The Score (Massey Security Duet Book 2)

by S. Nelson

  I didn’t mention my biggest secret, though, because I wasn’t ready to deal with the barrage of questions or the pity I’d surely see in her eyes when she looked at me from here on out. Besides, as soon as I uttered that I’d been raped all those years back, the shame, confusion, regret, and anger would resurface, as if they weren’t already hiding in the shadows.

  The honest truth was, it was better to live with my secret than to free it and be left more vulnerable than before.

  * * *

  Cara

  The emotional strength it took to process all that I’d revealed to Naomi the night prior was enough to dredge up another headache. I had no idea where to go from here, but it wasn’t completely up to me. For once, Emily would have to be the one to deal with the consequences of her actions. Her choices were the ones that brought about the shit storm that was now brewing. Not only had her decisions altered her life forever because of the pregnancy, but they’d altered mine, as well.

  As I stood near the counter in Blush, waiting for Audrey to bring me a swatch of material, I couldn’t help but think that the Massey men being in our lives, even while under false pretenses, hadn’t been the worst thing to ever happen. I said that looking back on the situation. If the subject had been broached when they first arrived, I’d had a much different opinion.

  “This is the one I wanted to show you,” Audrey said, coming around the corner with a bundle in her hand, swiping a strand of her jet black hair out of her face. She’d been raving about the sample she’d received from her manufacturer and wanted to let me see it in case I chose to use it for any of my designs.

  Audrey and I had started off as designer slash boutique owner and customer, but our relationship had morphed into a friendship. I viewed her as a mentor more than anything. She’d been designing for the past ten years and had a lot of knowledge and advice to offer me, and I soaked up every bit.

  There was a hint of shimmer to the thick dark material, and every time she moved it, the glint would catch my eye. I could only imagine what it would look like with the sun highlighting the subtle sparkle.

  “I love this.” The fabric glided through my fingertips.

  Her ice blue eyes shone brightly while she watched me. “Me too.”

  As we talked about the price and amount I may need for a few ideas I had, Ford paced near me, texting someone and looking none too happy.

  “Everything okay?” I asked, catching his eye.

  “No.” It wasn’t his one-word answer, but instead his tone when he said it. From what I knew of Ford, he wasn’t the type of man to give off a questionable vibe, one who was unsure of anything. He was confident and sure of himself, so to hear the slightest tremble in his voice put me on alert. I didn’t know if being around him so often had made it easier to pick up on the subtle nuances, but either way, the hairs on the back of my neck bristled.

  Politely excusing myself, I walked up next to him, the crease between his eyes deepening with every second that passed.

  “What’s going on?” I tried to peer at his phone, but he finished his text and shut down the screen.

  “We gotta go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your parents are at the house.” He didn’t wait for my reaction before he headed toward the exit. Once I was near, he grabbed my hand and led me outside, opening the door for me and waiting until I was situated inside before walking around to the other side.

  Once he folded himself inside the driver seat, I asked, “Do they know?” Trapping the air in my lungs, I contemplated all the ways the remainder of the day would go. Everything rested on his answer.

  Would I never see him again after today? If that was truly the case, how did I feel about that? I was no longer worried about my father putting a halt to my dating life, and I was sure if Ford and I wanted to continue our relationship, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. If he threatened to cut me off again, I’d call his bluff. Besides, I now had a plan for my life moving forward. One that would hopefully one day prove lucrative.

  “All Owen would tell me was to get home as soon as possible.”

  “Shit!”

  “Exactly,” he mumbled before pulling out into the street and taking the exit up ahead, driving slower than normal.

  I grabbed my cell and texted Emily, asking her if she’d told Mom and Dad anything yet, but she never responded. Either she ignored my messages, or she was in full-disclosure mode with our parents. Either way, my anxiety about what was to come intensified.

  Ford was silent the entire ride back, and because I had no idea what to say, my thoughts sporadic and jumbled, I kept my lips sealed.

  The moment we approached the driveway, my pulse raced. Did Emily ask them to come over, or did they happen to just pop in?

  Was she going to confess being behind the threats?

  Would they understand her reasoning for deceiving them?

  Would she tell them she was pregnant, or save that revelation for another time?

  If she did let that secret slip, Ford and Owen would be gone immediately.

  After Ford put the vehicle in Park, he shut off the engine and reached over to grab my hand.

  “No matter what happens, we’ll talk.”

  There was no time for me to ask him to clarify just what he meant by that before the front door opened, my sister standing on the threshold and waving us inside.

  As I reached for the handle, I suddenly felt hot and dizzy, my stomach churning at the thoughts of what was going to happen once we walked into the house. I wasn’t in trouble, because for once, I hadn’t done anything wrong or questionable, other than sleeping with Ford. But I considered that act neither wrong nor questionable. Besides, no one knew, and I planned on keeping it that way.

