“But I do see the truth!” I rush to explain, useless tears running down my face as I stare at him, begging him to listen, begging him for much more than I knew deep down he was incapable of—trusting someone else. “You have to understand, I didn’t do this!”
“Sure, and what am I supposed to do with your devious word, Mia?” he demands, the green that I fell in love with no longer present in his darkened eyes. “What am I supposed to do now.”
“Trust me!” I cry. “You’re supposed to trust that…”
“That what?” he says, cutting me off. “I should trust that you’d never hurt me? That you’d never savagely destroy my life like this?”
He takes a step away from me as hard sobs start slamming into my body, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is the disgusted look he’s giving me, mixed with this indescribable feeling of the end.
“Look at this, we’re circling the same dance over and over again,” he shakes his head, taking another step back. “We were never any good for each other.”
“I know what it looks like, I know you’re hurt, but I…”
“Hurt?” he scoffs, his eyes so cold and dead, my heart shrivels In my chest. How can these be the same eyes that looked at me with so much desire just a few hours ago. “Mia, I’m way past hurt at this point, I’m angry. I feel so damn angry I don’t know what I might do.”
God, what do I say? How do I fix this? How do I tell him that my father wanted to flush me out and to do so, he used him?
“Julian, listen to me…”
“Did you want to bring me down to my knees, begging for fucking mercy, Mia?” he shouts, the emotion in his voice shattering my already torn apart heart.
“No…” I croak, reaching up to touch him but he jerks away like I just scorched him.
“Because I’m not going to fucking beg!” he growls. “I’m not going to beg you to be a fucking decent human being. I’m not going to get down on my fucking knees and say a fucking prayer that you quit destroying me like this?”
God, I’ve never seen him this angry before, but then again, this has never happened before. His name, his reputation, his future being dragged so publicly like this.
“No, Julian, I didn’t—” I cry, but he cuts me off, his body rigid.
“Stop lying!” he shouts making me gasp as fat, hot tears run down my face non-stop. He clenches his jaw so tight, I swear I can hear his molars grinding. “Just stop lying.”
I need to defend myself. I need to find my voice somewhere where it’s drowning and speak up, but for some reason, I can’t.
“It all makes sense now,” he mutters, staring at me with a withering look that makes me shrink into myself. “The way you ran away. The whole thing with your stranded car, with the busted-out window with traces of your blood in there. You did that, didn’t you?”
Shit.
“Julian…”
“That was you, wasn’t it? You did that shit deliberately.”
All I can do is nod. What else can I do?
“Shit,” Liam murmurs, looking at me like I’m a complete stranger.
“But it’s not what you think!” I rush to say, panting, with my heart thundering wildly in my chest with a desperation that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. “I swear I was doing as I was told,” I say, looking at Julian as I say that, but he looks away. He could have physically slapped me with that move alone, I wouldn’t have felt the kind of pain searing through my heart.
“Yes, as your father told you!” Liam grits out, his voice barely audible with the anger it’s laced in. “You planted that shit to make it seem like someone kidnapped you, didn’t you?”
No! That’s not true.
“I was running!”
“You were planting the evidence they needed to destroy my brother!” Liam growls, cutting me off. Cole stands in the corner, deathly silent. He hasn’t said a word since we got here, but also hasn’t looked away from me, his dead, impassive stare penetrating into me, making me shiver.
“No, Nicky told me to run!” She told me to run. I did. Please believe me. I’d never do this.
“Why the fuck would she tell you to run?” Cole questions now, pushing away from the wall.
“She said,” I stutter, then clear my throat, hanging on to the small frisson of hope in my belly. Maybe Cole believes me. He has to! “She said my life was in danger if I stayed here and that I had to run.”
“Danger from what, Mia?” Liam demands, his eyes glittering brightly like he’s trying his best not to cry.
“I don’t know,” I whisper, shame slamming into me like the blades of a chopper. Right now, I can’t tell black from white, and I sure as hell can’t remember what happened the night Nancy died and Nicky practically kicked me out the Fitzgerald mansion. Was it under the guise of danger? But it had to be, I saw her on the floor. My father had struck her across the cheek.
“Because you’re lying!”
“No, she said I was in danger from you, your father and…”
“Urgh, for God’s sake, just stop talking, Mia!” Liam shouts. “You’ve won! You told me that you were going to get your revenge, that you were going to teach us a lesson, well guess what, you own at that! You won at life.”
“No, that was before,” I croak, my eyes wide with panic. I’m losing them. I can see it in the way they regard me, with so much contempt and no idea where to go from here. I hate myself too at this point.
For going along with shit I had no understanding of.
For trusting someone who had continuously shown that she didn’t give a damn about me since birth.
For hanging on with a firm grip on false hope that sliced through my palms.
“Mia”
I jerk up, quickly wiping away my tears when I realize Cole was calling my name. For a. second, sympathy fills his eyes, but Julian pours himself another drink, then throws the empty decanter to the wall where it shatters. That might as well have been the stupid, black heart I gave him. I flinch.
