Page 85 of Sweet Ruin

“Oh, shut up.” But I can’t even be properly mad. I just feel lost.

I move a stack of takeout menus from one side of the register to the other for no reason at all. Then I ask him the question that’s been bothering me. It doesn’t matter much in the long run. It’s just something I wanted to know.

“Why my building?”

Kane goes still.

“You loaned out four million dollars,” I remind him. “Connor could barely be trusted with a lotto scratch-off. He plays cards in a basement in Marine Park for forty bucks a hand. Nobody hands a man like that four million bucks… unless the money was never the point.” I spread my hands. Twenty-four hundred square feet with two ovens and a walk-in that whines at night. “It’s a bakery in Sunset Park, not a diamond mine. So why my building?”

Still nothing.

“Kane. Give me that much at least.”

“You’re not ready for that answer,” he says at last.

“Oh, come on.”

He shakes his head. “No. I won’t discuss it further.”

I don’t know this man well at all, but I’ve spent enough time with him to hear the finality in his voice.

Which means I’m done.

I look at the letter on my counter with my blood on the corner of the last page. In sixteen days, everything I’ve ever loved is gone.

I’m beaten. There’s no version of this where I’m not.

“Alright,” I say. “You win. Tell me where you want me and what I’m signing. I’d appreciate it if you’d let me get my mixers out before whatever happens next. Some of them are on payment plans.”

Kane doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me as a strange kind of storm rages behind those green eyes.

“Stop dragging it out,” I snap. “You won, okay? I concede. All hail the victor. Now, can I just sign whatever stupid paper confirms all this?”

I reach for the pen cup in the corner, but as I do, I accidentally knock my father’s planner over the edge. It flops on the floor at Kane’s feet.

Kane crouches down and picks it up before I can run around the counter and beat him to it. I hold out a hand, but he doesn’t give it back.

Instead, he flips it open and starts to peruse.

“Give me that,” I order.

He makes no move to do so. “What is this?”

“It’s a calendar. My dad’s. Give it back.”

He doesn’t. He flips a page. Then another. And I know what he’s looking at, because it’s kinda hard to miss it.

X. X. X. X.

“Explain it,” he says.

I could tell him to go to hell. It wouldn’t be the first time tonight. He definitely deserves it.

Instead, I hear myself start talking, and then I can’t get the brakes on.

“My lawyer wanted me to comb through all our bank statements for proof of infidelity and misuse of joint marital funds. So I’ve been sitting in that stupid office since Tuesday with a highlighter, going line by line, looking for hotels and dinners and anything that shouldn’t be there. I thought…”

When I trail off, he prods me. “You thought what?”