by James, Gemma
He rose from the chair and stepped to my side. “Get back in bed before you fall down.”
I yanked away from his touch and climbed beneath the blanket under my own steam. “This isn’t my fault. I didn’t do this.”
“It’s okay to admit you need help,” he said, his voice unusually soft. “Your mother fought it too, but you don’t have to make the same mistake. And you don’t have to fight this battle alone. You have your family. You have Lucas. He still wants to marry you.”
“That’s not happening. I don’t want to see him again.” The wedding was off the moment I removed his ring from my finger, before Rafe had shown up on my doorstep.
Dad placed a palm on my shoulder, and his fingers curled, gouging bone as I tried to inch away. “I had hoped marrying Lucas would help you move past your unhealthy fixation with your brother.”
My mouth hung open. “My fixation with him? Are you crazy?”
He was twisting everything around, making me look like I was the one with the problem. Just the crazy daughter who’d come too close to repeating the same suicide attempt as her loony mother. He would always protect Zach. Always. Even if it meant I got trampled in the process. I bit my lip to hold back tears and finally let go of the hope he’d someday love me like he did Zach.
I clenched my hands. “You can lie to society,” I said, proud at the strength in my tone. “Even make the media do your bidding, but you can’t lie to me. Zach kidnapped me, he raped me, and he faked my death. I’ve been his prisoner for weeks.” At his unchanging expression, the familiar pang of rejection tore through me. “And I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure he rots in jail for it. I was only thirteen when it started.” I’d wanted to tell him for so long and now that the words were out there, dirtying the air with their horror, I felt the weight lift from my chest.
I had someone else to cover for. Someone who deserved it. Rafe deserved a full exoneration, and if stepping so close to death had brought anything to light, it was him. He might have done some very sick and questionable things to me, but he’d had eight years of his own hell haunting him, driving him to seek what he’d believed was due retribution. In some sane crevice of my mind I understood I was justifying what he’d done, making excuses because I loved him. If I had an unhealthy fixation on anyone, it was Rafe Mason.
My father leaned forward and pierced me with the same hazel-eyed stare as Zach, though his held a shrewdness his son’s lacked. “Since we’re being so candid, let me make something perfectly clear, Alexandra. I love you. I’ve always loved you like a daughter. But you and I both know Zach didn’t sink your car into the river.”
I opened my mouth, but words failed me.
“Rafe did.” He straightened to his full height and folded his arms over his chest. The ink in his corded muscles appeared harsher than usual under the lighting. “If my son goes down for this, so does Rafe.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a bundle of envelopes I’d never planned for anyone to find, least of all my father. He tossed them next to me on the mattress. “Judging by your own words, he matters a great deal to you.”
I shook my head back and forth in disbelief, in denial, like a pathetic Bobblehead. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Dad grabbed my hand and squeezed so hard, his knuckles whitened. “You had a mental breakdown, understand me? I don’t care what you come up with, but you did this. If you want to keep Rafe out of prison, you’ll do the same for your brother.” His calculating stare knocked the breath from my lungs, and his grip tightened further. “That sperm you talked about? Rafe’s name will be the one attached to it.”
My eyes widened, and I gaped at him, barely breathing. “How?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time, Alexandra. How do you think he was so easily convicted? Because of your word?” He thrust his face close. “Your word means nothing. I control you. I’ve always controlled you. Your bout with anorexia? That was my doing, and you fell for it like the naive little girl you are.”
“But I wasn’t eating…” Why did my tone come out so uncertain? “I was anorexic.”
“No, dear daughter. You’d lost your appetite after the abortion and trial. It wasn’t hard to fill your impressionable head with the idea that you had a problem.”
I blinked, feeling sick to my stomach. “Why would you do that?”
“For Zach, of course. While you were locked away in that treatment center, he finally yanked the stick from his ass and took the Chandler Vs. De Luca fight seriously. For a few weeks, he wasn’t thinking with his dick.”
Footsteps sounded outside the door to my room. A doctor stepped inside, and Dad let go of my hand. The coldness in his features instantly melted. I shouldn’t have been surprised at how quickly he shifted personas, but I was. The threatening, ice-hearted bastard I’d yearned to love me since I was six was absent, replaced by the caring and doting father I’d allowed myself to believe in all these years.
The father who’d known about Zach raping me all along. The father who’d somehow known about Rafe kidnapping me. He’d left me on that island to be tortured. I sank into the pillows and closed my eyes, too exhausted and disheartened to analyze the implications, though one thing I knew for certain.
Abbott De Luca hadn’t just fooled the world; he’d fooled his own daughter.
13. BAD IDEA
Rafe
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Jax stalled outside the entrance of the hospital.
“I’m not sure of anything, but I can’t not see her.” Gritting my teeth, I stared through narrowed eyes at the building. News of Alex’s resurrection from the dead hit the media that morning. I was hoping she’d give me answers, but mostly, I had to know she was okay.
“Have you stopped to consider this stunt might land us both in jail?”
“Yeah, I have. Look, you don’t need to go in there. I won’t blame you for taking off.” We’d cleared the air the other night, but things were far from settled between us. He still hadn’t moved back into the cabin, and the subject of Nikki seemed to have moved into taboo territory.