“You said that was before, what did you mean? Before what?” Cole questions, his eyes narrowed on me, like he’s filtering each word I utter for bullshit. It’s not. I just don’t know how to tell him what’s in my broken soul. That I said all that shit before I knew better.
That was before I knew the truth, before I realized that I’d rather hurt myself before I bring any kind of pain into my boys’ lives. They saved me. Cole cared for me. Liam made me laugh and Julian, he brought me to life and now he things I just…
“Before I…”
How do I say it? How do I bleed out my heart with all of them watching?
“If you fucking want to fall apart, you do it in my fucking arms, Little Minx.”
A violent shudder goes through me just thinking of that moment with Julian.
“It was before I…” I croak.
“Stop,” Julian whispers, the chill in his voice sending shivers through my body. I look at him, our gazes clash and hold. Green to Blue.
Both confused.
Both dark with emotions we can’t even begin to comprehend.
Both full of desperation.
“Just stop, Mia.” The way my name rolls off his tongue is different though. Full of disappointment, a whole lot of anger, and even disgust.
“Please, Julian,” I whisper, begging with my eyes.
“Fuck, Mia,” he groans, running a hand through his hair, something I was doing a mere couple of hours ago. “What do you want from me?”
I want to go to him.
I want him to let me come to him.
I want him to hold me.
I want him to believe me.
“I just want you to talk to me and…”
“And say what?” He slams the glass on the counter of the bar then he walks to the door, his eyes now empty and dark. I can’t tell at all what he’s thinking. “There’s nothing to say. It’s clear. You were playing a game with my mind, my heart and all for this, Mia?’
“No, I wasn’t…”
“Fuck this and the throne of lies you fucking sit on!” Liam growls, eyeing me with a. death glare as he walks past me to get to his brother. “You don’t deserve my brother.”
No, I…
And with that, they give me one last look and walk out the door. When it closes, there’s a finality to the bang that rings through the room that I give in to the weakness in my knees and crumble to the floor, shudders going through my body.
I look up at Cole as tears run down my cheeks. “Please, you have to believe me. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I thought I was protecting him.”
He’s silent for a beat, then he too heads for the door, taking every drop of hope I’d had that he believed me with him. But before he walks through the door, he glances at me, a contemplative look on his face.
“You’re going to have to prove your case now, baby girl. Stand up for yourself.”
How do I do that?
I don’t know if that question is stamped on my forehead, but Cole tilts his head to the left. “Who claims to have a Sherlock Holmes IQ level? Who knows how to talk her way out of hell?”
I want to smile as the ghost of our conversation flitters in my mind, but I can’t. The reason I smile, the reason I exist at all, just walked out the door without a second glance at me.
“Mia, you know what to do,” he says softly and with that, he walks through the door and closes it softly behind him. But I still flinch.
At the loneliness that surrounds me.
At the thick, offending and loud silence that hovers in the room above me like a thunderous cloud ready to drench me.
At myself for not doing something about this when I saw it coming, because the truth is, I saw it coming.
I had this feeling deep in the pit of my stomach that something bad was going to happen, but I ignored it. I could have protected Julian. So how do I do that now? How will I make this better because honestly, I don’t see a way out of something this mess.
My father set me up. He used me. Played me to get to Julian. And he won! He told me he would get his way, he warned me but I… I didn’t listen.
And now, I need to find a way to clean this mess up. So, I pick myself up and slip out of the house and run down the beach, using the paths I found before, then make my way to my old house.
It’s a long walk, but it’s amazing what pain can make you do, the barriers you can push until you get where you need to get.
When I reach the house, I’m out of breath, sweating but done crying.
I’d make a deal with the devil if it means saving Julian. So, I ring the bell of the house and wait.
The door opens with a flourish and there she stands. She’s not even surprised to see me. Her eyes bright, that cunning smile on her face so damn evil, it makes my stomach lurch.
I’m going to be sick.
“I believe you and I have a deal to make,” I mutter. I think I’m going to be sick.
Courtney Fitzgerald glances at me with a big smile on her face and opens the door wider.
“I knew you’d get the message, Mia. Come on in,” she says sweetly. But when I step in the house, my old house, I stop dead in my tracks when I see who else is in the room.
My slimy, snake eyed, disgusting father.
“Amy,” he greets and my world stops.
28
I don’t remember the last time I put in a word to the Big Guy upstairs, but I think in those rare, few times, I didn’t get an answer back. Probably explains why I’m messed up. Or why I don’t bother talking to Him, but right now, it’ll take a whole ‘Moses parted the Red Sea’ kind of miracle to get me out of this.
“Just give it to me straight,” Dad demands. “What are we looking at here?”
We’re in Dad’s office in LA, a bunch of stuffy lawyers. One of them has been dad’s lawyer since before I was born. He even worked with Mia’s asshole of a father once and so dad bought him on my case to see how all this will play out.
“It’s not looking good,” the old guy—let’s call him Grey—grumbles, running a hand down his face. “With the missing person’s report, the abandoned car, the video…”
Now that surprises me.
