The year he loved me most, he found out my father planned to hand me over to a casino owner to settle a debt. He broke into my house with a knife pressed to my father's throat.
He cursed the whole time. Broke three of my father's ribs. And took me with him.
"Betty's with me now."
"You touch her again, I'll kill you."
From that day on, he became one of the few lights in my life.
Not many people where we grew up could afford school, but Kenneth hustled on the streets and paid my tuition out of his own pocket.
He said, "I'm not cut out for books. But a girl should get an education."
Later, I spent my days in a school uniform and canvas sneakers, playing the good girl. At night, I'd slip into a black camisole and stockings and follow him around, learning to smoke, to drink, to fight.
At our lowest, we couldn't even afford a clinic visit for a broken bone. We'd split a single bowl of rice between us for the whole day.
I remembered the first time my pinky finger cracked open. He knelt outside the clinic door all night, begging, until they gave him one bottle of medicine.
After that, whenever he looked at my crooked pinky, he'd cry and say he was sorry.
He fought his way up from a nobody running errands on street corners to the boss of the Syndicate, and then to Mr. Matthews in the business world.
I never missed a single step of it.
I thought the red thread between us was made of steel wire, the kind not even the devil himself could cut.
But a girl named Eleanor Harding snapped it without breaking a sweat.
June. A storm rolled in, sudden and savage.
I wandered the streets with no destination, soaked to the bone.
My phone rang.
"Betty, what's your problem?"
"Didn't I tell you to clear out the bedroom?"
The voice on the other end was ice. Colder than the rain hammering my skin.
I said nothing. Hung up.
By the time I got home, I was drenched through.
"Kenneth, stop it, quit messing around."
"Someone might see us."
The moment I opened the door, there they were. Kenneth and Eleanor on the couch, draped over each other, flirting like teenagers.
Eleanor's oversized collar had slipped down, exposing half her collarbone. Kenneth lifted his head from the curve of her neck and looked at me.
"What took you so long?"
"Don't you know we've been waiting for you to get the room ready?"
Not a single word of concern. Not a trace of worry. Just blame.