Since I didn’t want to go anywhere near my father, the only perfect place to stay was the club. Seth and I ended up cuddled on the sofa in the medical room. I was resting my head on his shoulder and tracing my finger idly over his bruises.
“Don’t ask again,” Seth said as soon as I lifted my head to look up at him.
“I wasn’t going to ask if it hurts.” I gave him a small smile. Had I really been asking that much? Oh, well. “I just wanted to say that I never thought I’d be sleeping over at my club. It’s weird.” And it was a good thing no one was supposed to be here during the day anyway.
“Would you like to go somewhere else?” he asked.
“No.” We had snacks here too, and everything else we needed. At least for now. Seth’s arm was wrapped around my waist and strangely comforting. “I don’t remember when the last time I was so peaceful was.” I glanced across the room at my phone that I’d left on a chair and sighed. “I just hope my father will wait a little to call. It usually takes him time to stop being mad. I don’t have Victoria’s phone here, just Vix’s. I’ll probably have to go back for it to make sure my father doesn’t realize I’m faking my location.”
“He doesn’t have a reason to be angry with you,” Seth said.
“Yeah, tell that to him. He believes I’m trying to ruin his business and his chances to run for office. As if I care about any of that.” The good thing was that I was no longer angry or upset.
“I don’t understand why he’d think that. Is it just because of those photographs?”
“Not really. It’s because of my mother and... because of something that happened a few years ago when my father was trying to run for mayor.” I pulled away from Seth and swung my leg up onto the sofa, wrapping my arms around my knee.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” He placed his hand over mine.
“It’s fine.” I stared at the wall for a moment, memories flashing through my mind. Memories I’d been trying to wipe from my mind. “I was invited to a friend’s birthday party. It was her eighteenth birthday, so she threw a huge party. Her whole house was full of people. I didn’t realize it then or care about it, but her father was also running for mayor that year, and... the drink she gave me... There was something in it. I trusted her. She was one of my best friends. We practically grew up together because my father had a seemingly good relationship with hers, and I never expected she’d do such a thing.”
“Your friend drugged you?” Seth gaped at me.
I nodded. “There isn’t any other explanation. I didn’t drink or eat anything else. Just took a few gulps from the cup she had given me.”
“Could someone else have slipped something in the drinks while she wasn’t looking?”
“Don’t think so. She was drinking too, and gave the others their cups at the same time. Only I was affected. She must’ve slipped something in it while I was talking with the other girls. Anyway, my head started spinning, and I... I don’t know. Then everything was foggy for a long time. Until I woke up naked in a strange bed.”
“Did anyone...?” Seth’s face darkened.
“Someone had taken my clothes off. I didn’t know if it had been my friend or someone else, or what else they may or may not have done. I was utterly confused until the photographs of me lying in bed with two guys surfaced in the local news, and there was also a packet of drugs on the nightstand. The press made a huge scandal out of it, as if I were some sort of a celebrity. My father’s image was tainted. People said he was a bad father, that he’d let me do drugs and have wild sex, and some even claimed he was a kingpin too. They speculated that was the real reason why my mother left him.” A soft laugh escaped my throat. “You should’ve seen how mad he was. After that, his odds to win the race plummeted, and all because of the stupid photos. I didn’t even know those guys and was never able to recognize them because their faces had been conveniently cut from the photos. My friend denied anything weird happened, and since they hadn’t raped me and there wasn’t any proof that I hadn’t gone with those guys willingly or that there had been something in my cup—which had disappeared, of course—I couldn’t do anything about it. Everyone knew me as a party girl anyway, although I faked most of that and never took any drugs. You know what the funniest thing about all that was?”
Seth shook his head.
“My friend’s father didn’t win.” I grinned. “Maybe you remember him if you paid any attention to that election crap. The fat blond guy?”
He gave me a blank look. “No idea.”
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, my father believed my friend and ended up blaming me for the whole thing and for his failure.” I shifted on the sofa so my body was angled toward Seth. “I was young when my mother left, but I remember them fighting all the time. And one day, I found a note saying that she was done with my father and that she was leaving. My father told me she got hooked on drugs and had left with her dealer.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “I’ve never seen her or spoken to her again. For some time, she was sending me letters and postcards, but that stopped too. All my father ever told me when I asked about her was that she was alive and well but didn’t care about him and me anymore.”
“I’m sorry.” Seth’s eyes softened.
“It’s okay. I don’t really remember her that much. I was four when she left. But my father had no problem accusing me of everything and comparing me to her all the time. The things he said to me after those photos surfaced...” I closed my eyes for a moment, my throat constricting a little. Even though I still remembered every word perfectly, I didn’t want to tell Seth or anyone else any of that.
