Chapter 23: Hidden Heir: Chapter 23

“What do you mean he took her to a warehouse?”

Rik stands in front of me, his face grim. “Exactly that. They left here an hour ago. Your father claimed he was taking her to meet you for a family dinner, and I guess detoured down by the river.”

Fuck.

We did have plans for a family dinner. Plans my father set in motion and I was foolish enough to believe. I want us to be family, especially as my feelings for Brooke grow, but not like this.

Brooke learning what we do is something I wanted to approach carefully, if at all. But I wanted to be the one to tell her. Keeping her away from the business side of things felt like the best way forward; the less she knows, the less use she is to anyone seeking to hurt me. My father, however, has other plans, it seems.

“When did they get back?” I demand, shrugging off my coat into the arms of a nearby guard.

“Ten minutes ago.”

“Where is she?”

“Bedroom.”

I take the stairs two at a time, not giving a shit about my father right now, although the urge to track him down and fight him is pretty damn strong. Brooke is my responsibility and I know there’s no way this was an accident. I don’t know what the fuck kind of game he’s playing, but I shove it aside for the moment.

Brooke is more important.

Sprinting into her room, she yelps in fright at my sudden appearance, then glares at me through tear-filled eyes. “Get out!”

A suitcase is open on the bed, half filled with clothes dragged from her closet. Drawers hang open in her room as well as the ensuite. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Brooke sniffles, grabbing another armful of clothing. “I’m leaving.”

“No,” I snap as coldness spreads through my limbs. “No, you’re not.”

“You can’t stop me!” She tosses the pile of clothes, hangers and all, into the suitcase. “People, Leon? You’re selling people? Do you have any idea how…” She pauses, all of the color dramatically draining from her face. I step forward as she places a hand against her chest and winces, immediately stepping away from me. “Don’t you dare come near me. Don’t you dare!”

“Brooke, please⁠—”

“I can’t even look at you!” She shouts as fresh tears roll down her cheeks. “All those poor people, I–I knew you were dangerous. I knew there was something going on but I never would’ve guessed this. I thought maybe you were stealing weapons and reselling them at a higher profit, or perhaps embezzling money, something along those lines. I didn’t give it much thought because I didn’t want to. I even considered drugs but you—!” She points one sharp finger at me, panting. “You sell people!”

“Brooke, you have to listen to me. You’re distraught. You need to take a breath and calm down.”

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down!” Brooke yells at me. “I saw them! I saw all those people and it sickened me. How can you do that? How can you ship people like they’re livestock?”

The chill under my skin turns into a blazing inferno, feeding into the anger that seeps through my chest. “It’s business, Brooke. You had no problem with that when I was taking on your debt, did you? Did you never stop to think about where my money came from? My family has been making millions for generations. How we do it is⁠—”

“Slavery!” She screams. “You kidnap and sell people into slavery, don’t you? I saw their faces. I saw how scared they were. It’s not like you’re rescuing people.”

“Some of them come from⁠—”

“Don’t you dare try to justify what you’re doing. I didn’t think it was anything beyond drugs or guns.”

“Is that any better?” I snap. “Selling shit that kills people?”

“At least those people have a choice!” She yells louder than I’ve ever heard her before. Red flushes across her face and she resumes dragging armfuls of clothes from the closet. “Even Ant has a fucking choice to take those drugs but kidnapping? Slavery? What do you sell those people into exactly?”

“I don’t know,” I say, taking another step forward. “I don’t look into that. People pay and⁠—”

She barks out a sharp, pained laugh and stops packing. “You don’t even know? You’re a monster, you know that? I can’t believe I thought I was falling in love with you. You’re disgusting! How can you do that to innocent people? How can you be so cruel?”

Her words wound me deeply but my anger quickly snuffs out the pain. “It’s just how it is, alright? Generations ago, my family did what they had to in order to survive. There’s a market for it, and if we weren’t filling it then someone else would. So we took it on. The Koval family has been doing this for decades, and my father put his blood, sweat and tears into making sure this business was successful.”

