After the Dust Settles (California Dreaming Book 3)

by Stacey Johnston

  Whispering her name from my lips, “Hadley.”

  She blinks, her iris’s shrinking back to normal and her vision now focusing on me.

  “Sean,” she breathes.

  “I’m here, baby girl.”

  She hesitantly approaches me, the realization of what she has done dawning on her and I watch as her demeanor quickly changes. Each step Hadley takes is shaky, her body trembling as she looks between her blood-soaked hands and me. It’s like she is in a trance as she watches her father’s blood dripping through the cracks of her fingers onto the ground beneath. Large sobs escape her mouth when she finally reaches me, her body shaking in shock.

  “What have I done, Sean?” her small voice trembles.

  Pulling her in, hugging her tightly against me, I comfort her. “Only what needed to be done, beautiful girl.”

  Returning my embrace, she grips onto me tightly, suffocating me. Her sobs become tears. Hadley’s grief over what she has just done to her father racks her body, devastating her.

  “From the state of you, I’m guessing your father is dead,” my voice whispers into her hair. I need to know what has happened, but I don’t want to release her. I’m scared that if I break our contact she will crumble. I can’t even imagine the torment she is subjecting herself to. There’s nothing I can do that will take away the pain of everything he has done to her over the years, or the pain she has inflicted on him today.

  “I showed him how much of a monster I am,” her shaky voice trembles. Glancing up, she looks me dead in the eye. “I showed him what kind of a monster he had made me into.”

  I’m speechless, I don’t think I could move even if I wanted to. Holding my gaze, Hadley stares straight through me. I may be physically holding my girl in my arms, but her mind is somewhere else. I’m looking into a shell, this is not the girl I love.

  We stand at the bottom of the stairs just outside the basement, Hadley’s face is now pressing into my chest, her tears soaking through my shirt. Holding onto her for dear life, I tightly draw her into me for comfort, attempting to make her feel safe. I’ll continue to do this until she moves, or for as long as it takes for her to come back to me.

  “Please don’t go into that room, Sean,” Hads finally whispers into my chest. She’s still trembling, but nowhere near as bad as she was when she first walked out of that room.

  “I won’t Hads, but we need to leave. I need to get you cleaned up.”

  Those beautiful eyes that I fell in love with look up at me with such sadness in them. She’s struggling and I don’t know if it’s because she is finally free, or because of what she has done. Leading her up the stairs, we pass by my father and Hawke, who have been patiently waiting at the top of the stairs. Nodding, my father acknowledges the extent of what they will be walking into and moves past us to initiate the clean up. I will no doubt see what dlovege Hadley did to her father later, but right now, the only place I need to be is beside the girl gripping onto me like her life depends on it.

  Maybe it does...

  *****

  Sitting on the edge of the porcelain, I gently caress Hadley’s hair, stroking with the washcloth, washing away the last of the blood from her face. With her eyes closed, she looks angelic soaking in the bubbles. I thought of getting in as well, to comfort, but I didn’t want to spook her. She has been quiet since we left the apartment where she slaughtered her father. I arranged to take Hadley in via the back door of the hotel we were staying at to shelter her from prying eyes. We managed to get into our suite before anyone saw us.

  I thought it would be more of a mission to get Hadley cleaned up, but I managed to coax her into the shower fully dressed with ease. I carefully peeled off her clothing as she stood under the heated water, watching the blood rush off her body with the water down the drain. She said nothing as I gently caressed her face. I thought maybe my touch would ignite something in her, but so far, nothing. When she looked into my eyes as I wrapped the towel around her to guide her toward the bathtub, there was nothing but emptiness.

  Watching her while she relaxes in the bubbles, I feel so much sadness and love for this girl. She will need time to open up to me and when she does, I’ll be here waiting. Nothing will come between us, not what she’s done, or has been done to her. This girl brought life to me when my life was a void. When I believed I had nothing to live for, especially after Sherlyn died. This girl laying beside me in this bathtub has given me everything I have ever dreamed of, and so much more. She fixed me even though I didn’t believe I could be and now I need to do the same for her.

