Page 28 of Betray Me (Devastation Game #2)

Before

The leather chair in Dr. Specter’s office has become both a sanctuary and a torture chamber over these past six months.

I sink into its familiar embrace, my fingers automatically finding the small tear in the armrest that I’ve been worrying wider with each session.

The late afternoon sun streams through the blinds, casting prison-bar shadows across the Persian rug that costs more than most people’s cars.

“How are you feeling today, Belle?” Dr. Specter asks, her pen poised over her ever-present notepad.

She’s a sharp woman in her fifties, with steel-gray hair and eyes that miss nothing.

More importantly, she doesn’t coddle me the way Dr. Marshall did during my brief stint with Luna’s former therapist.

“Fine,” I lie automatically, the word sliding off my tongue with practiced ease. After eighteen years of perfecting the art of deception, even therapy feels like another performance to master.

Dr. Specter raises an eyebrow, her expression patient but knowing. “Belle, we’ve been meeting twice a week for six months. I think we’re past the ‘fine’ responses, don’t you?”

I shift in the chair, my silk blouse suddenly feeling too tight around my throat. Outside, Boston’s traffic hums with the familiar rhythm of a city that never sleeps. Inside this office, time moves differently—slower, more deliberately, stripping away layers of protection I’ve spent years building.

“The Queens were sentenced last week,” I say finally, my voice carefully modulated. “Thirty years for Sebastian, twenty-five for Eleanor. It was all over the news.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

The question hangs in the air like incense, heavy and demanding. How does it make me feel? Relief that Luna’s tormentors are behind bars? Vindication that justice was served? Terror that my own parents’ fate is approaching with the inexorable march of destiny?

“Satisfied,” I answer, but the word tastes like ash. “They deserved worse.”

“Yet you don’t sound satisfied.”

Dr. Specter has an uncanny ability to hear the truth beneath my carefully constructed lies. It’s both infuriating and oddly liberating to be seen so completely by someone who has no agenda beyond healing.

“Because it doesn’t change anything,” I snap, the anger surprising us both with its sudden intensity. “Luna gets her justice, her freedom, her happy ending with Erik. Meanwhile, I’m still here, still dealing with the aftermath of being my family’s perfect little spy.”

“Is that how you see yourself? As a spy?”

The question cuts deeper than it should.

I’ve been clinging to that identity for months now, wearing it like armor against the more uncomfortable truths lurking beneath.

Belle Gallagher, a reluctant intelligence operative.

Belle Gallagher, victim of circumstance.

Belle Gallagher, anything but what I really am.

“That’s what I was,” I insist, my knuckles white where they grip the chair arms. “From the time I was fourteen, I gathered information for my father. I monitored Luna, reported on her activities, helped orchestrate her downfall. I was his spy.”

“And before you were fourteen?”

The air in the room grows thick, oppressive. I can feel my carefully constructed walls beginning to crack under the weight of her gentle persistence. This is the territory we’ve been circling for months, the dark waters I’ve refused to dive into.

“Before fourteen doesn’t matter,” I say quickly. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Isn’t it?” Dr. Specter leans forward slightly, her voice soft but relentless.

“Belle, you’ve spent six months telling me about your role as an informant, your guilt over betraying Luna, your fear of your parents’ upcoming fate.

But you’ve never once talked about why you were so desperate to escape that first role that you convinced your father to make you a spy instead. ”

The words hit like physical blows, each one stripping away another layer of protection. My throat constricts, my heart hammering against my ribs with the desperate rhythm of a trapped bird.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.” Her pen hasn’t moved on the notepad; her full attention is focused on me with surgical precision. “What were you before you became your father’s spy, Belle?”

The question echoes in the silence, demanding an answer I’ve spent years refusing to give. My hands tremble as I reach for the glass of water on the side table, the simple movement requiring tremendous effort.

“I was…” The words stick in my throat like glass shards. “I was what Luna was. What they wanted her to be.”

Dr. Specter nods, her expression gentle but encouraging. “Can you be more specific?”

The dam breaks.

“I was entertainment.” The word comes out as a whisper, barely audible over the sound of my own ragged breathing.

