Page 10 of Enchant Me

“But I didn’t tell you how. Or why.” He clears his throat, and his hand tightens painfully around my fingers, crushing my knuckles together. I force myself not to wince. To simply be an anchor for him. “He came in giddy. Said he’d landed a big payday. He’d been going to clubs. Selling pictures of Sofia. Of me. Nothing identifiable. Nothing like what came to light in Germany. Those were only for him, the sick fuck.”

“He sold close-ups,” I whisper. “Nothing that could identify you—you were too well known then. A tennis prodigy.”

“And as my coach, he was known, too. So was his daughter. But these pictures, well, he found people who wanted them. He didn’t say who they were, or at least I don’t think he did—hell, I have to believe he didn’t—but people bought them from him. And the nights that they did were the best, because he would stay away. He’d go gamble or get drunk and those were the nights that Sofia and Alaine and I could just hang out. Could just be kids.”

“Alaine never knew?”

“God, no. As far as I know, no one else knew a thing about it until after.”

I nod in understanding. Alaine’s father was a doctor, and he toured with Damien and Richter. But if he knew, surely he would have done something. So I hope that he never suspected.

“None of that matters though. I’m just setting the stage for that night. That night he came to find us. He was drunk, and I think that’s the only reason he told me. But he did. Told us he’d hit the jackpot. That there was a guy who’d pay out the nose for a virgin. And wasn’t it lucky that he could offer his own little girl. That she’d be able to earn her keep.”

Bile rises in my throat, and I lift my free hand to my mouth, unable to even comprehend the horror of what he was saying.

“She was only thirteen,” Damien whispered. “Hell, I wasn’t much older. And I told my dad. I told my father what the coach made us do. Told him that he had to pull me off the circuit. Find a new coach. Get Sofia out of there.”

I pull my knees up, hugging myself against the chill that has settled in my bones. “He didn’t do anything.”

“Not a goddamn thing. Told me that Coach was going to make us rich, and was I really that ungrateful that I’d take all that away from him? He said that I was being too sensitive, like I’d misinterpreted the situation. That Richter was teaching me to be a man, and if I started saying things like that it would get misinterpreted, and then everything I’d worked for on the circuit would come crashing down, and I’d lose everything. He’d lose everything.”

“He knew exactly what Richter was doing to you,” I whisper. “The bastard.” Damien had told me that his father knew, but he’d never been specific. Now I understood even better the type of monster that was Jeremiah Stark.

“I begged for him to intervene for Sofia’s sake, and my father just kept saying that I had to be mistaken. It was one thing to keep it all in the family, but I must have misunderstood. I was just a kid, after all.”

He drags his fingers through his hair. “Maybe he really believed that. Maybe he somehow convinced himself that what happened with Richter and Sofia was fair payment for my success. Maybe he never let himself believe that Richter could expand beyond that horrible secret circle.”

“He knew,” I snap. “Of course the bastard knew.”

Damien just nods. I shift, then take both of his hands in mine. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to,” he says. “But only if you can handle hearing it.”

I nod, grateful he’s not looking in my eyes as I say, “Of course. I’m right here. Let me carry some of it with you.” I mean every word, and yet I don’t want to hear. All I want to do is curl up into a ball and cry for these two kids and the wounds those two selfish pricks inflicted on them.

“I told Sofia I’d do it. That her father couldn’t sell her to some abusive prick if she wasn’t a virgin anymore—and the bastard was actually paying extra to return her bruised. She agreed—she already had a crush on me, and though I never saw her as anything but a sister, I knew I had to. And that night—it was—”

He shakes his head. “It was awkward and horrible, but at the same time it was great because for the first time ever we were the ones in control. We were turning the tables, messing up his plans. And I felt like the king of the fucking world knowing that we’d beaten him.”

“But he found out,” I whisper. “He came into the room. Told you he’d beat you if you stopped. That you’d cheated him and he was going to film it.”

“I—couldn’t anymore. Not with him there. But he—”

He cuts himself off with a shudder, his hand tightening painfully around mine, and I remember the ring in that damn photo and feel sick.

“I’m sorry,” I say, wanting to cry for the boy he was but so proud of the man he became. “I’m so sorry.”

“I should have been stronger.”

“Damien, no.”

“Fought back more. Fought my father. Fought Richter. Fuck.”

He scrubs his hands over his face, then looks up at me. “He sold it,” he says, and my stomach twists. “Somehow blurred out our faces, but he sold that goddamn video. I thought the original was gone. I never believed he’d keep one that could identify us, but I guess like some of the pictures, he wanted them for himself, the sick fuck.”

I say nothing. What is there to say? But I hold his hand, hoping he understands that whatever he needs, I will give him.

He’s lost in the past, though, his expression haunted. “That wasn’t the only time. Sofia and me, I mean,” he whispers. “Twice more that her father never knew about. It was our rebellion, and it was comfort, too.”