Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 235

Chapter 235

CELESTE

I stood there watching Kingsley Duke kneel on the concrete like a man who had finally reached the end of a very long rope, and I felt something twist in my chest that I did not have a name for.

“I do not need you on your knees,” I said, my voice coming out flatter than I intended. “Get up.”

He did not move. His hands were pressed flat against the ground, his shoulders still shaking. “I have been searching for a way to save her for months. I have begged. I have borrowed. I have done things I am not proud of. And then you walk in, and you fix everything in the time it takes to make a phone call. I do not understand.”

“I said get up.”

He pushed himself to his feet slowly, his legs unsteady, his eyes still wet. He was taller than I remembered, broader, but right now he looked small, folded in on himself like a man who had forgotten how to stand straight.

“I just arrived at the hospital,” he said, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “I was coming to check on my mother when the nurse stopped me and said someone had just paid the full amount for her surgery. She showed me the name on the receipt. Celeste Fisher. I ran after you immediately. I did not even know what I was going to say. I just knew I had to catch you before you disappeared.”

“I did not do it for you,” I said, and I watched his face tighten as though the words had struck him physically. “I did it for your mother. She is lying in that bed because her husband could not keep his dick in his pants and his mistress decided to ruin his entire family. She did not deserve to die for a sin she did not commit. That is the only reason.”

He nodded slowly, his jaw working, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Still. You did not have to do it. You could have walked away. You could have let me drown. I would have deserved it. After everything I did to Pat, I would have deserved to watch my mother die alone in that hospital bed.”

“So, you gave Pat’s sex video to Seraphine, right?” I asked, my voice coming out harder than I intended.

He shook his head, his eyes widening, his voice cracking on the single syllable. “No. My conscience could never allow me to do something so horrible.”

I studied his face, looking for the tell, the flicker of dishonesty that would confirm what Pat had said. But all I saw was the truth. “Then what happened? Explain it to me. From the beginning.”

He took a shaky breath, his hands trembling at his sides, his eyes fixed on the ground as though he could not bring himself to look at me while he spoke. “I was desperate for a job. Any job. My father’s name used to open doors. After he died, and the news broke that we had lost everything, those same doors slammed shut in my face. I was sleeping in my car, skipping meals so l could afford my mother’s medication. I had nothing left.”

“So what happened?”

I’ve spent the whole of today knocking on doors, sending applications, begging for a chance. Friends I have known my entire life have turned their backs on me. People I helped when they were down have pretended they do not remember my name. I have been rejected from positions I am overqualified for, jobs that pay less than minimum wage, positions that require no experience at all.”

“I want to ask you something,” I said after staring at him for a while.

“Anything.”

“If I gave you the chance to get everything back, everything your father lost, everything your uncle stole froin your family, would you take it?”

He stared at me, his mouth slightly open, his eyes searching mine for the punchline that did not come. “What did you just say?”

“I know someone. Someone who can help you recover what was taken from your family. He is not a lawyer. He does not work within the system. But he gets results and he does not ask questions about how far you are willing to go to get what you deserve.”