“The video?” I snap, looking up now.
“Oh good, you’re paying attention,” Dad drawls, looking annoyed. “I was beginning to wonder if you even give a damn about your future.”
“You’re not a saint for doing this, Dad,” I fire back.
“You’re damn right I’m not a fucking saint,” he grumbles, watching me with an equally pissed off glare. “I’m your father. I’ll do what I must to protect you.”
It would have been a touching little speech and a powerful, cliché show of love if he wasn’t actually my father or THE John Fitzgerald; a ruthless businessman who liked playing hardball and watching little businesses collapse while he profits from them. Besides he and I both know why he’s doing this, but we won’t talk about that right now so I just stare at him, tugging the damn tie I’m wearing for the court hearing this afternoon.
“What video are you talking about?” I question, still holding dad’s gaze.
“Well,” the Old Grey clears his throat, looking uncomfortable. “I got word through my contacts that they have a video of you with your hand around Ms. Montague’s neck from before the summer.”
“It’s completely fabricated,” Dad says, staring at me. “Isn’t it?” But he knows better. I refuse to say anything and get back to staring out the large floor-to-ceiling length windows overlooking downtown LA and allow her face to filter in my mind.
It’s been two weeks since I last saw her, tears streaming down her face like a torrent, her eyes filled with pain, begging me for something. Obviously, it was artifice, Mia is an extremely great actress.
She tried to see me, looking for me everywhere but I just couldn’t stand to see her when so much chaos was happening in my head, my soul and everything else she managed to snake her way into.
She was faking it this entire time while she reeled me in like a damn fish, captivating me with her sweet kisses, her touch and the warm, soft comfort in her arms that I allowed me to just be my-fucking-self, to breathe, to feel and in a way, to heal.
But, she was just wrapping chains around me and when I finally realized what she was doing, my face was all over the internet, an arrest warrant was issued, and everything has been going down the drain since.
But was she really playing me? Did she fake the way she was looking at me? Did she lie to my damn heart? Because for a moment there, I really believed she felt what I was feeling, that’s he loved me back, that she was MINE. Was she?
“We can argue that the recording is inadmissible and that it was also fabricated,” Old Grey is saying when I tune back into the conversation. “But if they can get witnesses who can corroborate the story, then it’s highly likely the judge will allow it to be entered as evidence against us.”
“And if it’s admitted, what then?” I question, keeping my voice low.
“Then we fight it with everything we have,” he says, but I can hear the doubt in his voice.
“What’s the charge to something like this?”
“Julian, we’ll win this,” Dad says, a bit of worry in his eyes, but that’s not what I want to hear right now.
“How many years could the judge sentence me if this case goes south?” Which it’s likely to go. Once a buzz like this about you is out, whether you’re guilty or not, it sticks. People remember that about you when they hear your name.
“Son—”
“Come on, Dad, Nathan has been out for blood for years now, you said it yourself. You think he won’t see this through to the end?” I mutter, then glance back to look at Old Grey and the rest of the lawyers. “Lay it on me, how many years?”
“Well,” Old Grey starts, shifting in his chair, looking uncomfortable. “They are accusing you of kidnapping which does not have a statute of limitation; criminal harassment which at your age and background we can get that off as a misdemeanor but
I assure you, with the video, they might ask for the full extent of the law and have you charged for that as a felony.”
“Also, they’ll want to point out that you’re a sex offender,” one of the other lawyers says.
“What?” Dad grits out, banging his fist on the table, but I think I saw that coming.
“Yes, John,” Old Grey says. “Mia is still a minor, and well, they are putting everything on this hoping that it all sticks so the judge will sentence him to the fullest extent.”
Of course, they would do that. So, in other words, I’m totally and royally fucked.
And all because I bothered to give in to my whims and compulsive desires for that Little Minx.
“Well then,” I say, glancing down at my watch. “Isn’t it time to go to the courthouse and do this thing?”
The lawyers get up to leave but Dad doesn’t. He sits there, staring at me. Old Grey glances at me, then at my dad, a silent message passing between the two that makes a frisson of dread go down my spine.
“No,” I say when the room clears, leaving me, my dad and Old Grey. I don’t need to hear what they want to ask, because I already know.
“Son,” Dad sighs, looking a decade older in that moment. “It might help you.”
“I said no.” It’s a simple as that.
“If you give them a bit of information, that the relationship you had with her was entirely consensual, some of the charges will be off the table,” Old Grey says. “It might help reduce the charge, then we can get the judge to reduce the rest of whatever they wanted to charge you with down to maybe several months of community service closer to Stanford.”
Yeah, but that’s like going in there and singing a broken tune that I wasn’t sticking my dick in her pussy without her participation. That she didn’t want me to make her come on my dick, clenching hard like she wanted to send me to hell, or that she wasn’t screaming my name and begging me to teach her how to make herself come.
The whole thing is already humiliating enough without adding that shit, but dad already knows why I won’t do it.
Cruel Kisses: It’s Just High School #2 Page 30