Wrecked: A Novel (Charming Knights Book 1)

by Shana Vanterpool

  “Dickhead,” she ground out from the back.

  He glared murderously at the road. “You knew how I felt,” he growled, making me shrink in the passenger seat. “Look what you’ve done, Tressa. Why do I fall for women who are incapable of emotions?”

  “Because your heart can’t handle love,” she said matter of fact. “It’s too broken, Ben. You can take small amounts every once in a while, but that’s it.”

  “Is Illa my mother or not?” I demanded. That was the only thing that mattered.

  He seethed in the front seat. “Yes. It was good business. I offered Illa the same deal as before, and maybe I wanted to stick it to Tressa. Illa’s your mother and I’m your father. Everything is as you always saw it. But things have been internally difficult over the years. Owen doesn’t love Tressa and Carrie doesn’t love me. But divorces would be detrimental to our careers. And what does it matter at this point? Love and money can’t coexist. You own the world. You cannot let love get in your way of that.”

  “Now,” he said, shaking off his admittances’ like they were nothing but contractual bullet points. “I had to make a choice. In 2007 the financial crisis hit. And it hit Goodford Financial harder than anyone else. Investors pulled, loans went bankrupt, mortgages were foreclosed—I was inches from taking my own life. Owen and Joseph Ripford made a deal with me. Owen wanted you, and Joseph wanted to become a shareholder. He holds 25%—silent partner—in GF. I own 51%, and you own the other 24%. You’ll get mine when the time comes, but as for now, I have no room to deny them. I made a deal with Owen that when you were eighteen you would marry his son Cage, and Cage would inherit your 24%.”

  I understood suddenly. Everything. Why Owen owned his son, why my father owned me. That 24% percent in Goodford Finance was probably worth at least 50 billion on a bad day, and that had been enough for our fathers to sell our souls. Owen wanted to rule the world and my father hadn’t wanted to lose it twice. And now that I married Cage, I owned nothing. I wasn’t worth anything.

  The heartache I felt was astronomical. “Did Cage know?”

  “He knows after today. That account the Storm’s boy hacked into was Raul Spinoza’s. Cage won’t forget what’s important after today. You won’t either, will you? I control GF. I can’t control Owen anymore.”

  I felt my universe implode. One star at a time.

  16. AT THE END

  Wreck

  BLOOD DRIPPED BETWEEN my EYES.

  All three of us were lined up in Rip’s backyard by the lake. Spinoza’s men were just getting started. The pain in my skull was disorienting. The Brazilian men Raul stuck on us had been trading blows as my father told me the truth. My life wasn’t in danger. If Father wanted that 24%, he needed me alive. I was irrevocably safe in that. I’d had no idea. I had secrets, but they only went as deeply as I did.

  “I don’t need Hallie alive anymore,” Father finally said, finishing his story. “On paper, she has your name and that means that percentage in GF is ours. So, here’s what’s going to happen.” He stooped down in front of me and put himself at eye level. “You’re going to do what I say from this day forward, or your wife might just up and disappear one day.”

  I could have considered things, thought this through—but there would be no point. Hallie was life. I would give my heart and soul to protect her.

  “Are we clear?”

  I nodded stiffly.

  He grinned. “This is a good thing, son. I welcome my new daughter-in-law with open arms. She still has Ben’s 51% in the company. It would be in my best interest to keep her around. I don’t want to kill her. With you being married and her taking your name, this can be one happy affair. And before you start thinking about offing your old man, the only way you’ll get my company is if I go out naturally. Otherwise, I’m leaving everything to Carrie. I have a soft spot for the thing.” He stood up and brushed his pants off. “Oh, and if I go, Hallie does too. Contingencies have been put in place to guarantee our coexistence. And tell your little friend to stop hacking into Raul’s account, please? That money keeps a lot of people quiet, paid, and happy. Not too badly, Raul. My son’s face is an important part of his wardrobe. Plus, they have a game on Tuesday. Wouldn’t want them to miss it.” He nodded at the Brazilian thugs.

