By the time we finish up on the jet ski, I’m famished, so rather than take the time to make something, Bast orders for us from one of the restaurants on the island. We shower while we wait for it to arrive. Afterward, we relax and watch a movie until we can barely keep our eyes open.
Bast still hasn’t brought up why we’re here, but I get the impression that it’s more than just wanting to get away from it all. Shouldn’t he be handling things with insurance and stuff?
It isn’t until we’re lying in bed and I’m looking at the stars glistening in the night sky out the window that I work up the courage to ask him, hoping he’ll be straight with me.
“Will you tell me now why we’re really here?” I ask in a quiet voice. I roll onto my side and tuck my hands under my cheek.
I watch Bast’s profile. He closes his eyes in the dim light before he turns his head and looks at me.
“Because I want to keep you safe.”
The breath rushes from my lungs. “Safe from what?”
A pained expression crosses his face, but he tells me who Sean is and what he and his organization do in Bast’s clubs. It takes me a moment to wrap my brain around it all, and I’m silent for a long while after he finishes speaking.
Bast rolls over me and places a hand on my cheek. “Hattie, I’m so sorry you got caught up in my bullshit. If anything had happened to you…” Tears glisten in his eyes before he lowers his forehead to mine.
I don’t blame him for the fire, if it was indeed set intentionally. That was someone else’s action, not his own. But allowing drugs to be sold in his club and taking a portion of the profits…
It doesn’t match up with the man I know. I don’t understand his motivation. At all.
“I know that you’re going to look at me differently now, but you deserve to know. Believe me, if I had ever thought he was a threat to you, even indirectly, I would have told you sooner.”
“Why did you let him do that in the first place?”
He stares at me, studying my face in the dark. From the way he runs his fingers through my hair and the low huff, he’s hesitant to tell me. “Honestly? Money.”
But it’s more than that. I can tell by the stricken look on his face. “Tell me the truth. If you really want me to understand, you have to tell me all of it.”
He rolls off of me and pushes himself up so that his back rests against the headboard. I can see that he’s retreating, but I won’t let him. I’m going to fight for us even if he can’t in this moment. So I get up too and straddle him, laying a hand on each of his cheeks, forcing him to meet my gaze.
“I just want to understand. Help me understand.”
He holds my gaze for a beat before a ragged breath shudders out of him. “When I was eleven years old, I ran away from home because, as you know, my mother was an addict and couldn’t or wouldn’t protect me.”
A horrified gasp slips from my lips. “Bast… that’s…”
His eyes harden a bit. “You have no idea. No. Idea.”
I nod. “I know, I know. I’m so sorry. Where did you go? How did you survive?”
He goes on to tell me more detail about the man who isn’t his birth father. How he took Bast under his wing.
“Thank goodness he found you.” I run my hand down his cheek the way my mom always did to offer me comfort, and he stills before taking my wrist gently and pulling my hand away from his face.
“You may not think that when you hear how I was raised.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“He taught my sister and me how to run cons on people. Some big, some small, but we fleeced people out of money the entire time I was growing up. It wasn’t until about a decade ago that I stopped, started my business, and left it all behind.”
I try to wrap my brain around everything he’s told me, but it’s hard to imagine Bast as a child, going from one horrible situation to another. And to be raised that way… no wonder he thought nothing of letting drug pushers sell their wares inside his business. It probably seemed like nothing compared to what he was used to. This man didn’t stand a chance of being a well-adjusted adult with good morals and values.
But I’ve seen the man at the heart of him. That’s who I fell in love with, and I’m not going to give up on him.
There’s one thing I still don’t understand, though. “What does all that have to do with why you let Sean into your club?”
He presses his lips together and looks at me with remorse. “You don’t know what it’s like to be hungry because your mom’s been on a bender for a week and you haven’t eaten in days. You don’t know what it’s like to sit in a dingy, cold, dark apartment because she didn’t pay the bills or even get you a winter coat to keep you warm. To be so envious of the kids on the street who would walk by with a pop. A pop. It’s nothing, yet some days, it felt like everything.” His voice cracks, and I grip his hand. “I used to steal to survive—food, wallets. That’s what put me on Trent’s radar to begin with, why he took me in if I’m being honest. I was a grifter because it seemed like an easy way to make money, but eventually it got old, and I wanted to earn money for myself. I never wanted to feel like that little boy in those cold apartments again. Ever. So when Sean showed up andpropositioned me, I accepted because it would put more money in my pocket. It was greed, plain and simple.”
