by Gabrielle G.
I didn’t know what I was looking for, but the moment I get out of here alive, I will.
“Oliver Spencer, I presume?” I nod and turn my charms on.
“Mrs. VanHorn, a pleasure to meet you. I’d shake your hand, but…”
She gives me a tight polite smile that doesn’t illuminate her face.
I suppress a laugh. How nice of her not to be rude to her captive.
How wrong was I to think VanHorn was behind it all. I believed those two guys were his. I forgot that the first reason for which any man will make the worst mistake is love.
Like me running outside instead of being smart about it.
Like me, allowing Tessa to instill light in the cracks of my heart.
Like me finding comfort in her.
I would do anything for her.
Slowly, like waves crashing against the precipice of my grief, she shaped my sorrow for Elaine into love for her.
The realization hit me. I love her.
When did it happen?
Count on me to comprehend such things when I’m stuck to a chair facing her mother.
Mrs. VanHorn studies me, trying to read my mind but being far worse at it than her daughter. Her eyes tell me what l need to know. She’s cold and calculated and has done far worse than tying up a guy on a chair to interrogate her. It’s in the darkness of her gaze, in the resolution of her smile.
I wait her out.
She does too.
I see the resemblance to Tessa. I hang on to her face a little too long, analyzing every detail that differentiates them. They both have been pretending a long time that they were someone else, but her mother has been acting longer. I divert my eyes to assess the room.
I’m in a basement.
The plastic sheet on the floor isn’t a good omen. The black leather suitcase in the corner either.
The windows are too small for me to escape.
The knot they tied around my wrists is nothing I can’t get out of, but I still need an escape plan. Walking through the house doesn’t seem the best way out, especially without any weapons.
“Have you figured it all out?” She looks like a praying mantis. Her eyes are a little too big for her head, her nose pointing in the air and her eyebrows shooting up like antennas. She’s ready to devour me, giving zero fucks she could demolish her daughter in the process.
Knowing so, I’m not dumb enough to answer. If a shake of my head won’t guarantee me to live, a nod will ensure I die.
“Because I figured out a lot of things about you, Mr. Spencer.”
The arrogance of this woman shines through her indifference. I snort out loud and feel the gun pushing against my neck. Mrs. VanHorn turns around, and I take advantage of sliding my eyes around the room. There are indeed only two men here with her. But how many upstairs? And where the fuck am I?
She drags a chair from the wall to the middle of the room and sits, looking at me intensively with a smirk on her lips.
“Your son is cute. Extremely cute. And I’ve been sorry to hear you lost your nanny, again...”
I frown. The last one we hired was late that day when Jackson arrived at the bar, but last I heard, everything was fine, and she was perfect for Aito. Naomi didn’t tell me anything about her leaving or needing to find a new one.
“You didn’t know? It’s fairly new. She had an accident. But, we found her a replacement. Our common friend vetoed her. He used to be much better at not trusting people. But again, Andre and his dad go way back. Maybe that’s why he’s less suspicious than usual.”
I groan, hearing she fooled Dex. No one seems to be able to fool that guy. And there she is.
“Okay, I bite.” I tell her with a little amusement in my voice even if I don’t find the situation entertaining at all, “what do you have on me?”
“Everything,” she says with a triumph in her voice. “I always need to know who my opponents are so I can make them disappear. You’re disturbing the peace, Mr. Spencer. A peace it took me a long time to establish. And it’s too late now. Tessa is asking about Garrett. You’ve requested her birth certificate, dug for an adoption that doesn’t exist, came back to the source of all evil. You’re an inconvenience, Mr. Spencer. You couldn’t rest your search on Andre and let it be. You had to go deeper, because like my husband, you’re in love with a Richards’ girl. We’re quite exquisite, aren’t we?”
Impassive, I don’t react to her provocation. I work on the knot on my wrist, trying to make her speak more, to avert her attention. The two goons are drinking every one of her words in and barely looking at me.
I’ve learned a long time ago that conceited people love to hear themselves talk. The same way they like to send long emails. They can’t stop. A simple nod will make them go on. So I do.
“She had to look like him. I slept with him once. Since childhood, it was always Andre and I. Always. We were soulmates since the day we met. Do you know how rare it is to find your person, the one you’re meant to and have him by your side for so long?
“I will spare you the details. You certainly know how the story ends. You’ve figured it out by now. Accidents happen. Garrett had to die the moment he asked for Tessa’s guardianship. Thank God his friend Dereck told me his plan. Dear Dereck always had a crush on me, even when he was with my sister. May she rest in peace. Andre is a good man. When he figured out what I did, he covered it all up. It was an easy task with the resource he had. The adoption is a scam, yes, but Andre is the father of Tessa. It’s written on her birth certificate. That’s your missing piece, isn’t it? Her birth certificate.”
I slowly slip the rope from my wrists and wait for an opportunity. A noise. A change of atmosphere. A hesitation. Anything that could give me an advantage. When I realize she has stopped speaking, I nod.
“Killing you is going to be a pleasure, Mr. Spencer. Having my daughter distraught because you disappeared, much less. But a mother has to do what a mother has to do, I guess.”
