“You consented to nothing.” Ransom closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to the side of the window. “You were fourteen, he was twenty-two. He was a manipulating piece of shit. What happened next?”
“He just touched my legs. But he touched himself, too, in the process. And that…I hadn’t agreed to that. I couldn’t see what he was doing. It was dark. But I knew it was wrong, and I knew we’d both get in trouble for it if people found out.”
“Then what?”
“He finished, I guess.” I buried my face in my hands, shaking my head. “Went to the bathroom, came back after a few minutes. I was sick with shame and worry. I told him I was gonna tell my parents. He said, ‘You agreed to this. All they’re going to think is that you’re a slut on top of being stupid.’ I believed him. At this point, I knew my parents were making excuses for me. And realistically, I wasn’t going to see Craig much. I had kept hoping he and Hera would break up and I wouldn’t have to deal with him again. But that wasn’t how things panned out.”
“And your parents never suspected?”
“My relationship with my parents is…complex. We both work hard at pretending nothing’s wrong.”
“You’re both doing a shit job at it. What about the other times?” Ransom asked.
I rubbed at my right eyebrow. “Then it happened during a family vacation in Cabo—Craig got really drunk and knocked on my suite’s door to apologize. Said it had been eating at him. When I tried to push the door closed, he barged in and did it all over again.”
I heard Ransom suck in a breath, but didn’t dare look at him.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “That time, though, I managed to knee him in the balls. So that bought me a few years of peace and quiet.”
“Third time?” he asked.
“Two years ago. Thanksgiving.”
“And you never told anyone?” There was no judgment in his voice.
I swallowed the acidic saliva pooling in my mouth. “The more time that passed, the larger the secret became, and revealing it after all those years felt…weird. Like they would suspect me. Why hadn’t I come to them after the first time? You always see it in comments on the internet when someone tells their abuse story. When Hera and Craig got engaged, for instance, the tabloids claimed I was extremely jealous of her. It’d have been the perfect time to come clean…if it wasn’t for the terrible motive the press would have slapped on this kind of move.”
“Bet you my dick Craig himself planted the idea that you were jealous,” Ransom said.
I scratched my cheek. “Probably. He loves the media attention.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “The first time I saw you…you thought…”
“Yeah.” I stood up swiftly, collecting my purse. “I thought you came for me. I was ready to kill you if you tried something. What happened with Craig…it really screwed me up.”
“Did anyone ever suspect? A friend? A teacher? A boyfriend?”
“No one.” I wrinkled my nose. “All my L.A. friends, even Keller, are just skin deep. It didn’t seem right. And I didn’t trust anyone else. As for boyfriends…” I sucked in a breath. “I’ve never had one.”
“Never had what?”
“A boyfriend.”
Ransom gave me a GTFO look. “Bullshit.”
I shrugged, smiling miserably.
“But you’re not a virgin.” Ransom frowned, his cheeks tinting pink. “I know that. I—”
“Not anatomically, no. The proud owner of my V-card is my rechargeable JoyStick. I don’t have any sexual experience to speak of, other than self-pleasure.” The words rushed out of me, each confession tumbling after the next. It felt good to get it off my chest, even if the person I was confiding in was my enemy.
“The first time I felt anything resembling sexual attraction to anyone was that night, when I caught you in that dirty L.A. alley…” I waved my purse in the air, chuckling. “Well, anyway, that was a mistake. It’s fine, though. I never needed a relationship to be satisfied sexually. I can take care of myself.”
He opened his mouth, about to say something, but I couldn’t bear to listen to what it might be.
“Hey, do you think it’s safe to leave?” I looked around us. “The smell is starting to get to me.”
“Hallie…” Ransom trailed off, looking miserable and disgusted with what I’d just told him. Maybe a little bit with himself, too, for his treatment of me. I couldn’t stand it. The pity.
“Please don’t be a sap.” I rolled my eyes. “Can we get out of here, or what?”
He nodded once, waltzing over to open the door for me.
Then.
Lawrence was the first to go solo.
When he turned eighteen, he got a full ride to college. We all thought Moruzzi was gonna change his tune. Sweeten up the deal for him to make him stick around in Chicago and do his biddings.
Not so. Moruzzi had decided, instead, to steal all of Lawrence’s savings and told him if he moved, his life would be over.
Lawrence moved, anyway. Tom and I chipped in to help him. Together, we both had about two grand, which wasn’t going to get Lawrence far, but it would buy him some time to find a job before he started his school year.
The night Lawrence left, Moruzzi drank. A lot. Mrs. Moruzzi wasn’t home. She’d gone to Toronto, to spend some time with her lover. I wondered why people stayed together. Marriage looked like a terrible cage to be trapped in. I vowed to never marry.
Moruzzi decided Tom and I should fight. We had no choice, so we did. Normally, I came out on top. But this time, I saw how down and depressed Tom was about the whole thing, so I let him win.
Later that night, Tom crawled over to my bedroom to stitch me up and share a bottle of whiskey he’d stolen from Moruzzi. We did it a lot—drank his booze. Moruzzi never paid attention. He was too much of a drunkard to keep track of his liquor stash.
“We need to kill him,” Tom said, after a long silence. “Or he’ll kill us. I know he will. When I went to get this whiskey from his office, I saw his desk. He is trying to figure out where Law lives. I think Law’s in danger.”
If Tom and I killed him, we wouldn’t have anywhere to go. Plus, we’d be the immediate suspects, after the police looked into it and found out what we did for him.
“We’ll need to get creative first.” I shook my head. “Buy time before we both turn eighteen.”
For the next two years, we slowed Mr. Moruzzi down. Made him as useless, toothless, and clawless as one could be. We slipped some of the drugs he let us sell into his drinks and food when he wasn’t looking, getting him unknowingly hooked. When he wanted to take a spontaneous trip to the state where Lawrence attended college, we very mistakenly loosened one of the stairs in the house, which resulted in Mr. Moruzzi breaking his leg and canceling the trip. We began messing with his sanity. Tampering with his electricity. Changing light bulbs to create different hues, different atmospheres. Cut his shoelaces shorter. Made his important documents and work things go MIA.
He became more vicious toward us. The women he’d once brought over to reward us for our good behavior were long gone. He hid food. Locked us out when we came home late. We counted down the minutes, then seconds, until it was all over.