Jax slumped his shoulders, and his sigh ruffled his hair. “Dude, this is a bad idea.”
“Undoubtedly.” I stepped past him, and the sliding doors opened. Jax hurried after, his steps thumping quietly on the polished floors. I didn’t know what had happened to Alex, how or where she’d been found. According to the media, she was in stable condition, but that was all I’d found out.
After a quick stop at the information desk to ask which floor she was on, my heart pounded as Jax and I waited for the elevator. He shuffled his feet, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but here. The arrow lit up, and the doors opened with a ding. A group of people exited, each giving us weird glances, their eyes roving over our bare arms and the ink on our skin.
Never failed to get a reaction from some people.
“I’m telling you, this is a mistake,” Jax said once the heavy doors slid shut and we were the only two that remained.
“I don’t care. After everything I put her through, I owe her this much.”
“Bullshit,” he muttered. “What you put her through?” He leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “She screwed you over, man. She had it coming.”
“No one deserves that.”
“Her spoiled ass did.”
“A couple of days ago you cared enough about her ‘spoiled ass’ to look into her whereabouts.”
Jax sighed. “I did it for you. Not like it did any good though. She must’ve been hiding on the moon.”
We arrived on the fourth floor, and I stepped out before Jax could further needle me. His footfalls landed with more attitude than usual. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about the situation rubbed him the wrong way—besides the whole we-could-go-to-jail aspect. Something about Alex rubbed him the wrong way.
We turned the corner and headed down another hall. Up ahead, a circular reception de
sk took up the middle. A woman sat on the other side of the counter, eyeing me behind feminine pink glasses, when a bulky form stepped in the way.
“You’ve got balls to show up here.”
I met the hard-as-nails gaze of Abbott De Luca, a man I’d once admired. The calendar told me a lot of time had passed since then, but it seemed like only yesterday his opinion of me mattered. The man I remembered had given me his utmost respect. Time and accusations sure had a way of changing things. Now he stared me down as if I were a cockroach that needed exterminated.
“I’ve always had balls. You know that.” He’d been impressed with the way I handled myself during fights. Determined with a ruthless edge, was what he used to say about me. Though Zach never admitted it, I knew my relationship with his father had bothered him.
“What are you doing here, Mason?”
“I came to see Alex.” I cleared my throat, wondering if she’d told him about the kidnapping. “Is she okay?”
His gaze darted left then right. “Let’s go into the lounge.” His attention glanced off Jax, and I introduced them as we moved into the vacant room. Abbott closed the door before turning to me with a glare capable of icing the bowels of Lucifer.
“You’ve got one minute to explain yourself before I have you removed by force.”
I held up my hands. “I’m not here to cause trouble. I don’t remember shit about the last eight years. Doctor calls it dissociative amnesia.”
“How convenient.”
“Just tell me, is she all right?”
“She’s fine. She’ll recover.”
His tone hit me in the chest hard. It was so…unfeeling. “I want to see her.” I had to see her. Something wasn’t right about all of this.
He lifted a brow. “Do you honestly think I’d let my daughter’s convicted rapist anywhere near her? You’re lucky I don’t call the cops.” He stepped forward, bringing his chest inches from mine. I held my ground, refusing to back down.
I opened my mouth, ready to defend myself, to say how I was innocent…except I didn’t know for sure. How could I know what I was guilty of if I couldn’t remember?
He poked a finger at my chest. “I want you out of Alexandra’s life.”
I tilted my head. “I’m not in her life.”
He thrust his face into mine. “I know you kidnapped her. I don’t give a shit if you remember or not, but if you come anywhere near her again, I’ll do far worse than have you arrested.”
Jax slumped into a chair. “Told you this was a bad idea.”
I returned Abbott’s hard stare. “She told you?”
“Please,” he scoffed. “She didn’t have to.”
“Why aren’t you pressing charges?”
“Alexandra has been through enough. The last thing she needs right now is another trial. She needs treatment. Because of you, she almost killed herself, just like her mother.”
His words punched me in the gut. I turned away, unable to return his disgusted gaze. Or maybe the disgust I saw in his eyes was a reflection of my own. Jax hadn’t given me details on what I’d put her through after we’d taken her, but for her to feel the need to end her life…
“Please, just let me see her once. I need to know she’s okay.” I needed to fucking tell her how sorry I was. I faced him again, but my plea didn’t soften his stance.
“You want her to be ‘okay’? Then give her a clean break. She has some sort of misplaced infatuation with you because of the kidnapping. If I let you in to see her, make it clear whatever this thing is between the two of you is over. Can you do that?”
I nodded.
“She’s in room 427.”
I traded a glance with Jax before exiting the lounge, which was really just a space where families waited in agony to hear news on their loved ones. Other than a middle-aged couple speaking to the woman at the reception desk, the area was empty. She pushed her glasses up on her nose and eyed me. I gave her my I’m-a-nice-guy smile, but I wasn’t sure she bought it. Spanning the hall in seconds, I slowed as the numbers climbed. 423, 424, 425, 426…
Once I reached her closed door, my feet refused to move. Something told me to turn around and run. Never look back. Did I really want to open that door and look inside? I lifted a hand, curled my fingers around the handle, and prepared for the worst.
