I gasp, looking up at him as the night of the party flashes in my head. I remember everything, and how the twins looked at Liam.
The longing there.
The heartache and anger. And then the way they looked at me when Liam alluded that he was fucking me.
“Yes, Cupcake, yes,” Liam says. “According to my respectable research, I discovered that the Bishop’s own a chunk of that dance school.”
“What?” I almost screech as it all makes sense now.
“Yes, it’s unfortunate but I know the Bishops made sure you wouldn’t be accepted into the school.”
Oh, those damn bitches. What did I do to deserve that?
“But why? I’ve never fucked with them.”
“That, my dearest Cupcake, is the frosting on top I need to find.”
“Liam,” Julian starts, and they look at each other, a silent message passing between them. Liam looks back at me, giving me a quick hug again.
“Gotta go,” he whispers. “Call me if you need me.”
Then he’s gone.
24
When the phone rings later that night, I don’t bother to check the caller ID and that was my first mistake because I think it’s Julian who left to drop Liam’s passport which he had left in his bathroom, at the airport.
“Was he whining?” I say, a smile on my face. “Told you to ask him before he left.”
“I’m sorry, I should’ve listened,” the chilling, low voice says, making everything in me freeze. I still in my steps, my breath catching as chills race down my spine.
“How did you get this number?” I whisper, fear slamming into me like a freight train. Oh my God.
He chuckles, like he’s having so much damn fun, but all it does is freeze the blood in my veins. Even that laugh alone, there’s an echo of it in my nightmares and hearing it now, I now know. My nightmares aren’t always nightmares. They are fragments of the memories I’ve suppressed.
“Oh Amy,” Nathan starts, his voice as chilling as when I was younger. Gone is the charming act he adopted later on.
“That’s not my name,” I seethe, hate festering in my gut.
“Oh, but it is,” he laughs again.
Huh? I scrunch up my face, my mind racing. Is Amy Hazel my real name?
“But getting back to your question, because we both know, confusion in this moment and time will be detrimental to you. It’s good for both interested parties to have all the facts in this before things get crazy.” It’s the way he says that, that raises the hairs at the back of my neck. I stand at attention, my heart thundering in the silence. “I’ve had your number since you bought this phone at that airport in Paris.”
In Paris! He knows where I am.
“The city of love, of course you’d go there. It was always your favorite city from the first time your stupid aunt and mother tried to get away from me.”
Oh. My. God.
It’s all true! All those nightmares and what Nicky said, they were really running away from him.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I grit out. That was my second mistake, not ending the call as soon as I heard his voice.
“Oh, come on now, Princess, you and I have much to discuss,” he says. “Tell me, do you know what’s currently happening right now in Palos Verdes?”
“I don’t give a shit and you can go fuck yourself.”
“If I were you, I would care, and to be honest you and that bitch, Nicky, almost made me go ‘fuck myself’ possible when you both tried to play me for a fool, but like I always told you, Princess, things always seem to work out one way or the other.”
This man is sick. How did I manage to protect myself against his vile, passive aggressive actions? How did Nancy or Nicky do it for that matter?
“I’m hanging up now,” I grit out then go to end the call, but he stops me when he says something that makes me pause.
“Ah, Amy, you don’t want to do that. I’m calling to help you get out of this situation.”
“What situation?”
“Ah, so you don’t know what’s happening, huh?” he questions with a laugh. “Well, allow your father to enlighten you, Princess.”
I want to tell him that I’m not his princess, that I’m not his daughter but the truth is, I am his daughter. I’m the daughter of a monster.
“Have you switched the TV on by any chance, Princess?”
The TV?
“No.”
“Ah, so you haven’t seen the mess you left here in your bid to follow your incompetent mother’s instructions.”
The mess I made?
Unease starts running down my back as dread starts snaking its way into the pit of my stomach.
“Can you get to the point?” I grit out, hating the note of fear in my voice when I say that, but he hears it.
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing we can’t fix. Really,” he says. “There’s a missing person’s report on you here.”
Everything in me stops. Time stops moving. My heart seems to stop pounding. I stop breathing as the words register in my mind.
“What?” I croak.
“Yes,” he says, dropping his voice to concern but now I know better. “You see, Princess, as the concerned, worried out of my damn mind father that I am, I went to the authorities after they called me to report that they found your car on the side of the road, the window busted out, your shoes scattered and blood stains on the door and trunk.”
No, no, no. This can’t be happening. This can’t be going where I think it’s going.
“No doubt you and Nicky did that to frame me, but unfortunately for you two, I’m your father. Nicky signed you away to me years ago.”
What the fuck? She signed me away to him?
“So, it was only right that they call me. I don’t have to explain how I bought you that car and that it was in my name and all that shit do I?”
“Stop patronizing me, I’m not stupid.”
“Yeah, but your recent actions have made me question a lot lately. I thought you and I understood each other, that you were my little girl and we would eventually get where we need to get.”
