Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense)(69)

Razors claw into my legs, my sides. A giant hammer crashes down on my hand and I feel every bone shatter, but that’s not the worst. A claw rakes across my face, shearing flesh from bone.

It burns. Nothing hurts worse than burning. Nothing smells worse than your own flesh cooking.

Then I am truly lost.

The next thing is a cough. I suck some water from a straw. My head is a mass of bandages as big as a basketball. I can only barely move my lips. Talking is like pulling a hot razor through my throat.

“Where’s… Jack…? Where’s… Dad?”

Jessica’s calm voice is like honey flowing over butter.

“Ellie,” she says, “Rest now. We can talk later.”

I bolt awake in the plane and claw at the armrests. I don’t know which side is real anymore, this or that. The car… The steering, the brakes, all the controls. Our car.

Dad was going to divorce her. I wasn’t going to be a television star. She was losing.

I look over at my mother.

“Ellie? Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah, just had a bad dream.”

She smiles warmly. “It’s okay, honey. We’ll be home soon, and everything will be like it should be.”

You miserable f*cking bitch.

I know what you did.





Jack





“She couldn’t,” I say.

“She wouldn’t,” he says.

“Oh yeah?”

My father looks at me in defeat. “Is that what you’ve thought this entire time? That I’d risk your death, over what? Because I didn’t like your girlfriend? I liked her just fine before she got her face f*cked up.”

I sigh. “You are the most disgusting human being on the entire f*cking planet, do you know that?”

“There have to be at least fifty people worse than me.”

I tug on the handcuffs. “Get this f*cking thing off me. You know it and I know it now. I thought you were trying to kill Ellie.”

“You really think that of me?”

“I wouldn’t f*cking put it past you. I never thought it was Jessica. Why?”

My father stands and fishes a handcuff key out of his pocket. The cuff clicks and I yank my hand free, rubbing at my raw wrist.

“You want to know the reason why?”

I nod.

“She had no kids by Ellie’s biological father. Once he was out of the picture, everything would go to her. Jessica would get nothing.”

“She told you this?”

“No, she didn’t have to. Not that she needs it, she’s done quite well for herself. She’s a smart woman, Jessica. Why do you think I married her?”

“Did you know? Did she tell you anything about this?”

“Of course not. I thought what everyone else thought. It was an accident. I read the police report. They blamed you.”

“I know,” I spit.

“Tell me again what happened?”

As he sits down, I glare at him. “How many goddamn times do we have to go through it, Dad? You never listened to me before.”

He grits his teeth. “Do you have any idea what the accident could have done to your political career?”

“Fuck my political career, okay? I don’t have a political career. This is what happened: I was driving and everything f*cking stopped working. The car hit a lamppost and flipped over and caught fire. I don’t remember the impact. I woke up with my goddamn leg broken and tried to get Ellie out but the door wouldn’t budge. They had to tear the car open with those big shears. By the time they got to her, her father was dead and her f*cking face was on fire.”

I clutch the sides of my head. “It doesn’t matter what caused it, it was my fault. There had to be something I could do. If I’d figured out a way, if I’d gotten the door open and gotten her out, something. There had to be something.”

“You were collateral damage.”

“What?”

“Jessica had the car sabotaged. She set you up. That’s why she waited until you were in the car with them—teenage rich boy gets drunk on a date, wrecks a fast car, very sad, move along, nothing to see here. She didn’t figure on the two of you living.”

“Why would she—”

Because she’d eliminate the heir to the family fortune along with Ellie’s father, making herself the sole heir to his fortune and the sole beneficiary to any insurance that he had. I’d bet you a million dollars that he put her in his will when they got married and didn’t bother changing it before he died.”

“Mother puss bucket.”

“Yeah.”

“Dad, look at me.”

He looks at me. His face goes slack. Something like defeat rests in his eyes.

“I’m not going to run for president or congress or any other f*cking thing, do you understand me? I’m just not, and you’re going to have to accept it. That’s not the life I want and no one is going to put a leash on me and force me down a path I don’t want to follow. I don’t know where I’m going to end up, what I’m going to do. If I have to get a studio apartment with Ellie and work at a gas station, that’s what I’ll do.”

“You understand I told you I’d cut you off if you don’t cooperate.”