She jerks her head slightly, and from the corner of my eye, I see one of the goons reaching for my arm with a syringe. Jumping on my feet, I swing my arms up, duck forward, and in a quick movement, take the gun from one of the guys while punching the other. My feet are still tied up, but in one jump, I get the syringe from the teetering man and plant it in the arm of the one who was holding the gun. Seconds have passed, but by the time I’m ready to point the gun on Emeline VanHorn, she has already fired her weapon. And with a last thought of my son, I fall.
Chapter Twenty-Five
TESSA
“Why are you laughing, Tessa?” Dr. Saman asks.
I can’t stop thinking of the Humvee erection story Oliver and I laughed about the first time we kissed. I ended up laughing hysterically when he told me the troubles it was for him to get inside the vehicle with a hard dick every time he was on a mission.
Stupid and easy laugh, we were both overdue to feel.
It seemed natural and innocent.
I guess we were just fooling ourselves, thinking we could overcome whatever obstacles were in front of us.
Never thought oral sex would be our downfall.
My laughter dies the same way my hopes did. I sigh.
“I was telling the story of King to a friend of mine like you told me to, and he made a joke about Humvees, and we laughed about it and other things for a while.” I shrug it off, my stomach sinking to my heels.
“And is that friend, a man?”
“Yes.” I guess now would be the right moment to tell her he’s the catalyst of the breakdown I had, the beautiful straw, which broke my back. “We are kind of dating…” Well, I’m not so sure we are, but that’s what I’m going for. If I was engaged to a dead man for the last few years, I could be dating a ghost, right?
“And how do you feel about it?” I’ve tried hard since my freak out, not to overthink and to live in the moment. I’ve ignored the fact that my last thought was for Oliver the previous nights and not King. I’ve tried not to freak out about dating
someone else and accept that I enjoy it. I don’t think about the consequences of our actions. But last night, when I found my apartment empty, I cried.
Couldn’t I have fallen for an emotionally stable non-grieving man?
I was such a wreck that I called my mother to talk about it. Of course, she diminished every one of my feelings and told me to get a grip. That I should know better than to let anyone steal my heart, that I couldn’t confuse lust and emotions.
It was a blast.
If I had alcohol in the house, I would have drank it all.
I was also pissed because Oliver didn’t give me any answers to all the questions he raised about my life and existence when he decided to vanish.
He might come back like he did last week, but something tells me, this time, it was too much too soon, and I won’t hear from him for a while. I’ll need to find answers by myself.
I shift on my seat, uncomfortably.
“I feel okay about it,” I lie. I’m not sure I want her to know how vulnerable I feel being dumped without a word.
“If you say so,” she answers, writing something on her pad. “Did you tell him about King’s death?”
“I did.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He also lost someone he was engaged to, so he understands.”
She winces slightly but doesn’t say a word and scribbles something else on her pad. The competitor in me wants to know what she wrote so I can understand how to be better. I try to read over her hand, but she turns the pad around, hiding her inner thoughts about my situation.
“So, I assume he’s helping you through your grief?” Yes, of course, that’s why after giving me his dick to suck yesterday, he ran out. I nod so not to lie to her again. Dr. Saman rests her pen on the pad and smiles.
“Tessa. I’m here to help. So I’m going to be bluntly honest with you. You lying to me doesn’t bring much, but if it’s because you’re afraid I’ll judge you, I won’t. I don’t know who that man is, and I don’t care, but all I’m asking is that you don’t lie to yourself. Anything you tell me is confidential and private.”
I wait for her to ask a question, finish her speech, or say anything, but she just stares at me and stays quiet. My eyes roam the room to ease my discomfort until I find a picture of a woman smiling into the camera. Grinning so much, it seems she’s in love with whoever took the picture. The sun kisses her face, and her hair flies in the wind.
She soothes me.
It feels like she’s telling me everything’s going to be okay, that I shouldn’t worry and trust Dr. Saman.
Somehow, I feel connected to her.
Whoever she is.
Dr. Saman clears her throat, and I avert my eyes from the picture.
“Today, I want you to focus on bad things with King. It’s easy in death to make the one who has left us a hero. It’s easy to make them perfect and continue to cherish everything. I don’t want you to hate him and live in resentment, but I want him to be knocked off of his pedestal. Tell me something he was awful at. Not something cute. Not something that will make you think of him and smile. But something you’re glad you don’t have to deal with now that he’s dead.”.
Thinking of King, I try to remember what used to annoy me the most. Getting angry at him for not putting the toilet seat down or leaving his socks everywhere seems trivial now that he’s dead. But these things always drove me crazy, but if we speak about hurtful things, well, there is one that always came to the top of my mind.
“He never told his mother we were engaged. We were supposed to be married soon enough after he’d return from his mission, and he never said a word to her.” Remembering the numerous fights we had about the subject, my heart constricted. That woman had a way to make him feel guilty for not staying with her until she dies. She never accepted me, not because of who I was, but because I was stealing her son. I embraced him for the life he wanted to live and let him live his dream. He kept wanting to protect her, to ease her into us living together, then into us being engaged and being married. But I had set a date, and I was going through the motions, giving him a deadline to announce it to mommy dearest. If so, we would have never gotten married. That was the thing I couldn’t stand — his indecision when it came to his mother.”