“But you’re in charge now!” Brooke yells through her tears. “You’re the boss! You could have stopped the suffering of so many yet you’re now responsible for it!”

“Brooke.” I close the gap between us and grab her shoulders. “Those people aren’t real, okay? You don’t know them. They shouldn’t matter to you because they are nothing. They are simply product, understand? They are numbers on a piece of paper that you send where they need to go for payment. That’s all it is, just business!”

She glares at me with pure venom in her eyes. “Is that what you tell yourself to justify such cruelty?”

Suddenly, I’m thirteen again having this exact argument with my father and my stomach twists into a thousand knots. When he let me in on the family business, my reaction was much the same as Brooke’s. Of course, my father was quick to beat out any sympathy I had for the product and I changed my view. It’s my family’s legacy, and things work this way because that’s how he set it up. How his father set it up.

It’s this way because it just… is.

“Those people are nothing to you,” I snap, forcing myself to lower my voice as my grip tightens on Brooke. “I’m the one saving you. Paying off your debt. That money is saving your family’s life and suddenly you have a problem with it?”

Brooke wrenches herself out of my grip. “If I knew where it came from I never would have accepted your offer. Hell, I never would have come here because… how can you think about what those people are sold into and not feel utterly sick?”

My hands curl into fists as rage at my father blooms in my chest. If he’d just kept this to himself, or let me tell Brooke in my own time, this would never have happened.

“It’s not my responsibility to think beyond that,” I reply tightly. “Do you think about the flowers you sell? Or do you forget about them after they’ve served their purpose?”

“That’s hardly comparable!” Brooke screeches. “You’re hurting people. And you—” She cuts herself off and scoffs, narrowing her eyes. “Before I came here, the Irish were going to sell me for sex. That’s how I was supposed to pay off Ant’s debt. I didn’t have the money so they were going to sell me to as many people as they could, at a price where they could do anything they wanted for as long as they wanted. And they almost did. I was sent to a man, and he was all over me. He hurt me so I attacked him and ran.”

Her words cut through me like shards of ice and I take a half step forward. “Is that what you’re scared of? Brooke, I would never let something like that happen to you!”

“That’s not the—!” She throws her hands up and then starts grabbing clothes from her suitcase, throwing them at me. “That’s not the fucking point! It already happened and it was terrifying, do you understand? I was scared and I chose to do it to save my brother. Now imagine how all those people, yes, people, in those containers feel! Because of you, Leon. Because of you!”

The clothes are nothing but an annoyance but each one stokes my anger a little hotter each time they hit me.

Part of me knows she’s right. The immediate horror and rage I felt hearing what the Irish tried to do to her was instinctual. But I can’t apply that to my work because it’s not mine alone; it’s my father’s too. I can’t shit on decades worth of hard work under my family name just because of a little guilt.

“You don’t understand,” I snap, fighting to keep a lid on my anger. “You’re not seeing the bigger picture, Brooke.”

“Good!” She yells herself hoarse. “I don’t want to see any picture that involves human trafficking, you fuck! I’m leaving, you hear me? Keep your blood money. I’m taking my family and I’m leaving!”

“No.”

She halts her actions. “What the fuck do you mean, no?”

My world tilts, and suddenly, the only thing that matters to me is keeping Brooke here. She needs time to breathe and calm down, and then I can talk to her and explain. It’s the only way this is going to work. If I can just explain things to her the way my father explained them to me, then she will see and understand.

“You are not leaving.”

Brooke’s chest heaves and she glares at me, her eyes widening. “You can’t stop me.”

“I can.”

I make for the door. Brooke runs at me but I get there first. In a flash, I’m on the other side, slamming the door shut. With the turn of a key, I lock it.

“Leon!” Brooke hits the door then begins pounding on it with her fists. “You fucker, let me out of here! You can’t keep me here, Leon. You can’t fucking keep me here!”

I walk away, panting through my anger as it clouds my thoughts.

Only one decision comes into focus. Brooke needs time to calm down. We can talk again once she’s regained her composure.

In the meantime, I need to confront my father. He better have one hell of an explanation.