Chapter 120 Stupid Book

Chapter 120 Stupid Book
I stare at the screen for a long moment, rereading the same line over and over like it might rearrange itself into something less absurd if I just give it enough attempts.
​Nora Ellis.
​The Red Room. My mother. A private BDSM venue.
​For nearly ten seconds, my brain simply refuses to process the combination of words. It isn’t even the fetish element that throws me – in a strange, twisted way, that’s almost the least surprising part of the equation. What knocks the breath out of me is the realization that this is yet another massive piece of my parents’ past that has been entirely rewritten, sanitized, and buried beneath a decades of silk blouses and charity galas.
​Over the last few months, I have discovered my Dad was a mafia Don who might or might not have had a hand in his best friend’s death. Now I find out my mother, the picture of upper-class domestic elegance, once helped manage a sex club.
​I lean back in my desk chair, letting out a quiet, breathless scoff into the empty room.
“Of course my mother used to work at a BDSM club,” I murmur to myself, rubbing my temples. “Why wouldn’t she? At this point, if I discovered Dad had once been a professional circus clown, I’d probably just update the family tree and move on with my day.”
​The next day I text Eli and ask him to meet me somewhere that isn’t the estate, somewhere without walls that might be listening, and we end up tucked into a corner booth at a small café two streets over from the school with my laptop open between us, the printed records I pulled last night spread across the table.
​“Nora hid the ledger with Selene,” I say, laying it out for him piece by piece. “Selene hid it at the Red Room. Dad knows exactly where it is.”
“And Adrian doesn’t,” Eli says, following the logic.
“Which means we might actually have leverage here,” I say. “If we can get to it before he does.”
​I pull out my phone, tap in her number, and hit speaker before placing it on the table between us.
​Selene picks up. “Lucia, darling. I told you last night, I don’t have time to discuss old property–”
​“I know,” I cut in smoothly, not letting her finish the lie.
​A pause hangs over the speaker. “You know what?”
​“Nobody told me, Aunt Sel,” I say, tilting my head as I watch Eli’s reaction. “Your paperwork did. Crimson Management Services, 2011. The Velvet Cloak. The basement suite.”
​Selene drops her breath sharply over the line. “Lucia, you need to stay out of this. You have no idea what you are digging into, and if your father finds out–”
​“My father already knows you have it,” I say firmly. “He knows it’s at the club. Eli and I are going to meet you there right now. You can either unlock the front door for us, or we pull the frame off the hinges ourselves.”
​Silence stretches for three agonizing seconds before Selene lets out a long, defeated sigh. “Give me twenty minutes.”
​The club sits inside an old industrial building on the edge of the city, unmarked from the street, the kind of place that’s clearly existed for decades without ever needing a sign to announce itself.
Selene lets us in through a side entrance, and the space beyond it feels immediately different from anything I expected, old in a way that carries genuine history rather than simple age, dim lighting fixtures original enough to look almost vintage, dark wood paneling worn smooth in places by decades of hands.
​As we walk through the central corridor, I look at the old brass fixtures, the worn leather couches, and the framed vintage art on the walls.
​“Nora spent a lot of time in that booth,” Selene says softly, gesturing toward the maroon-lined alcove as we walk past.
I stop walking. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t make it weird,” Selene replies,  already moving on ahead of us.
​As I keep walking, my mind is already churning. My parents were once young people too. They weren’t always the formidable, terrifying David Reid and the cold, impeccably dressed Nora Reid. They were just David and Nora and this quiet, hidden basement is where their entire story began.
​“Did they meet here?” I ask, turning to look at Selene.
​“This is where it started,” Selene says, glancing back at us. “Whatever David tells you about how they met, it happened here, in this room, decades before either of them looked anything like the people you know now.” She smiles faintly. “I met Marcus here too, actually. This place carries a lot of history for all of us. And because nobody in their right mind would ever imagine David Reid had hidden her father’s most valuable possession beneath a club connected to Nora’s private past, it became the perfect hiding spot.”
​Eli freezes in his tracks, his eyes snapping directly to Selene. “Wait... Nora’s father’s ledger? Malcolm was Nora’s father?”
​Selene stops instantly, her mouth opening slightly as she realizes what she just let slip. Her posture hardens, a flash of annoyance crossing her face before she smoothly turns her back on us again, refusing to answer the question.
“Aunt Sel,” I try, “My Mom’s father was a don too?”
​“We don’t have time for a historical lesson,” Selene snaps, steering us deeper into the club. “Let’s get this over with.”
​Eli and I exchange a fast look. I roll my eyes slightly, letting out a quiet breath.
“I guess that’s just another wonderful detail to add to the family tree,” I mutter under my breath as we follow her into the back chamber.
​She leads us to a private room near the very back and crouches near a section of the floor that looks, at first glance, identical to every other section around it. She works something loose along the edge of a floorboard, and a sealed compartment reveals itself beneath, covered in dust and clearly untouched for years.
“You should know now, that I’m not letting you leave here with it,” Selene tells us. “I just want you both to have a look so you at least know what you’re fighting for.”
With that, she lifts it open and sitting inside is a single leather bound book, worn at the corners, unremarkable in every way except for the enormous weight it apparently carries.
​The actual ledger.
​I reach down and lift it out of the floor.
​I stand there for a long moment in a room where my parents’ entire story apparently began, holding the exact object that has shaped so much of what’s happened to my family this past year.
Eli watches me quietly, saying nothing.
I look down at the book in my hands, at the cracked leather cover, at everything it apparently represents, decades of history, betrayal, blackmail, blood.
“This stupid book,” I say finally, “has ruined enough lives. This ends.”