“I don’t know how.” I shake my head gently, and when he tries to place his palm back on my shoulder, I brush him away. “I shot you three times and you still look at me like I’m the most precious thing in the world.”
“That’s because you are.” He reaches forward and combs one hand through my pitch-black hair and smiles a brief smile. “You’re just like your mother…”
I flinch at his words as the memories of what exactly he did to my mother come back to haunt my imagination. I still remember her pleas for him to spare her life and to let her finish out her time naturally on this planet. And then he put a bullet through her head, all for the sake of ending her misery, but it only ignited my own misery and hatred.
“You’re strong,” he continues, “and stubborn. And sometimes, you think you’re doing the right thing and when that happens, it’s like you don’t have a choice.” He pokes me softly in the chest. “You didn’t have a choice in pulling that trigger because you didn’t think you had a choice.”
“I did,” I grind out. “I had a choice and I pulled the trigger anyways. And no matter the reasons why, the point still remains that you did forgive me and I’m not sure if the roles were reversed, I’d so the same thing.”
“You’d forgive me,” he says with absolute certainty, but he’s only fooling himself. “You know why? I’ll tell you why…”
I wish you wouldn’t.
“It’s because we’re family,” he exclaims. “We have the same blood coursing through our veins. No matter what this world tries to tell you, blood is thicker than water and nothing can or ever will change that.” He brushes a hand through my hair one last time before stepping back first and then stepping past me. “Don’t ever forget that.”
I twist to him and grab him by the arm. Though I might be breaking with the charade I’ve been acting out for the last nine months, there’s one thing I need clarity on. He looks at me curiously and then leans forward slightly, anxiously awaiting what I’m about to say.
“Lola, the other Lola, I mean. My sister, she was blood too, right?”
He swallows and exhales sharply. “Blood, yes. But she was nothing like you.”
“But aren’t you even somewhat sad that she’s gone?”
“Honestly?” He shrugs with apathy. “I’m not, because she wasn’t strong enough and she was gravely stupid. She tried stepping into my shoes and she failed miserably. She paid the price with her life.”
“Why did you give both of your daughters the same name?” I question him, trying to get as many answers out of him as possible since he’s not long for this world. Once he’s dead—really dead this time—I’ll never be able to ask him again and since my sister is dead, I can’t ask her either.
“We live in a dangerous world, Lola.” He steps towards me. “And there are stories you’ve never heard and someday, you’ll hear them—”
“I need to know this one now.” I shake my head defiantly. “I can’t wait another day, because it’s a question that’s been on my mind since we were both little girls.”
“You were too young to remember,” he sighs as he paces backwards and sinks back down into the loveseat where he spends the majority of his time. “When your sister was born, she was the light of our world but just before she turned six months old, she was taken away from us by a bitter enemy.”
I gulp, a cold breeze painted down the back of my spine.
“Your mother was torn up inside, but there was nothing we could do. We were powerless and we believed she was dead for the longest time. A year later we had you.”
“I want to believe you,” I say lowly, under my breath.
“Then believe me.”
“Why don’t we look alike?” I shrug, trying to make sense of the very questions that have been haunting me since I was a little girl. “I mean, why didn’t we look like sisters?”
“This is one of those truths I’ve wanted to protect you from.” He reaches forward, grabs his drink and then swallows the remainder of it in one gulp. He drops the glass back down onto the table, landing with a loud clink.
“I don’t need protection,” I grit out. “I just need the damn truth.”
“Your mother isn’t who you thought she was.” He chews into his lip and shakes his head like this isn’t something he wants to talk about because the memories hurt or some bullshit like that. But I know the truth, he doesn’t want to talk about it because he doesn’t want to admit the truth. The truth, when it comes to my father, is more elusive than anything in this world. “She wasn’t this angel—”
“Just tell me the truth without going on a tangent,” I cut him off, seething through my teeth. In a mirror outfitted on the wall beside me, I catch a glance of my cheeks turning red out of the corner of my eye.
“Your sister wasn’t mine.” He clicks his tongue against his cheek and cocks his head sideways. “Your mother had an affair with the very same man who took your sister from us.” And then his eyes meet mine again and I wish he’d look elsewhere because right now, I want to sink into the damn floor. “A year after she was taken and presumed dead, your mother and I found out she was pregnant again. When you were born, she insisted that we name you Lola, too. In many ways, it was like she was hellbent on replacing your sister. And then when you were three, we found her again and it was too late to change either of your names. That’s why I always called her Lolita and called you Lola.”
On the surface, it all seems to make sense, or at least it seems to be a viable answer to the questions that have always haunted me, but I know that when it comes to him, the truth is something that’s often riddled with lies.
I stare at him for a moment longer before breaking away from his gaze and pursing my lips together contemplatively. “I asked for the truth,” I say with a heavy sigh and shift past him, to head towards my bedroom. “I’m worn out and I need to get some sleep.”