“From the time I was eleven years old, I was dressed up like a doll and paraded in front of my father’s business associates.

They would touch me, use me, pass me around like a party favor while my parents watched and smiled and counted the favors owed. ”

The confession pours out of me like poison finally being purged from my system.

Years of carefully buried memories surface in vivid, horrifying detail—the parties, the hands, the way Mother would dress me in white to emphasize my innocence before sending me into rooms where that innocence would be systematically destroyed.

“For three years,” I continue, my voice growing stronger with each admission, “I was their perfect victim. Compliant, beautiful, broken just enough to be interesting but not enough to be useless. Until I figured out that information was more valuable than my body, and I convinced Father to give me a different role.”

Dr. Specter’s pen moves across her notepad now, documenting my destruction with clinical precision. “How did you convince him?”

“I proved my worth.” The memory surfaces, bitter and sharp.

“I told him what Judge Patterson whispered to Senator Caldwell about his gambling debts. I revealed Mrs. Morrison’s affair with the prosecutor who’d been investigating her husband’s company.

I showed him that I could be more than just another party favor—I could be his eyes and ears in places he couldn’t go. ”

“And he agreed?”

“Eventually.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in the sound. “After testing me. After making sure I understood that my new role was a privilege to be earned, not a right to be demanded.”

The room falls silent except for the steady scratch of Dr. Specter’s pen and the distant hum of traffic. I feel hollowed out, emptied of secrets I’ve carried for so long they’d become part of my identity.

“Belle,” Dr. Specter says finally, her voice gentle, “what happened to you was not your fault. You were a child. You survived the only way you could.”

“I know that intellectually,” I reply, surprised by my honesty. “But knowing and believing are different things.”

“They are. And healing means bridging that gap between knowledge and belief.” She sets down her pen, giving me her full attention. “You’ve taken an enormous step today by acknowledging the full extent of your trauma. That courage shouldn’t be minimized.”

Courage. The word feels foreign when applied to me. I’ve spent so long thinking of myself as a coward—choosing collaboration over resistance, information gathering over direct confrontation, my own safety over Luna’s well-being.

“I destroyed Luna’s life,” I say, the guilt settling over me like a familiar shroud. “While she was being drugged and abused, I was reporting on her every move, helping them control her more effectively. How is that courage?”

“You were both victims, Belle. The fact that your parents found different ways to exploit you doesn’t make either of you more or less worthy of compassion.”

“Luna doesn’t see it that way. She sees me as the enemy.”

“Have you asked her?”

The question catches me off guard. “What?”

“Have you spoken to Luna about any of this? About your shared experiences, your parallel trauma?”

I shake my head, the idea terrifying in its simplicity. “She hates me. Rightfully so.”

“Does she? Or is that your assumption based on guilt and shame?” Dr. Specter leans back in her chair, her expression thoughtful.

“Belle, you’ve spent months in here processing your trauma in isolation.

But healing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Sometimes it requires connecting with others who understand what you’ve been through. ”

“You think I should talk to Luna.” It’s not a question.

“I think you should consider it. Not for her sake, but for yours.” Her voice is measured, professional. “You both survived the same system, albeit in different ways. There might be healing in acknowledging that shared experience.”

The suggestion sends ice through my veins. Luna Queen, the girl I spent months tormenting at my father’s behest, the girl whose every move I cataloged and reported, the girl whose trust I systematically destroyed—she’s the last person who would want to hear my sob story.

“She’ll never agree to it.”

“You won’t know unless you ask.”

I sit in silence, wrestling with the possibility.

The rational part of my mind—the part trained in strategic thinking and risk assessment—knows Dr. Specter is right.

Luna and I are the only two people who truly understand what it’s like to be daughters of the network, shaped and molded by forces beyond our control.

But the terrified child inside me, the one who learned that vulnerability is weakness and weakness is punished, recoils from the idea of exposing myself to someone who has every reason to hurt me.

“What would I even say to her?” I ask finally.

“The truth. The same truth you’ve shared with me today.”

“And if she rejects it? If she tells me I’m just making excuses, trying to play victim to absolve myself of guilt?”