal…
God, I sound fucking pathetic and ridiculous.
I'm nothing to him, but he's all that I've got.
The unfairness of it makes my stomach twist, and I can't bear to look at him.