She’d scream at me, say I was the reason she was in the hospital. She probably hated me.
I pushed the heavy door open and was unprepared for the sight of the frail girl swallowed up by the bed. Her eyes were closed, long lashes fanning over pale cheeks. Her curly hair lacked the vibrancy I remembered. Even the flash of her I’d seen in the cellar didn’t compare to the brokenness of the girl…woman lying in that bed.
Moving slowly so I wouldn’t startle her, I pushed the door shut until it made the slightest click, then I stepped to her side. Her chest rose and fell in perfect rhythm. My gaze landed on her delicate collarbone and an intense vision of choking her hit me. To my horror, my dick hardened, straining against the zipper of my jeans. I clenched my hands at my sides. The mental picture was so vivid it could have been straight from my fantasies.
I knew it wasn’t. It was a memory. I retreated several steps, my heartbeat pulsing in my ears. Alex was laid up in the hospital, and my fucking cock wanted out to play. What the fuck was wrong with me?
“Rafe?”
My gaze shot to her wide, green eyes. God, those eyes…I remembered them well. Still full of mystery and shining with innate strength. I wanted to delve in and unearth all her secrets.
Her mouth parted slightly, as if she wanted to say something, or maybe, like me, she was having trouble drawing in a deep breath. She lifted an arm, covered in white bandages from wrist to just below her elbow. An identical bandage wrapped her other arm. My heart dropped to my stomach, landing somewhere in the dregs of my gut.
“What happened to you?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, my feet across the floor and at her bedside before the second hand on the clock above the door could move two spots. I took her arm in my hands, my fingers sliding along the bandages.
And I forgot that I didn’t remember, that I was supposed to tell her to move on with her life and forget about me. Getting into the subject of my amnesia wasn’t part of the clean break Abbott insisted on.
“Alex?” My gaze landed on her face. Hurt and something else pooled in her eyes. It could have been so many things, a plethora of emotion all vying for residence in that stare.
Which told me shit, except that my presence made her cry.
She grabbed my hand in hers and squeezed hard, as if she feared I’d slip away. A tear slipped down her colorless cheek. “I thought you were dead. When he told me you weren’t, I wanted to believe it, but I was scared.”
“What happened?” How the fuck had she ended up in the hospital with bandages that suggested she’d slit her wrists? Why was she not furious or terrified of me? “Where have you been?”
“Doesn’t matter. Oh God…you’re real, right? I’m not dreaming?”
Something about the desperation in her tone fucked with my head. I pulled my hand away and stepped back. “I just came to make sure you were okay.”
She blinked, her expression blanking for a few seconds before confusion took hold of her features. “What are you saying?”
I dropped my gaze to my feet. “You’re better off without me. What I did, what you did, whatever we did together, we need to move on.”
“No,” she said with a resolved shake of her head. “Before Zach showed up, things were finally settling between us. I wanted to be with you. I still want that, more than anything.”
I almost asked what Zach had to do with any of this. Maybe he was responsible for shooting me. He’d always been protective of her. I bit my tongue, holding back those questions and more. I didn’t want to say anything that could give away my memory loss. She’d been through enough. I didn’t know much else, but I knew I wanted to stay out of jail, and I wanted her t
o be whole again. Somehow, I got the feeling those two things contradicted each other.
“My father knows you were involved in my disappearance.”
Inevitability was a bitch. I knew this was coming. I wanted to ask her if I’d raped her all those years ago, but I didn’t want to burden her with my issues. She’d been through hell, and I’d put her there. I didn’t know the details of how or why, but she was in that hospital bed because of me.
She’d tried to kill herself because of me.
“I’ll turn myself in, if that’s what you want.”
Her startled gaze punched me in the gut. “No! Why would you think I’d want that?”
“After what I did to you, how can you not want me locked up?”
“You know how I feel about you. I want to be with you so badly, it hurts.” She reached a hand out and curled her tiny fingers around my larger ones. “I thought you were dead, then Zach said you weren’t. He said you couldn’t forgive me, and I fell for it, Rafe. He had me so far out of my mind that I believed you didn’t care enough to come after me.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, so I treaded carefully. “Alex, what do you need me to do?”
“Forgive me. Take me away from here.” She started sobbing, and the sound clashed in my chest, two warring emotions. Part of me glorified in those tears, a feeling that disturbed me on such a deep level, I thought I might vomit. The other part wanted to wrestle away her demons and pound them to dust.
“Alex.” Her name escaped the vise strangling my throat. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
She rolled to her side, her back facing me, and curled into a tight, protective ball. “You can’t forgive me. I understand.”
I clenched my teeth, wanting to ask what she wanted forgiveness for. I wanted to ask her about the night I was shot. Had she shot me? Had Zach? I needed those answers, but faced with the situation, with how much I’d fucked up when it came to her, the only thing left to do was say goodbye and end this. Let her move on and heal without the memory of me hanging over her shoulder.