“I felt terrible,” I said. “And I had no one to turn to. My father repeated certain things so many times that I began to believe them. I blamed myself. I believed he was right about me.” Rubbing my arms, I swallowed hard. “So I decided to be exactly what he said I was. I went out at night, looking for a drug dealer. Wasn’t that hard to find. I had money, so I could get anything I wanted. I didn’t even know what I bought. Then I took it. The whole packet. I ended up in some dark alley, feeling like I was dying... and I was.” I got to my feet and pointed to the east.
“The alley here?” Seth’s eyebrows shot up.
I nodded. “Luckily, John found me before it was too late. Saved my life. At the hospital, he wouldn’t leave my side. Well, that was until my father arrived and chased him out of there. But John stayed and waited for my father to leave.”
“That sounds like John.” A smile played on Seth’s lips.
“Yeah, he was great. He heard my father yelling at me. In my father’s mind, my near-death experience was only a confirmation that I’d taken drugs before and that I’d either set him up as part of a ploy with my mother so he wouldn’t succeed, or I’d been reckless with my drug use—just like my mother—or that I was trying to get attention.”
I ran my hand over my face. “Anyway, after hearing all that, John came to talk to me when I was alone, and I told him the whole story. And he believed me. For the first time, someone believed me. He didn’t think I was some spoiled rich girl crying for attention. And finally, he offered me the chance to come to this club and train with him. Said it would help me clear my mind and give me a way to channel my anger. Hell, he even offered me a place to stay, but I just... I said no to everything at first. I was scared, and I didn’t want to piss my father off more. I’d never been away from home anyway.”
“How did he finally convince you to come to the club?” Seth asked.
“I wanted to make sure he wasn’t some kind of a creep, so I actually came to the club to check out what it was all about. But then I saw all the people here, and it looked okay. John said I couldn’t come inside without agreeing to a fight. You should’ve seen my face when he said that.” I laughed. “Me, a fighter? It was crazy. He said those were the rules, but that since I just got out of hospital, I needed time to heal, so my first fight could wait. Everyone else agreed, and John ended up showing me how to hit a punching bag properly, how to stand, what to do... I imagined the bag was my father’s face, so I nearly broke my hand the first time. Soon enough, I started to really like it, and this place was my escape from everything. It felt like home. Real home.”
Sadness filled Seth’s eyes as he looked down at his hands. “I know that feeling. With John, everything was different.”
“Yeah, and he always had a positive attitude about everything. It was infectious. I’d come here angry at the whole world and leave smiling. He made me realize that what had happened hadn’t been my fault and that my father was wrong about me and about a lot of things. John was like a real father to me. A good one.” Tears clouded the edge of my vision, and I blinked them away. “I miss him so much.”
“Me too.”
I lowered my head to Seth’s shoulder again, and his arm snaked around me. “John thought I should go live on my own, but I didn’t want to. Very soon after that scene at the hospital, my father came to me apologizing and bathing me in gifts, and he said I was the reason why he was doing everything and... silly me, I fell for it. I guess he realized he didn’t want to be alone, and he still likes to boast that he’s a great father. I don’t know what I was thinking. I really should’ve left earlier. I had a new family here, but... My father was asking for a second chance, and I... I wasn’t even ready to live on my own. He made me dependent on him for everything. But now... Now I can’t do it anymore. Even if the whole world falls apart.”
Seth kissed the top of my head just as my phone started to vibrate. A groan escaped my throat, and I reluctantly pulled away from Seth and got to my feet. Snatching my phone, I glared at it. It was a reminder that I should go pick up Victoria’s phone because I’d been here too long.
“Huh,” I said. “I guess I should go check if my father changed his mind quicker this time.” And hopefully, I hadn’t missed a camera and Rubio hadn’t sent any new material. “If he realized that now I have you...” I grinned at Seth. Even if the world was burning, I didn’t want to talk to my father right now, but I needed to make sure he wasn’t looking for me all over the city just yet. “I can run off with you wherever I want, and he’d never get to see me again.” My smile faded. “Just like my mother.”
“Vix. Don’t.” Seth stood up and pulled me into an embrace. “Don’t think about that.”
I ran my hands up and down his back as I buried my face into his shoulder. “What exactly did John save you from?” I asked after a few moments of silence.
“He realized I was planning to lose my next fight.” Seth’s shoulders tensed.
“You mean you were planning to let your opponent kill you?” I moved back so I could look into his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said. “I was getting desperate.”
“And he convinced you to win or...?”
“It doesn’t matter.” His eyes turned expressionless, his body rigid.
“I guess not.” At least it didn’t matter right now. I placed my hand on Seth’s cheek, then brought my lips to his. As he melted into my kiss, I knew that today was our day, and after that... I didn’t know what would happen.