“Goodnight, baby girl,” he says from behind me and reaches backwards to grab my hand with his. He squeezes my hand with a firm grip before he releases me.
And as I make my way to my bedroom, situated down a short hallway, I say something to him that catches even me off guard. I say to him, “I love you, Daddy.”
And from behind me, I can hear him trying to process the words I’ve just said to him. He exhales softly and when I crane my head over my shoulder, I catch him staring blankly ahead at the curtains covering the floor-to-ceiling windows.
I push my bedroom door open, flip on the lights, and then close the door behind me. It’s only when I’m in the safe space that is my own room that I’m able to let down my guard.
I drop down onto the side of the bed and sink deep against the mattress as I stare ahead at the mirror hanging over the back of my door. The simplest truth is that I do love my father as any daughter does. But that simplest truth is distorted by years of emotional abuse and seeing first-hand what my father is capable of.
I can love him with my entire heart and still know what must be done.
There’s just one damn catch. I can’t be the one to kill my father.
Not again.
Not this time.
Not for real.
It’s not because I have a moral objection to it, but it’s simply too late in the game for me to get away with it unscathed. I know that I look and sound like a complete and total crazy person. But the job that must be done is a job for more than one person and I simply can’t do it alone.
It’s not easy being my father’s daughter. It’s especially not easy when both of us are supposed to be dead. There are reasons I went back into that building just before it exploded and none of them included the need or urge to save my bastard father. Or maybe the original reason was because I couldn’t bear the thought of a life without him, and maybe those reasons have morphed over time.
He’s a terrible man who has spent his life ruining the lives of others. He has done unspeakable things and he deserved to die in that explosion, but it simply wasn’t his time…
&n
bsp; Because there was something I still needed from him.
I needed this to end, I needed his organization to be brought to its knees and the only way to do that was to ensure that he survived, at least for the time being.
My father’s death will worsen the void that’s already been left in the wake of his fake death. There is a power struggle to take over his empire brewing and that’s why I’ve constructed a plan to push him back into the limelight; to put an end to the power struggle.
And at the exact moment my father takes back the throne, that’s when I’ll make the big move. He’ll be standing in a room with all of his associates and with the simple press of a button, I’ll have Zach send them all to kingdom come. It’s poetic that he’s about to die in a fiery explosion, taking out anyone and everyone who could stand in his place after he’s gone.
It’s the only way I’ll ever be able to outrun the legacy he leaves behind. It’s the only way I’ll ever get to know what it’s like to live my own life, outside the tremendously dark shadow I’ve lived in my entire life.
And I’d never be one to take murder lightly and I make no qualms about it, this will be an act of cold-blooded murder, but everyone standing in that room will deserve what’s coming to them. Together, they are responsible for the slaughter of at least a thousand innocent men, and they have ruined the lives of thousands’ more.
In less than forty-eight hours, I’ll finally be able to live my own life. But as I stare blankly ahead at my reflection in the mirror, I’m already questioning if I’ll still have a soul once the bomb goes off…
CHAPTER FOUR
LOLA
The first thing I did when I awoke was check my phone to see if Zach had contacted me. He hadn’t and though I began to suspect that he wanted nothing to do with me—not like I blame him—I realized that I didn’t have time to worry about that. With or without him, the plans were already set into motion.
When I stepped out into the living room, my father was fast asleep on the couch with an empty bottle of whiskey lying sideways on the coffee table. After I went to sleep, he finished off the bottle in typical Grimm fashion. I realized that this was my opportunity to slip out of the house undetected.
I needed out of that place, if even just momentarily so that I could breathe fresh air and collect my thoughts. And the place I went to do my thinking was out into the Angeles National Forest, where my father and I buried my sister after recovering her body from the morgue.
Deep in the heart of the forest and well off the beaten path, this was the only place we could find to bury her. And though it’s not a ceremony proper and there is no headstone, it’s quite peaceful as a resting space. In fact, it’s more peaceful, I’d reckon, than an actual cemetery. My only wish is that we could mark her grave with a stone, or at least something identifying that this is where she’s buried.
But the only marking remains strictly in my imagination.
I was never fond of her in life. Okay, so maybe that’s not entirely true. There was a time, back when we were both young, naïve, and innocent where I was more fond of her than anyone in this world. We were best friends back then, even while all the kids at school teased us for having the same name.
And then she became someone else I didn’t recognize. She seemed to develop all of my father’s worse traits and seemed content to live her life in the dark shadow of evil that has shrouded my father since God knows when.
But there’s so much I want to say to her.
I want to thank her for being there for me when nobody else was. And I want to tell her how much she let me down. I want to know why she chose the life she chose, and why she was content to go away for long stretches of time. I want to ask her why she disappeared from public life and why she left me alone to stand as the sole heir to my father’s legacy.
There are so many things I don’t understand and I probably never will. There’s so many questions I want to ask, but I can’t ask my father too many of them in his remaining time on this Earth, lest he get too suspicious.