  “Get up, Geoff,” Joseph Ripford demanded. “Learn from others mistakes.”

  Rip pushed to his feet and went to stand beside his father. He held my gaze the entire time Raul’s men beat Storm and me. Their fists smashed into my rips, and with my hands behind my back, I had no choice but to endure their blows. Storm’s father wasn’t there to save his face, and he was dripping onto the lawn by the time they were done with us.

  Raul’s men cut our ties loose and nodded at their boss, heading back into the house. He knelt beside Storm’s face and whispered something in his ear that made him growl.

  “Congratulations on the marriage. I’ll send a gift.” Raul patted my shoulder and headed into the Ripford mansion.

  “It would be nice to give the world a chance to celebrate with you, son.” Father helped me to my feet. I wanted to push him off, but I feared his blows far worse. “She’s yours now. You got what you wanted, and I got what I wanted. Welcome my daughter-in-law in appropriately. I want the world to watch the Wreckmond’s grow. Propose after the game on Tuesday. I’ll have my local news team there waiting. Make it count. And don’t lose.”

  I helped Storm to his feet. The pain I felt was purely physical. I’d had a lifetime to prepare for this moment. My father knew all along what would happen. The attention he put on Hallie Goodford all those years had been for himself, but he’d had to go through me to get to her, and my heart had been sacrificed.

  “I’ll take him to the hospital,” Rip offered, slinging his arm over Storm’s shoulder. He looked green. Guilty. Terrified.

  I hated the burning in my eyes. “If you don’t get out of here, Rip, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “What do you want me to do?” he demanded desperately as we made our way pathetically across the lawn for the back-patio door. “I won’t get far if I try.”

  My fight was over. His wasn’t. “Try any-fucking-way. Tell Dr. Prep’s he hurt himself during practice. I’m going to find Hallie before she does something stupid.”

  The bit of backstory I’d garnered from Dad’s story alone would dismantle her. But I knew my little star well enough to know where she’d go with this truth. Down.

  Her soul was too good, far stronger than the wrongs of Charmant. I dug my phone from my pocket and wiped the blood on my face onto my shirt. My body was flowing with adrenaline. I barely felt the broken ribs. I called Hallie and got no answer. Panic burning in my blood, I called her again, getting into my Mercedes.

  Her phone rang in the front seat where she’d left her clutch.

  “Shit!” I punched the steering wheel. I sped across the canyon to find their place empty. The guard out front said no one had been back since we all left together. I tried Ben’s number next.

  “She took off,” he answered. He didn’t sound worried. Why would he? He sold his daughter to save his company. I didn’t care why. Because I’d sold my soul for hers. Sacrifices were the soul’s barter. “I’d check with her mother,” he offered. “Her real one.”

  My heart lurched in my chest and I pressed down on the pedal, sending the Mercedes flying down the canyon road. “What’s her full name?”

  “Illa Reed.”

  My head hung. Clearing my throat, I asked for her address. He rattled off her home address in Atlanta. I hung up without saying more and typed the address in. She probably had a good thirty-minute lead on me. She didn’t have her phone or her purse. When I got out of Charmant, I took the highway and ate at the road, pushing 120 MPH.

  It wasn’t until Charmant was at my back, did I realize where she really was. I hit my breaks and skidded across the road, sending the wheel toward the exit. I got back on the canyon road and headed north.

  Sparrow Cliff was lifeless in the m
id-day light. My tires kicked up gravel as I shoved the Mercedes in park, slamming my door shut as I headed up the crag. The blaring pain in my ribcage had me doubling over, but I pushed it away. I’d endured worse being my father’s son.

  I spotted a wisp of bronze through the trees and fell to my knees. I crawled the rest of the way on my hands and knees for my star. She was sitting on the edge of the cliff we’d jumped from, feet dangling over the lake.

  “Did you know?”

  “No, Hals. I promise, from the bottom of my charcoal soul, that I didn’t know that your father sold you or that mine used me to buy you.”

  She hiccupped, her sob catching in the back of her throat. “I could have been your sister.”

