Chapter 62 The monster
"Blackmailing you!" Mom looks like she's going to have a heart attack. "What the fuck does he have on you!"
God, how do I tell them this?
"That night of the engagement, I was so drunk." I shake my head. "I drank a lot of champagne, but I was really out of it, I don't remember anything that happened after we got to my apartment."
"What did that fucker do?" Aunty's voice is deadly.
"After I tried breaking up with him, he sent me a video of us having sex." The words feel constricted coming out of my throat, but even though my cheeks are burning with embarrassment, I tell them. "It looks consensual, but I don't remember. He said if I leave him he will release the video, put it on porn sites."
Everyone around me starts swearing, with Dad frantically looking for his car keys to find out where Ben is.
"Everyone stop!" Uncle's voice booms, halting everyone's movements before he looks at me again. "Is that all?"
"No."
I tell them about the apartment yesterday, what they did to poor Katherine while I had to watch, about the rape and him blackmailing her too.
"And she was asking me to help her, so why would she kill herself?" It just doesn't make sense to me. "And he sent me a picture of you, Uncle."
"What kind of fucking picture would he have on you!" Aunty looks accusingly at her husband, but his gaze remains on me.
"It's of you having a conversation with someone named Vincent DiCassio, he said that guy is in the mafia and he has information that will ruin our whole family."
"What the fuck, Alessandro!" Dad runs his hands through his hair. "You said you're finished with all that shit. Don't you have enough fucking money!"
"It's not what it looks like." Uncle keeps his composure. "Ben is bluffing, he's using that tactic to keep Madison under his control."
And he succeeded. Until there was a dead fucking body in my apartment.
"I can't believe you kept this all to yourself. We stick together, no matter what." Mom looks sad, but I see the disappointment too. The exact look I was always afraid of.
"She thought she was protecting us." Uncle clocks it. "But don't ever do that again."
I nod and wipe my tears. That's not even a question. I don't ever want to be caught up in a situation like this.
"What did he have on Katherine?" Uncle wants to know.
"She never said, but she thought our family could help her, could stop Ben." I'm just so confused. "She was fucked up, but she didn't talk like someone who wanted to kill herself."
Uncle sighs and gets up from opposite me. "I'm going to say something, and nobody is going to like it."
Everyone looks at him in anticipation, and he looks at me with regret.
"You can't break off your engagement to Ben."
"What!" Dad literally shouts. "Are you fucking insane! I'm not letting my daughter near that monster!"
"No, Alessandro." Aunty squeezes my hand. "I agree with Kev, Ben is clearly fucking dangerous and whatever you are planning, Madison is not equipped for that. She didn't grow up like we do."
That stings a little, but she's right. I've never had to live in survival mode, I've always been protected and coddled.
"I didn't say she has to be around him, I think she has to move back home anyway, but we don't announce anything publicly yet. When she goes outside, she has security with her at all times." Uncle sighs again. "I think this goes way deeper,I think we're just scratching the surface of the Cargill family."
This is probably the opportune time to tell them I fucked Miguel on the side. But the words just can't leave my mouth, because nobody knows except for him and me.
Right?
"So what! Fuck them, that fucking boy fooled us all, proposing at Madison Square Garden!" Dad looks really mad now, and I feel so bad. I brought Ben into our lives.
"You don't have to feel bad, this is not on you." Aunty hugs me as if she knows exactly what's going through my mind. "I brought you a sleeping pill, it will help you relax tonight."
I'm going to need sleeping pills every night if I want to get through this shit show that's become my life.
The front door opens and T.J. enters, the frown from earlier still evident on his forehead.
"Did you get anything from the police?" Uncle asks immediately.
"They're ruling it as a suicide." He has a laptop and opens it on the coffee table. "But her phone is completely wiped clean, she left no suicide note either. And check this out, I checked the security footage from the apartment hallway."
There's security footage? Did T.J. also see Miguel at my door the night before the engagement? How am I going to explain that?
T.J. turns the laptop towards us, and lo and behold, Jeffrey is walking to my door, and Katherine fucking opened it for him. He leaves roughly an hourly later.
What the fuck happened in my apartment? And how did he know she was there?
So they either followed us last night, or she called him.
"And she used the blade of one of Ben's razors that was in the guest bathroom, but it's not easy getting the blade out and there were no marks on her hands."
"Do you think he killed her?" My voice is shaky, my heart breaking for that poor woman. Her whole adult life was ruined and taken away from her, and why?
Why did Ben target her?
Is it really because of Miguel?
"We'll do our own investigation." Uncle says decisively. "Wouldn't she still have pictures in her cloud storage on another device?"
T.J. nods. "I will see what information I can get from the cops and I'll get a forensic team on the apartment. I'll have someone in the police talk to her family to get access to where she lived."
Katherine was most likely murdered. Is it because she confided in me?
"And we need PR here tomorrow morning ASAP." T.J. looks at me with remorse. "Her suicide is already all over the press and your name has been mentioned."
For fuck's sake.
Can I not catch a break here?