"Have you been spending time with Romeo Ciresa?"
The name sounds wrong in my father's mouth. Like a curse. Like something dirty.
"I—he's in my graduate seminar. We've worked together on?—"
"Don't lie to me." Each word is clipped and precise. "I have photographs, Savannah. I have documentation. Thaddeus has had you followed for the past three weeks, and the reports are—" He pauses, and I can hear him breathing, trying to control his anger. "Disturbing."
The room tilts. Thad had me followed. Of course he did. Of course. He’s been absent physically because he’s been letting me walk into a trap, not because he’s been busy with work.
"Daddy, I can explain?—"
"You can explain why you've been seen with this man in your dorm room? Why you've been photographed with him at restaurants, at the library, at—" Another pause. "Why have you been conducting an affair while engaged to be married?"
"It's not—it wasn't an affair. We were just?—"
"Just what? Just friends? Just study partners?" His voice rises for the first time. "Do you think I'm a fool? Do you think I don't know why a boy would be in your dorm, Savannah?"
Tears roll down my cheeks as I think frantically of how to salvage this, how to keep it from getting worse. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry." He’s silent for a moment, and when he speaks again, his voice is tight and angry. "You're sorry. You've embarrassed this family. You've jeopardized your engagement to one of the most prominent families in Charleston. You've been consorting with—" He stops himself. "Do you have any idea who Romeo Ciresa is? What his family does?"
"He's a graduate student?—"
"He's the son of Dante Ciresa. The Ciresa crime family, Savannah. Organized crime. The kind of people who could destroy everything I've built."
The words hit me like a slap.Crime family.I can’t bring myself to believe it. Romeo, a criminal. I think of how dangerous he’s seemed to me at times, how arrogant, how he believes that what he wants is his, regardless of what he has to do to get it.
But acriminal?
"I didn't know," I whisper. I’m not entirely sure I believe it, and that this isn’t just a way for my father to convince me that I have to stop seeing him.
"Well, now you do. And now you're going to fix this." His voice is controlled again. "You're coming home. Tonight. You're going to pack your things and fly to Charleston, and you're going to be here by tomorrow afternoon. Do you understand?"
"I have classes?—"
"I don't care about your classes. You're coming home, and we're going to discuss your future."
"Daddy, please?—"
"This is not a negotiation, Savannah. You're coming home, or I'm cutting off your funding. All of it. Your tuition, your living expenses, your stipend. Everything."
The threat steals my breath. "You can't?—"
"I can, and I will. You're living on my money, attending school on my money, and if you want that to continue, you'll do as I say."
"That's not fair?—"
"Fair?" His voice hardens. "You want to talk about fair? You've been lying to me for weeks. You've been lying to Thaddeus. You've been conducting yourself in a manner completely unbefitting of a Beauregard. And now you want to talk about fair?"
I'm sobbing now, unable to hold it back. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"You have twenty-four hours to pack and fly home. If you're not here by tomorrow afternoon, I'm making a phone call to the university to withdraw my funding. And then I'm calling Thaddeus to move up the wedding date. If you're going to act like a child, you're going to be treated like one."
"Please don't?—"
"Twenty-four hours, Savannah. Don't make me come get you."
The line goes dead. I stand there, phone in my hand, feeling like the world is collapsing around me.