  I shook my head, not understanding. But she wasn’t looking at me and I didn’t think it mattered if I understood right now. “Get away from the cliff.” She was so close to falling over. Emotionally and physically. One inch and she’d fall.

  Jumping wasn’t the same as falling.

  Her pain was this deep dark hole on the cliff with us. I crawled closer, the gravel marking my movement. She scooted away when she heard me coming, jerking her body so roughly her arm went flying and her body went with it. We both screamed at the same time. I fell forward and grabbed into the open space as her hand flung into the rock, her fingers scrabbling at the crag.

  My body landed on the cliff’s edge. My hands scrambled for her, feeling skin and cloth. I grabbed what I could and held on with every single ounce of strength I had inside my body.

  “Don’t let me go,” she cried. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to fall,” she blubbered.

  “I know, baby.” Her terrified eyes were tear-soaked. “Stay calm.”

  “Don’t let me go,” she begged. “Please, Cage!” Her shaking body tried to grab for me, pulling all her weight down when she let go of the cliff.

  I slid forward as her weight took me down with her. “Hallie!” I tried to dig my feet into the rocks, but they slipped. My elbows snagged the cliff, giving me one second to decide what to do. If I let her go, she’d hit the rocks beneath us. We were too close to the cliff to drop. If I let her go, I’d still be up here. Hot horror shot through me as she screamed and sobbed. “Kick off the rocks with your feet on five!” I ordered, my upper body sliding forward even more. My waist was going over. I’d never make it.

  Sacrifices were worth it.

  “Push off as hard as you can. Kick and straighten. Hit the water straight or you’ll never stand a chance.”

  “Wreck, no!” Terror and heartbreak burned in her eyes when I started to count. She was smart, my little star.

  “I love you, Hallie. Five!” I pushed her off as hard as I could as that final shove took me with her. Her scream was the last thing I heard as I fought to see her. The last thing I saw before my body crashed into the rocks was her body hitting the lake. Straight as a board.

  They say your life flashes before your eyes at the end. But all I saw was Hallie.

  17. THIS CAGE IS MAGIC

  Hallie

  LOVE HAD A FUNNY WAY OF KILLING YOU.

  It showed you all your fragile parts, and then it did its best to take your strength away, so the fragile parts were the only parts that survived.

  That moment before my body hit the water and the second before Cage’s crashed into the rocks, everything became clear.

  It didn’t matter how we got here. The only thing that mattered was that we were here. I was never trapped.

  In Cage “Wreck” Wreckmond, I was free no matter how locked inside we were.

  I swam to the surface of Sparrow Lake and wasted no time as I took off for the cliff where I could see his body crumbled, half on the cliff, half off.

  “Wreck!” I swam harder. When I got to shore, I lifted free of the water and ran for the cliff. He couldn’t fall twice. As hard as it was, I didn’t go back for him. I ran for the top of the cliff where I knew he was parked. I fumbled with his phone and dialed 911, screaming my words. I took his phone with me and ran back to the cliff.

  I put the phone in my bra and got down on my ass, my wet feet barely holding on dripping wet. “Wreck!” I screamed, begging for an answer. I knew he’d let himself fall to save me, but he’d done that too many times. I lowered my body carefully, lining myself up with the rocks. If I landed just right, I’d avoid the sharpest parts.

  “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

  I sobbed as I looked down, my body hanging on to the cliff’s edge.

  “You crawl to the same cliff we just fell from to fall again?”

  He sounded like he was barely holding on, but he was.

  “On five.”

  He counted for me. When he got to five, I didn’t even bother looking. He wouldn’t have told me to fall if he didn’t know I could. My legs absorbed the impact with excruciating efficiency. My spine dug into the rocks. I pushed the pain aside and crawled to him.

  His face was covered in blood, but some of it was dried, like it was old.

  “Is your back hurt? Can you feel your legs? I don’t want to risk moving you.”

  “You can move me.” His royal blue eyes gleamed in pain as he offered me his left arm.

  “On five,” I managed to get out, gripping his biceps. “I called 911.”

