Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
“Like what?” I listen intently. I need to be as sensitive a listener as he was.
“He financed gun running. Drug trafficking. Human trafficking. He had no sense of morality and only cared about building back the millions he lost when he was trying to run the family business on the level. He stepped on so many toes in the black market on his way to being wildly profitable there, and he made many enemies.”
I stare at him. “That’s all so horrible. And I’m guessing he involved you?”
“No. I... I didn’t know where our money was coming from. I just thought he was turning it around with investments. He was always on a laptop and talking on the phone, never actually got his hands dirty.”
“That’s all his doing. Not yours.”
“I can’t claim my hands are clean, Clara.”
“What do you mean? You said you didn’t know.”
“But he used me all the same. I went with him on a trip to Eastern Europe. Said he had some business deals to discuss there, and he wanted me to come. I was fresh out of college, and having nowhere else to be, I agreed. I must have been blind because I didn’t see the red flags all around me leading up to the meeting. Then he hands me a gun.”
“And that finally clued you in?”
“No. I was young. Foolish. He just told me that this place was dangerous and we should be armed. So I carried it. After lunch, he said it was time for the meeting. He said he was going for a jog with an associate so they could discuss things privately. Odd, I thought, but how is it any different from a game of golf? I went back to our hotel room. Soon after, he came running back. Breathless. He claimed his business associate was trying to kill him. I saw someone running down the hall, an angry look on his face. He was obviously trying to kill my father. So I pulled out my gun. I shot. Even though I’d never fired a gun before, I somehow hit him right between the eyes.”
I stare at Sebastian in disbelief.
“He dropped dead instantly, blood on the hotel carpet.”
“You mean...”
He nods. “Yes, Clara.”
My lips quiver in shock.
He looks down at the floor, defeated and pained.
“My father set me up. My father forced me to kill that man.”
8
SEBASTIAN
I just confessed my darkest secret to a woman I barely know.
What’s wrong with me?
“There has to be more to it,” Clara says, shaking her head. “You didn’t just kill that man out of nowhere.”
“There was. But I spent the next two years of my life foolishly believing that I had just saved my father from an assassin.”
“I’m guessing that’s not the case at all, is it?”
I shake my head. “It all happened so fast when I learned the truth. My father was murdered. Suddenly, unexpectedly. I was grieving when I inherited all of his documents. And minutes after I started to read them, I grieved no more. I learned just how awful my father was, what he was involved with, and all of his sins.”
Clara is pale in the face, and I bet she’s sick in the stomach too. She must think I am a truly terrible person, or at the very least, an idiot for allowing myself to be tangled up in my father’s mess.
“The man I killed was supposed to be the subject of a hit my father was charged with taking care of. He never got his hands dirty, though, so he used me, he exploited my faith in him all for a meager profit. A drop in the bucket compared to all the rest of his sinful ventures. Apparently he didn’t think highly of the man either, so I was also a tool of his petty vengeance. Which just makes me feel even worse.”
“Are... are you still involved in those things? The trafficking?”
I shake my head. “No. I sought an exit strategy immediately. I swore silence on all affairs, pleading innocence and ignorance. I gave up the pieces of my father’s criminal empire. I didn’t need it. He was losing money in our legitimate business, but there’s still enough left to live comfortably and luxuriously. My father was fueled by greed more than anything else. Having enough was never, well, enough.”
“And... they just let you walk out of all that? I thought the criminal world was more cutthroat.”
“There’s honor among thieves, I suppose. As long as I live up to my part of the bargain, I am probably safe.”
Telling her all this is absurd. Foolish. Dangerous. If word gets out that Clara knows these things, they might come after her.
But my heart feels lighter after sharing it with her.
Even if I know she’ll eventually leave me. Maybe sooner rather than later now. “You must think I'm a monster, Clara.”