I kneel down onto the ground right above where she’s buried and wipe away twigs and dirt until I can see the small stone I left for her. On the top of it, etched into the stone are the words, Lola, Lolita. A different woman from one person to the next. Fly high. Fly high. Fly high.
This is the only marking that will ever be at her grave and it’s not enough, but it has to be enough. It’s almost fitting that her death remains just as much a secret as she remained while she was living. It wasn’t until after I faked mine and my father’s deaths that she emerged from the shadows. It was apparently a tough sell telling our associates that she was Seth’s daughter, and I think that’s why she tried so hard to avenge our father’s death by kidnapping and attempting to kill Zane and his girlfriend.
We all know how that ended; with her being shot and falling to her death.
And I’m not mad at Zane, or Zach for that matter, because I’m able to take a step back and realize that she chose that path for herself. It still doesn’t take away from the open wounds of my heart. It still doesn’t take away the painful memories and all the second-guessing about how maybe her life could have turned out differently.
It gives me the motivation I need to make sure I make the changes in my own life that I want and need to see.
I brush the remainder of the dirt from the stone and let out a sigh just as a shadow passes over my back. I’m used to people sneaking up behind me. For as long as I can remember, my life has been endangered by the mere virtue of being my father’s daughter.
I slowly rise to my feet but feel a sense of calm passing over me, as if I know the person behind me doesn’t wish to harm me. The only person I can think of that could know I’m out here is my father. I twist on my feet to find Zach, of all people, standing behind me.
“How did you find me?” I question lowly and brace one hand against my hip and cock my head sideways. He’s dressed in blue jeans and a black tee, and his hands are shoved into his pockets.
“You look a lot different when you’re not wearing heels,” he says, his eyes dropping to glance at my feet clad in black sneakers. “You look a lot shorter too, and I had Marcus track your phone. That’s how I found you.”
I force a cheeky grin. “You guys always knew how to outsmart me.”
“Yeah, those smarts didn’t exactly work when your father held a gun to our heads.” He retrieves one hand from his pockets and drapes it over the back of his neck. “That’s actually why I’m here.”
“You’ve thought about what I asked you?”
“I thought about it a lot.” He sighs, his muscular chest heaving slightly. “In fact, I haven’t stopped thinking about it. Even when I managed to fall asleep for a brief two hours, you and your father still haunted my dreams.”
I comb a hand through my hair, nervously waiting for his response. “And?”
“I’ll help you,” he says, bringing about a sense of relief upon my heavy shoulders. He sees the relief in my eyes and raises a hand into the air. “But I’m only going to help you so I can put an end to this once and for all.”
“And you trust me now?” I shrug. “What’s changed in less than twenty-four hours?”
He glances to his left for a brief moment and wets his lips with his tongue. “I’ve realized that this is like a shadow hanging over me and I’d rather risk you going back on your deal than I am willing to risk never escaping out from underneath this shadow.”
“It’s bothered you that much?” I take a careful step forward and place one hand against his chest to feel his heart. It beats erratically underneath his chest.
“More than you could ever know.” He drops his gaze to meet mine. And I’m reminded just how beautiful it is and how those emerald eyes sealed my fate once before. For being such a strong man, his eyes almost betray him. They’re a perfect shade of dark, emerald green, but there’s an innocence in those orbs, in those windows to his soul. “More than I’m capable of admitting out loud.”
<
br /> “You just kind of did.” I straighten myself out and move to pass him, all the while running a finger along his chest until I’m standing behind him.
He latches onto my arm and spins around in place so that he’s right behind me, his hot breath scorching against the back of my neck. He steps closer still and drops a hand to my waist to hold me firmly in place.
When I breathe, my body pushes back against his. It’s a familiar place for me, but one that still feels wrong somehow. It’s always felt wrong. Back when we first met, there was an undeniable spark between the two of us. I think that’s why he was so willing to follow me into the darkness.
I swallow a nervous gulp and force myself away from him. Once I’m free, I spin back around to face him and throw my hands outwards. “What are you doing?”
“You’re the one who came to me, remember?”
“Obviously.” I step towards him and hook a glance up at him. He stands a good six inches taller than me when I’m not wearing heels. “But we can’t do this again. We can’t do us again. It’s too dangerous.”
“Yeah, I know.” He drops a hand to caress me softly on the cheek. I give into his touch, nodding my head into his embrace. “This is strictly business.”
He pulls back and clears his throat. “So tell me, Lola Grimm. What’s the plan?”
CHAPTER FIVE
ZACH
I push the passenger car door open and climb out onto the pavement to stand in front of a small, but pristine house in the Hollywood Hills. This is the last place I would have expected Lola and her father to hide.
I turn and place my arms over the top of the car as I watch Lola climb out of the driver’s side. When she lands against the asphalt, there isn’t the sound of her trademark heels tapping against the asphalt.
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