  “Good girl.” He cried out in agony when I pulled him away from the edge.

  That was a good sign, right? If he felt pain, then he wasn’t paralyzed. I didn’t know what to do. I touched his face, cradling him gently as I soaked up the life in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to fall.” I hadn’t meant to. I’d been on the edge, yes, but I hadn’t meant to fall.

  “Cage.” I kissed his lips, his blood mixing with my tears to create a tinny salty beautiful kiss. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I know it’s probably too late, but I’ve always wanted to ask you. Will you marry me?”

  I blinked the tears away to see his face. “I would love nothing more than to be yours.”

  “A small wedding. A thousand of our closest friends.” He chuckled, the contrast of fear and pain turning his smile into a knife.

  He was stabbing right at my heart. “You listen to me, Cage Wreckmond. You’re going to get up and walk away, and we’re going to do it together. Because that’s the only way for us. Together. Do you hear me?”

  He cringed and shifted, which was the moment I saw the blood pooling beneath him. And the sharp shred of rock jutting out of his side. “I hear you, my little star, but I’m not sure it matters.”

  I forced myself to hold it together. I didn’t want to do this, but his eyes were losing focus, and as hard as it was, if something happened without… “I love you, Wreck. I would spend the rest of my life in this cage just to have you.”

  Sometimes there was no escaping.

  Sometimes looking for a way out only further drove you deeper in.

  I wanted out my entire life. But looking into his eyes, watching the life fade out of them, all I wanted suddenly was to stay inside of this gilded cage a moment longer with the boy who’d loved me his entire life.

  “Hals,” he said, reaching up with a shaking hand to touch my face. “You’re so dramatic.” He sat up and got to his feet, leaving me gaping at him on my knees. “Good call on the ambulance, though. My ribs are too broken to climb back up or jump down.” He lifted his light gray dress shirt to reveal how the rock had gone through his side just barely, and the garish bruises along his ribcage were already black.

  I was too relieved to be mad. I jumped him, wrapping my arms around his body so tightly I wanted to break the ribs he had left. I inhaled his sweat and blood, holding him in my lungs. “You stupid handsome stupid jerk face.” I kissed his chest through his shirt, rubbing against him as the blare of sirens sounded overhead.

  “You know what this means, right?” He gazed into my eyes, his royal blue’s gleaming. “There’s no more hope outside of Charmant.”

  I knew what he was asking. Was I ready to start looking around my cage and notic
e how beautiful it was? To notice how long he’d waited for me to see that beauty?

  To accept this love, we had and spend the rest of our lives turning it into magic?

  “There’s life right here.” I kissed his chest again. “And it’s all the freedom and real I need.”

  He gave me a boyish smile, transforming his hard, mature face with the small shred of youth and hope that still existed in him.

  There were parts of us our fathers could never threaten or ruin. Parts this life would never get close enough to take.

  In love, there was freedom.

  And that was all I ever needed.

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you did.” He’d faked his own end to get me to accept the turmoil that had unfolded today, because in the face of not having him, the betrayals hardly mattered. “You’re so sneaky.”

  “Aren’t I?” He dropped down to one knee and dug into his pocket as I watched him carefully. Then he smirked. “I’m good, Hals, but even I’m not that good. I’ll get you a ring later.” He took my left hand and held it, gazing up at me without a single wall in place. “You come first to me. No matter what, that’s how it’s always been. Hallie first, everything else second. That makes sense to me. I fall over the cliff and you kick off, every single time. Do you hear that?”

  I could be sneaky too. I hadn’t just fallen. I’d tried to pull him before I let go, which was probably the only reason he hadn’t landed on the rocks jutting out of the crag.

  In love, there was also self-preservation.

  And we’d always find a way to save it.

  18. LOVE AND FIGHT

  Wreck

  ACQUIESCING IN ANY FLAVOR TASTED THE SAME.

  And under duress, its promise still counted. At least that’s what I convinced myself of. Getting Hallie to say yes to me alone before she had to say yes to me in front of everyone wasn’t technically lying.