Secretly Loved By The Dangerous CEO - Chapter 243

Lila

“I didn’t notice anything at first. That brick had something written on it, but I didn’t see I before Dad got his hands on it. All I knew was, Dad got a whole new security system installed in the house, and he started carrying a gun. And right after that was when I started getting training in martial arts because he said that young women needed to be able to defend themselves against the… ‘jerks of the world’ was what he called them. He tried to tell me it was about dating and getting old enough to get in cars with boys, but I knew that wasn’t really it.”

“Were you scared?” Dane asked, stroking her hand with his thumb.

“Sometimes, but like I said, I didn’t really understand at first. Most people didn’t talk to me about him or what had happened. But then the Court cases started actually going to court, and the media started showing up again. By that time I was eighteen and a senior in high school. By that time, my dad’s got me convinced that he’s the good guy and these other things are happening because people want him silenced. I’ve been using what he’s been teaching me for like six years—I’ve become a really good liar. I’m an incredible manipulator. And I’m always putting myself next to people who can get me what I want, right? I mean, this is at high school, so it’s not a big deal. But you understand what I’m saying? I thought that because my dad was the victim, it was good for me to do whatever I had to do to get what I wanted or needed.

“And by now, he’s using me. Like bait. He knows the press comes for me, so he’s telling me what to feed them, what information to tell them. And he’s got me asking them questions—which they sometimes answered.

“Because of what was happening to him, I had all these naïve ideas about how the press is the enemy, and I’m going to become a journalist and I’m going to do it right. I’m going to tell the real stories! So whenever I’d go out and the press people would hound me, I’d manipulate them. Be nice. Be scared. Be whatever, so they’d take pity on me, or help me out.

“They all figured out if they were nice, they could talk to me. And they did. A couple in particular started following me everywhere. And anytime I wasn’t with an adult, but I was in public, they’d approach me and talk to me—they’d be really nice, and funny. They’d make me feel important.  Then they’d try to get me to talk about my dad, or the court cases, or whatever.

“There was one guy who wasn’t like the rest. He was older. He always smelt like cigarette smoke and peppermints, which reminded me of my grandmother. Anyway, he would just talk to me, like I was a person. He wouldn’t try to flatter me, or entice me. He’d just talk about what it must be like to live in my house—and he was right. It was like he understood me. And he’d let me ask him questions about becoming a journalist. He even gave me advice on writing my essays for college applications.”

She snorted at herself and looked at Dane finally. “I had these stunning ideals about how I was going to be the one to do it right—hard-hitting, true journalism that didn’t pull punches! I was so naïve, but anyway. The old guy encouraged my writing. And he didn’t pester me the way the others did. It was like we were friends.

“Then there was this one night that I was coming home and one of my friends dropped me off and he was there, waiting. And he told me that he thought it was time I started practicing how to investigate a real story. He looked back at our house, then he stares me right in the face and he says, “Keep your ears to the ground. A real journalist will listen to anything and wait to see what they find—whether they like it or not. You want to try?”

“I was like, of course! And he gave me a look like he didn’t believe me, but he told me to listen out for references to the Done Club.” She frowned. “I was completely baffled. It sounded like something a kid would make up. I told him that. And he just shrugged. Said if I ever found anything to let him know and he’d pay me, because he had a hunch this was big. Then he left, and I forgot about it. For a while.”

“The Done Club?” Dane said breathlessly.

Lila looked at him sharply. “You know it?”

“Yeah, I do.”

She sighed. “Well, I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue what I was getting myself into. At first I kind of laughed it off. I thought it was one of the stupidest things I’d ever heard. But a few weeks later there was this night when my mom was gone and my dad insisted that he and I go out on a “date” with him. He said it was about us spending quality time together, but all he wanted to do was go to the movies, and he was twitchy and distracted the whole time. I was pissed, but we did it.

“Then halfway through the movie he tells me he has to go to the bathroom and he’ll be back. But I had a feeling, you know? When he wasn’t back five minutes later I got up and snuck out to look for him. He was standing in the empty hallway, talking to this tall guy and they were arguing. I stayed in the little alcove around our theater doors and tried to listen. I couldn’t hear everything but I heard the guy swearing at him and saying something about how he didn’t want to mess with the Done Club. My Dad got up in his face and they almost fought. I was freaking out, I’d never seen my dad act that way.

“I ran back to my seat and waited for him to come back and it took him a few more minutes and he looked sweaty, but I didn’t say anything. I wish I’d said something.”

Dane shook his head. “He wouldn’t have said anything even if you did.”

“Maybe not then and there, but if he’d known that I knew, maybe he would have talked to me later. Maybe… maybe it all wouldn’t have had to happen,” she said staring at the carpet.

Dane’s fingers tightened on hers and he waited while she braced herself. But Lila sighed and took her hand back. She needed to keep her emotions in check to get through this. Dane let her go, but shifted so their thighs were touching. She let him stay there.

Then she fixed her eyes on a spot on the carpet, and just started talking, not really aware of anything else anymore.

She told him how she didn’t know what it meant, but she heard references to the Done Club a couple more times, and always at times when her father was either somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, or he was on the phone in his office and didn’t think anyone could hear him.

“Eventually I understood that it was a group of people. Politicians and businesses, private interests. And they all had a ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ mentality. I mean, I knew that was shady, but it wasn’t until later that I realized just how bad it was. And I gathered that these people were threatening my dad to keep him quiet about something they’d all arranged together. I mean, of course it had to be all that stuff about the law and the money, but I wasn’t really interested in the logistics. I just knew my father was starting to fall apart.

“Suddenly there wasn’t as much money around and we had to be more careful. Dad was angry all the time, and really twitchy and jumpy. Then my last summer before college, one night when we were all downstairs watching television, someone walked around our house and we saw them from the window. Dad went ballistic.

“I thought he was literally going to lose his mind that night. Like, he was so crazy, I got scared and Mom told me to go to bed. Things were calmer the next morning, but for the first time I was starting to question if my dad was sane, you know? He’d already been in a bad place and overreacting about everything. But after that night he got super-paranoid and would go mental at me if I went outside alone, or anything like that. I thought maybe he had a mental illness and needed some help. But then one morning we got up and someone had killed the dog.”

She didn’t look at Dane, but felt him tense. She nodded. “They gutted him and left him on the front doorstep. It was… horrific,” she said quietly.

“Lila—”

“It’s not the same, Dane. I know. You didn’t want to. And they did this to scare us. But just… it was hard to see that video of you, you know?”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“The whole world is sick, Dane.”

“I know, Lila, I know.”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she told him the rest.