  Hadley is my ever after – well, for as long as she will have me, anyway.

  I may be young, but I have faith in happily ever afters. I only have to look at my parents to know it’s possible.

  My father recently told me a story of how he met the woman he swore to love and protect for the rest of his life. I don’t recall how that conversation started, but I was more than happy to listen. My father and I have never bonded like this in the past and it warmed my heart being able to have him confide in me the way he did. He was telling me that Hawke, of all people, had dragged him to a concert - something my father was never a fan of, and that’s where he saw my mother for the first time. It took me some time to get my head around the fact that Hawke did anything fun, but dad mentioned that Hawke has not always been this closed off. There was a time when that man led a different life and yet again, I was told that it was someone elses story to tell. This time, it was Hawke’s.

  At this particular concert, my mother was only nineteen and was sitting off to the side watching as her brothers performed. It was back in the sixties when my uncles first made it big, they were only teenagers themselves and my mother apparently was at every performance. Dad was telling me that he couldn’t tear his eyes from her but couldn’t get close enough to talk to her. He recalls nothing of the actual concert, just her. He himself was only nineteen as well at the time.

  As the story goes, it took him another year before he found my mother again. He and Hawke were on spring break from college. They went down to Laguna Beach and stumbled across her reading at one of the beachside cafes. Taking the initiative, he struck up a conversation with her that lasted hours. Eventually, they moved on from the cafe but never left each others side. Forty odd years later, they are still together and still very much in love. If that’s not hope that I can have the same, then I don’t know what is.

  “Thank you, Sean,” Hadley whispers, breaking through my thoughts.

  Finally, she is speaking.

  “You’re welcomed beautiful, but what for?” my curious voice asks.

  “Saving me,” she replies, turning in the water to lay her head on the side of the tub to look up at me.

  “I will always come to you, Hadley. I will always protect you.”

  Instinctively, my hand caresses her cheek, swiping at the tears that are now streaming down her face.

  “I love you with everything that is inside of me. Know that now before I tell you my story,” she confides, drawing a deep breath before sitting up.

  Helping her out of the tub, I tell her that I feel the same and pass her the towel. She says nothing as she guides me toward our bed. Dropping the towel, she climbs under the covers naked, and encourages me to sit near her on the bed.

  When I’m finally seated, I grasp her hand into mine and wait for her to start.

  Hadley

  Holding my hand to comfort me, Sean sits patiently, waiting for me to talk. I feel ashamed for what I’m about to open up to him about, my vision firmly fixed on the comforter instead.

  “My story starts when I am sixteen years old,” I begin. “And I was used as a payoff to cover a debt my father owed to his Columbian counterparts.

  Expecting something, some kind of reaction, I look up to see nothing but love reflecting in my boy’s eyes. Continuing, I tell him how my padre asked me to negotiate a deal with the Columbians on his behalf. How he had another meeting he couldn’t get out of and nee
ded me to step up and learn the family business. I was excited to be given the opportunity, and keen to prove that I could do it.

  When I arrived to the hotel they were staying at, I found two of them snorting coke through a straw. I’d never seen anything like it before, having been sheltered from that side of my padre’s business. They welcomed me into the room and asked if I wanted to join them, I refused. I never understood the need to inhale or inject substances into my body for the purpose of having a good time.

  I never needed anything, drugs or alcohol, to have fun, but it was obvious these two did and I thought at the time, who am I to judge. Sitting down across from them, I watched as they did two more lines each and started to speak about the deal my padre wanted me to negotiate. When they laughed at me, I was shocked. I had no idea what they found funny and started to feel fear when they got up out of their chairs to sit beside me.