“Aw, I’m sorry to have disappointed you, Dad,” I say sarcastically, and he sighs.
“No matter, you made up for all that because you see, when I was with the police officers, I immediately told them that you’re a good kid. That you don’t hang out with weird, rowdy crowds. That you’re a straight A student, a genius really. And as I knew they would, they checked it all out with your school and found everything I said about you to be true. Hell, I even gave them that picture of you when you danced for Juilliard last year.”
Why would he do that? Why would he tell them all that and give them a picture of me when I felt so happy and at peace with my demons for overcoming something I thought I wouldn’t be able to do—make Nancy proud. This man isn’t just telling me this for nothing. There’s something going on.
“What did you do?”
“You’re starting to catch up, huh? Well, I gave them as much information as I would so that they would know that you, Mia Montague, would never just up and leave just like that. Especially when you are the one who loved your mother the most. I knew and they knew you’d never recklessly run away when her funeral was close-by. It would kill you to not be able to say goodbye, though I have to wonder why you didn’t do it, but that’s probably weighing heavily on your conscious for doing the woman who raised you dirty like that.”
“What did you do!” I shout, trying my best to fight the guilt in my heart and the dread that has taken root in the middle of my chest, but it’s no good.
“Come on, baby girl, I did what any father would do in my situation,” he says, sounding offended like his action should be obvious, when they are actually just calculated steps. “I was outraged! I was worried. I was even crying, told them that you were my little Princess, as the plates of the car I bought you said.”
Oh God. No…
“I did all that to paint a picture. Thereby…
” he trails off, but I already know.
“Something happened to me.”
“Bingo!” he shouts excitedly. “That’s my daughter! So intelligent and able to read between the lines, faded though they may be.”
I feel sick to my stomach. My knees grow weak, making it almost impossible to remain standing. I have no choice but to sink down to the floor, my back against the wall as images of everything I did the night Nicky told me to run flash behind my eyes.
“What game are you playing at?” I croak, my voice hoarse as pain shoots through my chest. Please don’t say what I think you’re going to say. Please…
“A game?” he scoffs. “You’d be naïve and the biggest fool if you think any of this is some kind of game. This, my dear, rebellious child, is war! And my most lethal artillery calls me Dad.”
No!
“No! I’m not doing anything for you!”
“But you already have, Princess,” he says, sounding pleased and angry all at the same time. “You see, when I came back from making a deal with Dave Montreal, I found you in a situation that I despised so much, I was about to teach you the error of your ways. I mean, how could my child, my offspring, mine, fall for a Fitzgerald.”
“No, I…” I start, but he cuts me off.
“How could my little girl have found herself in a situation where she was sleeping with those boys, whose father has repeatedly shitted on my life and my money. Tried to make my life hell, took my wife and made her obsessed with him. Made me feel stupid and inadequate next to him. Can you imagine how I felt when I heard that you were not only sleeping with his sons, but that you were living under the same roof as those abominations?”
I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. All I can do is take in as much air as I can, so my lungs don’t stop working like they are attempting to do.
“But then I had a moment of perfect clarity when I filed that missing person’s report!” he says now sounding excited all over again. “I knew what I had to do. I mean, the disappearing without taking a thing from your room and the car abandoned by the side of the road, looking tempered with, it was all a gift.”
“You would never…”
“Oh but I can,” he fires back, cutting me off. “You and I both know that I can. I have everything I need.”
“No, you don’t,” I seethe, anger swirling in my veins. “You are nothing but a coward! You are an abuser and now you’re trying to manipulate me into settling old scores between you and your stepbrother!”
“He’s not my stepbrother!” he shouts. “He’s the man I’m going to crush and you, Princess, will help me do it.”
“Over my dead body!”
“Well, if that’s how you want to nail his coffin, then so be it,” he says, and I can just about see him shrugging carelessly. “Murder would make a nice charge on top of statutory rape, blackmail, and kidnapping.”
Holy shit!
He really would pin all this on Julian. My running away, the fact that we were together, he would spin it in such a way that would make Julian guilty of forcing me and taking me. Hell, if my father tried hard enough, he’d find evidence or even witnesses to back him up on it. Julian and I weren’t always like this. There was a time he wrapped a hand around my throat and threatened to squeeze the life out of me. There are rumors in Palos Verdes that I tried to blow him up but ended up hurting Liam instead.
No, this can’t be happening.
“I know you’re feeling dizzy right now, but like I said, all of this can disappear,” he says, his voice alone making bile rise, pushing against my esophagus, but I force myself to focus and see this through.
“What do you want?” I whisper, sweat dotted on my forehead and tremors rip through me. “What do you want me to do?”
“It’s simple Princess, I just want you to come home.”
Silence.
My father was smart, but so was I.
“Really?” I scoff. “That’s all you want me to do? Come home and all this will be over.”
“Well, for starters,” he says. “If you agree to save your little Romeo and his brother…”
“Wait, what?” I start, my eyes widening. “What does Liam have to do with any of this?”
