Page 94 of Coerced

I did it for him. “There was no art dealer. It was all a lie.”

My mom turned her horrified gaze in my direction. “What?”

“Dad lied. You got sick, we had no money, and Dad took matters into his own hands. My paintings have been used as a front to sell drugs. I have no idea where they’re ending up. Even the first set of paintings, the ones I did during your cancer battle, were used for drugs. Maybe they meant nothing to any of you, but they meant something to me. And we gave them up for nothing.”

“We got twenty-five thousand dollars from them,” Jasmine noted.

“Right. Well, yeah, I guess we did. If your only concern is the money, that’s all the matters, right?”

“We needed money, Aria.”

“Yep. But I didn’t need to be deceived in the process,” I told her. “You and I could have continued to work. We could have sold the house and changed our lifestyle. This never had to happen.”

“It’s all my fault,” Mom murmured. “If I hadn’t gotten sick?—”

“It not your fault, Florence. I got scared, and I did this. If I had to go back and do it all over again, I wouldn’t hesitate. We needed to do it. I know Aria sees it differently,and I’m sorry she has gotten so hurt by this, but I’m not ashamed I did what I did.”

I shook my head, feeling nothing but disgust and devastation. Not even hindsight would make him want to change his course of action. He was okay with this, content to have us at odds and in danger.

“And now what?” I asked him. “What is your plan to fix this?”

“There’s only one way. We don’t have any other option,” he said.

Pressing my lips together, tears filled my eyes. “I can’t. I can’t do it.”

“You can save all of us. What do you mean, you can’t?” Jasmine whined.

“You’re right. It’s not that I can’t. It’s that I won’t. I’m not going to do this. Dad promised me he was going to get out. I learned just over a year ago what was really happening, and I gave Dad the opportunity to get out. I continued doing something I didn’t want to do for a whole year, just to give him the time he claimed he needed to get us out of this safely. As you can see, he didn’t. So, that’s why we’re all here now. That’s why we’re all in danger.”

“Please, Aria,” my mom begged. “Please help us.”

They didn’t get it.

None of them did.

And no matter how many times I tried to explain it, I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get them to see it from my side.

Recognizing I wasn’t going to get anywhere I needed to with this conversation, I thought it was best to focus on my original plan. We needed to get out of here, and it seemed the window would be the only option. Though I’dnever attempted something so ridiculous in my life, I figured I’d be better off with a broken bone or two instead of having to face this unknown.

I moved toward the window and unlocked it.

“What are you doing?” my mom asked.

“I’m getting out of here.”

“How are you going to do that? You’ll break your legs.”

I shrugged. “It’s better than the alternative.”

“What happened to you, Aria?” Jasmine asked, her tone like acid.

“Pardon?”

“You left us and didn’t give it a second thought. Is this about your new boyfriend? Your new life?”

I tipped my head to the side, my eyes roaming over her face. “Are you jealous? Are you mad? I did what I had to do for myself for the first time in my life. I’m not going to be a part of this any longer. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear, or if that means you have to find a way to support yourself, Jazzy, but that’s the way it is. I’m not going to continue to be forced to do something I don’t want to do. You can’t guilt me into this. I won’t be coerced.”

“So, why did you come back? Why did you let them bring you here?”