  Only then did it dawn on me that I had been deceived by my padre. Sitting closer than I would have liked, I could feel their hands touching me, running over my body. My fear rose when the one named Maitas chuckled and told me that I was payment for a debt my padre needed to settle. That I was there to show them a good time. My padre had promised them that they could do whatever they wanted to me.

  Everything in me that night wanted to fight them, but they were too strong and had me pinned between them. Their hands kept touching me in places I didn’t want them to and every time I cried, it only encouraged them to do it again and again. Nothing I said or did stopped them and instead of screaming out loud for help, I choose to do it in my head.

  I shut down after that, my body became limp. The two I was given to took that as an invitation to start invading my body in ways I’d never thought possible. My screaming and crying became internal and through the worst of it, a voice answered me. At first, I thought I was hearing things and then she spoke to me again. A calm, soothing voice who told me to concentrate on her voice and nothing else. She promised to take away my pain, but I had to let her take over. She assured me that I could rest and she would take care of the two men violating my body.

  I was so tired and in so much pain that I just said yes. After that, everything was a bit of a blur until I awoke the next morning. It took months for my memory to recall exactly what happened, regardless of what my father told me.

  Stopping briefly to grab the glass of water Sean is offering me, he waits for me to finish before taking both my hands in his and squeezing. It’s not much, but it’s enough, and his way of telling me he’s still with me so I keep going.

  Although my body healed over time, mentally I had changed. Gone was the sweet girl and in her placed a hardened bitch. Once I had full recollection of that night and what I did to those men, I found something inside of me I never knew I had. Gerrick calls it an evilness, a darkness so terrible he feared one day I would become lost to it. Over the years, I learnt how to rein my new dark side in, when to let her out and when to hold her back. I regret not allowing her to take care of Luca, but when I think about it, he never pushed me to that point of no return. I became good at what I did and it benefited me for a long time.

  When we had my padre trapped in that room, I resisted the voice for as long as I could, but she was persistent, and in the end, I had to set her free. I remember everything up until Gerrick leaving the room, after that, it’s fuzzy. It’s like I blacked out, like she shielded me from having to live with what had been done. Let’s face it, regardless of whether it’s me or another personality of me, it’s still my body doing those things, making me fully responsible for my actions.

  Will she come back? Of that, I can’t be sure.

  For now, though, she’s gone – my Nereza, and the last thing I remember her saying to me was ‘you’re safe now, sweetness’.

  When I finish, we sit in silence, anxiousness starts its upward swirl throughout my stomach as my head considers whether the boy who owns my heart and soul is going to walk out that door. He knows now, what lives inside of me, and what I have done. The relief I feel, opening up to him like that is amazing. I haven’t felt this free – ever.

  Just when I feel my chest constricting in pain from not knowing what is going on in Sean’s head, he finally finds his voice.

  “My mother once said, Hadley, that life is what we make of it. We carry our scars over our hearts to remind us of what we have survived. They are not there to trouble us but to show us that we have courage and strength to fight. Our future starts from now, everything before it has no impact on what we, together can do.”

  His words bring tears to my eyes and a smile to my face. Happiness floods my heart.

  “Our slate wipes clean right now, Hads. Together, we move forward, not backward. I love you, and that’s all that matters.”

  Lying beside me, my boy pulls me close, molding my body to his. Pulling the covers over us both, he tells me to rest, that we will be leaving early in the morning to head home.

  “I love you too, Sean Valentine,” I tell him as my eyes succumb to the heaviness, pulling me under into sleep.

  Epilogue

  Six months later…

  “Hadley, are you okay,” a worried female voice asks from behind me.

  It’s Sophie, Sean’s sister. We are at their home in Solana Beach and I have been staring out at the ocean for the better part of an hour. It’s beautiful here, and relaxing.

  “Yes, Sophie, thank you. I’m fine, just admiring the view before the ceremony,” I reassure her.

  Oh, did I forget to mention, I’m getting married today! I’m so excited to be marrying Sean and in an hour, I will be a Valentine. Nothing could make me happier, well maybe that and the precious bundle of joy I am carrying.