“It’s the second time you’ve mentioned his mother. It seems she has a lot to do with your grief.”
“Mothers and I never see eye to eye. Maybe it comes from my relationship with mine, but mothers don’t like me.”
“Why do you think that is?”
I roll my eyes, “because I tell it like it is. Because I fiercely defend the ones I love against the manipulation of their mother. Because I studied my mother for years and saw how she could have my sister eat out of the palm of her hand, I even used to see how she was manipulating me to do things I didn’t want but was unable to stop myself doing so. At least King’s death gave me a backbone. I stood up against his mother and also against mine. King dying set me free from the constraints of being a dutiful daughter and daughter-in-law.” I cross and uncross my legs, needing to move and be anywhere else but here. If speaking about King is hard, talking about my relationship with my mother, Andre, or coming close to the death of my father is unbearable.
“So, King’s passing away made you stronger.”
There comes the fucking Kelly Clarkson song again. But I can’t refute her argument. King’s dying did help me stand on my own two feet against my mother.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…” I mumble.
“Stand a little taller,” she gives an amused smile.
“I’m not going to sing…”
“But that would be a great exercise. I think you should repeat this to yourself every day in the mirror. It works for conflicts with friends and parents, accidents, grief, and of course, heartbreak.”
“Of course…”
“And whatever is happening with that man, talk to a friend. You’ll realize that by talking to people more than bottling things up, you can solve any problem.”
I start to see a pattern with Dr. Saman. She’s annoying as fuck but often right.
“I haven’t told my friends. It’s fairly new and might be already over.”
She gives me a tight smile. “It’s already a big step in the right direction. Some people win you over in spite of you and your grief and everything you’re going through. And you can never regret giving your heart away. It will teach you something or force you to move on.”
“Sometimes, you speak like you also lost the love of your life.”
She looks at me with a sadness she can’t hide. “More the product of it.” She looks toward the picture of the woman on the shelf and smiles. “And I survive. That’s why I know you will, too.”
Once I turn my phone back on, I have several missed calls from Mark and Quinn, but none of them left a message or texted me what it is about. Fearing them wanting to check on me after having heard Oliver skipped out on me again, I ignore their calls and take an Uber home. Today is another day of nothing to do. Dereck canceled our meeting. I could try to track Oliver again, talk to him, and ask for an explanation, but I refuse to become the pathetic girl trying to get the attention of the man who doesn’t want her. Been there, done that, and it’s not a good look on me. Not at all.
So I do what every girl with a little heartbreak and a lot of issues does… I watch TV, eat junk food, and stalk the guy I’m overthinking of when I shouldn’t. Now that I know his full name and link to the Darling Devils, I’ve found tons of articles about him. There is a big one about his bar, Absinthe, being the bar where celebrities hang out.
My eyes focus on a picture of the Darling Devils and him posing with another guy. The three bandmates seem happy, Oliver’s smile seems fake, but the guy next to Dan Darling is pissed. Trying to hide his face, he fails because of Dan’s hand around his chin, forcing him to look at the camera. I read the quote below and choke when I see the name of Dex Crawford. When Oliver said he k
new him, I didn’t think he knew him so well that they partied together at his bar. Well, party… As much as a guy in a three-piece suit and a scowl on his face can party.
Getting into action, I jump on my feet and text Mark, asking him for Oliver’s sister’s number so I can get in contact with this guy and ask him the questions burning my mind I couldn’t ask Oliver yesterday.
Maybe Spencer doesn’t want to talk to me anymore and left me to search for the truth, but I’ll find it. I owe it to my father to understand all of this story, and starting with Dex Crawford is a good starting point.
Mark answers by showing up at my door—not alone. In shock, I let one of the sexiest rock stars in my apartment in and try not to be the giddy fangirl I’m sure everyone is when meeting him.
“Lars Trouble, this is Tessa VanHorn. The blue-haired girl.”
Mark doesn’t even send me a glance and starts looking around.
“What are you doing, Twilight?” I ask him, ignoring my superstar guest.
“Looking for Oliver. Those guys showed up this morning, and he’s not answering his phone—and as neither were you—I assumed you were both bumping uglies… Where is he?”
I shrug.“He disappeared last night after… Whatever. He’s certainly trying to get his shit together over the loss of his fiancée and allowing me to suck his dick.”
Lars Trouble’s laugh resonates in my living-room, and Mark’s head swings toward him.
“She’s funny.” Trouble shrugs.
“We still don’t know where he is. Did anything happen except…” Mark avoids repeating my words, which is hilarious, knowing how he usually speaks with other people. Again it’s something about me being the broken Tessa.
“He went to see Elaine’s parents yesterday and rushed here when I didn’t answer my phone because he was worried something had happened.”
“Okay,” Lars answers thoughtfully, “so he was a little on edge, then you blew him, and then what?”
“Good question… He vanished… Once again.” I say, trying to hide the pang in my chest.