She clears her throat delicately. Her hand is cool against my bare arm, but it doesn’t help to dispel the nausea that’s rising inside me like a relentless tide. ‘The only option was Seraph, and I suggested you, because I was absolutely bloody terrified for her and I knew you’d look after her. I knew I could trust you. Honestly, it was the only way I could, in all decency, propose her for Seraph. Yes, she was insistent on earning the funds herself, but the way I saw it, someone as inexperienced as Marlowe signing herself up for sex work was like throwing herself into the lion’s den. She hasn’t had a boyfriend since Tabs was born, for God’s sake.’

I stare at her, bile filling my mouth with rancid acid.

She needed the money.

I knew you’d look after her.

I knew I could trust you.

Throwing herself into the lion’s den.

She hasn’t had a boyfriend since Tabs was born.

I hired a beautiful, smart, sexy, obliging woman so I could use and abuse her. I knew Marlowe was classy, knew she had integrity, but figured she had experience, at the very least. I figured she wanted a certain lifestyle and was prepared to do what it took to fund that lifestyle.

I fucked her in every position.

I made her suck my friend off while I took her from behind.

I dragged her into my blokey, boozy lunch and tried to finger her. Oh, Jesus.

I intentionally humiliated her.

I treated her like a whore.

I used every trick in the book the other day to make her feel like a piece of fucking meat in front of my mates.

And she was doing it all to save her daughter’s life.

She isn’t a slick professional operator.

She’s a desperate, terrified mother who will do anything, endure anything, to save her little girl’s life.

And Athena was looking out for her—Athena engineered the whole thing, thinking she could trust me to act properly. To look out for her friend and treat her with respect and decency.

Her face the other day in that meeting room.

Her face. Oh dear God, I can’t get it out of my mind.

Another wave of bile seeps into my mouth, and my entire body convulses.

I slam down my beer bottle and I turn, running out of the kitchen and across the huge hallway into Gabe’s downstairs cloakroom, where I fall to my knees and proceed to noisily, messily, empty the poison of my sickened stomach and my blackened heart into his toilet bowl.

CHAPTER 42

Brendan

Ireturn to the kitchen on shaky legs, my face still damp from the cold water I threw over it.

‘You alright, mate?’ my brother asks, holding out a glass of water.

I take it and shake my head. ‘Not even close.’