  Yep, you heard me correctly.

  After I told Sean about my past, we made love and not the hurried, hard sex that I had become accustomed to. This was slow, and all-consuming, and exactly what I needed to start the healing process. It also seems that night we forgot how to use protection, and now I’m six months pregnant.

  I couldn’t be happier.

  “You looked like you were somewhere else for a moment there girl, you had me worried,” she replies.

  Not everyone was happy about our news to begin with, but Sean’s madre put everyone in their place telling them that this baby is a Godsend and that we should all be basking in the beautifulness of it. I tell you, some of the things that come out of that woman’s mouth make me giggle. Yet, I love her, more than I ever did my own madre and she has adopted me as one of her own. Sophie here was hesitant at first and for that, I can’t blame her until she saw Sean and me together. She has been calling me her sorella ever since.

  “I was Soph, but in a good place. This is a life I never imagined I would have and I’m pinching myself to make sure it’s real.”

  “Oh, it’s real all right, and by the way, you’re stuck with that brother of mine. How you deal with his OCD issues I have no idea, but I wish you love and luck for the future.” Sophie giggles.

  I love how open Sophie is. She’s crass, but loveable and has a hot ass boyfriend to keep her on her toes. Man, that boy of hers is fine. There are times, though, when I feel responsible for the sadness I see on their faces when they remember their friend Sherlyn. Her death has caused a hole that will take time to heal, especially in Stephen. I was hesitant at first around him until he pulled me aside and told me that he didn’t blame me for his girl’s death. When he hugged me, I cried, which in turn made him cry. Those tears were refreshing, he told me, because it meant he was healing. He told me that he would never forget Sherlyn, and her memory is what fuels him to move forward.

  Laughing in return, I tell Sophie that I would be more than happy to take her fratello off her hands, even with all his quirks. Grabbing my hand, she leads me back inside to get ready. We are having the ceremony on this very balcony in front of everyone, Sean and now I call family. I even managed to get Gerrick to fly up for it. He looks gorgeous as he moves toward me.

  “Hadl
ey, you get fatter every time I see you. Surely that nephew of mine is ready to drop by now?” Gerrick shouts out.

  Typical, he’s such an ass. Laughing even louder, Sophie tells him good luck and excuses herself. She is going ahead and will meet me in her room. All the boys were forced out to the guest house. The groaning we had to deal with over that made even Anthony, Sean’s padre, laugh – until he was told to leave as well.

  “You are such a dick, Gerrick. You never tell a pregnant woman they are fat, not unless you have a death wish. Do you know nothing about pregnancy? I still have three months left and for the last time, we don’t know what we are having.” I curse him.

  Smirking, he pulls me in for a hug and whispers, “I know darling sorella of mine, I just like winding you up.”

  Punching him, I tell him to join the boys and I will see him soon. Kissing my cheek, he heads down the gorgeous staircase, slamming the front door on his way out. The noise brings both Sophie and Sarah out of the room, so I reassure them it’s nothing and let them drag me back in to get me ready.

  As we reach the door of Sophie’s room, a voice whispers to me, ‘Take care Hadley, you’re safe now,’ and I smile.

  Sean

  The last thing I expected was to be standing here in front of the Agency Chaplan getting ready to exchange wedding vows. I’m pumped, actually I’m freaked, but mostly I’m excited, because today I’m marrying the love of my life and the mother of my unborn child. I don’t know which one of us was freaked the most when we discovered the pregnancy. We talked about different options, but in the end, decided to speak with my parents. My father was pissed at first, ranting about being irresponsible and not taking precautions. I think he was more disturbed at the fact that he had to think about another of his children having sex.

  My mother, on the other hand, was beyond excited and saw it as a sign. A sign of good and reassured us that no matter what choice we made, she and my father would be there to support us all the way. Our ages and the fact that we were so young never entered her mind. That shouldn’t surprise me, as she had Sophie at a young age.