“He’s John’s son,” my father says simply. “That’s his only error in life, as well as that unfortunate big mouth of his. I bet it’ll be the death of him one day. But like I was saying before you rudely interrupted me, if you care at all about your little Fitz boys, you’ll get back and then you will do everything I tell you to do.”
“What makes you think that I’m so gullible?” I counter, proud of myself when my voice comes out strong and a little deadly like my old self is still in there, somewhere.
“Princess, you’ll want to do what I say, as a matter of fact, you’ll beg me to do anything I tell you to do.”
I think of Julian and his dream of playing professional football.
It’s so close, so within reach that I know it would kill him if something were to stop that. I think of Liam, who in a short space of time, has come to mean a lot to me. In a way he was my best friend.
Would either one of them want me to cower and roll over to a bully like my father? Would Nicky or Nancy for that matter? I’ve just realized that the women in my life have always been powerful and they never put their heads down as someone lorded over them, made their lives hell.
I mean, Nancy and John loved each other. They managed to keep that love burning despite my father. They won.
I would too.
“Hmm,” I start, sitting up straight now as I put all the pieces of the puzzle my father just laid in front of me, no doubt trying to scare me into doing his bidding. “You see the thing is Dad, what I’ve learned about truly evil masterminds is that they don’t waste time on the phone ranting about what they’re going to do to someone they’re trying to destroy.” I mean John didn’t at least. “They just go ahead and wreak all sorts of havoc without anyone the wiser.”
“Now you listen to me…”
“No, you listen to me, Dad,” I say sarcastically. “I am not your puppet! I won’t do whatever the hell you have planned for me and my boys.”
A sense of empowerment washes over me as soon as I say that. The dread and fear all fall away like they weren’t ripping all sorts of chaos in my head a few moments ago.
“You’re underestimating me, Mia,” my father says, his voice now low but I can hear the uncertainty in his voice now.
“No, I don’t think I’m underestimating anything at all. You see, I know everything, Dad. I know that you’re broke, and you drink all day to try and drown your sorrows because Nancy and Nicky won! They managed to get away from you! I know you’re living in a one-bedroom apartment in a bad part of town. I know you’re strapped for cash and I know it’s all because your stepbrother who is way better than you, more successful than you, made it so.”
“No!”
“Dad, you lost! Admit that! And I’m not stupid. You calling me and telling me all this, then going on to tell me that for all this to stop, I need to come home means your plan is skewed. If anything, I think it’s not a plan at all. You’re just grasping at straws.”
Heavy silence falls over us for a second and I know I got him.
“Careful, Princess, that over-confidence you’ve always had as a child is going to hurt you. And I don’t want you to be hurt. I’m only doing this to look out for you.”
“Yeah well I don’t care what you want,” I say, standing up now. I’m going to end this call and throw this damn phone away. “Goodbye, Dad. Go drink or something.”
I go to end the call, but he stops me.
“When you lose, and you will, I’ll still be there to help you pick up the pieces.”
I want to tell him I don’t want him anywhere near me, but I’m so done with him. So, I just end the call, throw the damn phone to the wall and do it all over again until it finally breaks.
I shake off the melancholy that has settled on my
shoulders during the call, then decide to take a shower and get ready for Julian’s return. No one will take him away from me, I’ll make sure of it. And I know what my father just tried to do; plant seeds of doubt in my mind so that I’d be worried enough to mess up my limited time with Julian.
He was off to early training at Stanford and I would be heading for my senior year at Clintwood. There was no way we’d be able to have full and total access to each other like we do now.
So, as I take a shower, I decide not to tell him about the call from my father. I have another plan in mind for when my man comes home.
25
When Julian comes back to the penthouse we now call home, he finds me lying on the couch, waiting for him, wearing the sexy black baby doll Rye and Jaz forced me to get when we went shopping.
I see the moment his eyes dilate as he takes me in, his jaw locking while his fists clench and unclench like he wants to touch me, but he knows better because in front of me, the TV is on and my face is on it and the word Missing blazed right on top of my picture.
He doesn’t look surprised at all and he senses the mood in the apartment.
“You knew, didn’t you?” I question and he shrugs carelessly, watching me back with a hooded gaze that makes my blood simmer as arousal pours into me like a flood. This game I play with Julian…it’s playing with fire. I know how dangerous it is to make him angry, but fuck, when he loses control…
“Yeah,” he murmurs in that sexy, decadent voice that does things to me.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I say, sounding breathless. The better question to ask here is when did I become this girl? Full of want for a guy like this?
“Yes,” he mutters, watching me, his eyes roaming all over my body, making me feel seen. “I was going to tell you when the time was right.”
“When was that?” I question, unable to keep the anger from seeping into my voice. “When were you going to tell me that I’m practically making headlines back home?”
“Mia…”
“When, Julian?”
“And then what?” he questions, his voice still low, watching me like a wounded animal. “What were you going to do with that information, Little Minx?”
Cruel Kisses: It’s Just High School #2 Page 27