  Ford walked a pace behind me as we approached the front porch, Emily still standing in the doorway. Still angry with what she’d done, there was a small part of me that was grateful, though, because Ford would’ve never come into my life otherwise. I wondered if she felt the same about Owen, now that her life had been flipped upside down.

  I wanted to say something to her, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak, so instead, Ford asked the question for me. “Why are your parents here?”

  “I called them.”

  I took over, pushing any reservation I had about having a conversation with her. “Did you tell them anything yet?”

  “No. I was waiting for you.”

  “How kind,” I said, sarcasm slicing both words apart. I brushed past her and into the foyer, turning into the living room seconds later. Both my parents were seated, but as soon as my dad saw me, he rose from the couch and walked over.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, looking from me to Emily, who had walked up behind me. Ford trudged across the room and stood next to Owen, near the corner. They looked like they were simply giving our family the space they needed, melding into the background, so to speak. “Your mother and I are worried something bad happened.” He looked toward the brothers. “Did something bad happen?”

  “Depends on what you classify as bad,” Ford answered, his coded answer doing nothing to exterminate the tension, which slowly built in the room.

  “What does that mean?” my dad asked. For once, I wouldn’t be the one to cause him any sort of distress, and because I was in the clear this time, I sauntered past him to take a seat next to my mom.

  Emily, on the other hand, headed toward Owen, stopping only when there was a mere foot of distance between them.

  “I have something to tell you both.” Emily’s eyes were pinned to my parents. “Before I start, I know what I did was beyond the scope of rational, but I felt like I didn’t have another choice.” She glanced at me before looking back to them. “Because I was worried….” Her voice quivered, and for a split second, I thought she was going to make something up, anything but the truth. But she found her voice again and parted her lips. “There’s no easy way to say this so…” My pulse drummed in my ear, the hands of the gran
dfather clock against the wall sounding louder than ever before. “I was the one who sent the notes,” she finally blurted.

  “What notes?” my mother asked, never suspecting her own daughter could be behind the threats, the mere mention of notes had to be something else entirely. I was sure that was what she was thinking because it was what I thought when she first told me.

  “The threats.” She blinked several times, watching my parents’ expression switch three times in the span of seconds. My dad was more expressive, the crease between his brows disappearing before he widened his eyes. Then his expression blanked.

  “I don’t understand.” His head flinched back slightly. “Emily, what the hell are you talking about?” The moment my sister’s words clicked, he lowered himself to the couch to sit next to my mom. He leaned forward and dropped his head before looking back up at Emily. “Sit,” he demanded, his voice eerily calm.

  He was angry, there was no question, but the fact he learned his near-perfect daughter could do something like this had to tug at his confusion. Surely, he had to be baffled beyond reason. If I’d been the one to reveal such a thing, I had no doubt he would’ve started yelling minutes earlier, but instead, he waited for Emily to reveal the details.

  She looked at me from the corner of her eye before diving right in. I remembered the excuse she gave me, and while I’d been too angered to stand there and listen to whatever else she wanted to say, I was curious how in-depth she’d go with my parents.

  Emily concocted this absurd plan because she said she was worried about me and what I’d been doing with my life. How I’d chosen to conduct myself. So, to have to sit there and listen to her divulge her worry to my parents about me, in front of me, was certainly an odd situation.

  My sister opened her mouth to speak, closing her eyes for a moment before starting. “Like I said, I did it because I was worried about Cara. I thought that if you thought she was in some sort of danger,” she said, looking directly at my father, “you’d do something about it. I’m not going to get into specifics, but every time she left the house, I feared she’d end up doing something that would seriously hurt her.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic?” I asked, my anger quickly resurfacing. I hated being judged and felt that everyone there was doing just that.

  “I’m really not.” Emily’s attention was solely on me now. “Every time we went out, you got blasted, mixing in who only knows what because you wanted to have fun. I can’t tell you how many times I had to drag you out of places because you could barely stand, let alone defend yourself if some rando decided he wanted to get with you. And don’t even get me started on the number of guys you took off with, leaving me alone to fend for myself on how to get home.”

  Her mention of other men prickled my fury, mixing in a bit of shame for good measure. I briefly made eye contact with Ford, but instead of seeing disgust on his face, I saw a flicker of understanding. He gave me a tight grin before looking away.

  “I never asked you to help me,” I barked, feeling attacked. “You should’ve left me alone and got a life of your own.”

  She flinched, but continued. “How could I have a life of my own when I was constantly worried you would end up getting attacked, or worse… killed?” Now, I was the one who flinched because she had no idea her fear for me had come true when we were still kids. “I couldn’t. You’re my sister and I love you. I’m going to try and help you even when you don’t want it or think that you need it. And I’m sorry,” she said, turning her focus back onto our parents, “about the way I chose to handle things, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Why didn’t you come to us and tell us all this?” my mom asked, shaking her head because she was probably still trying to wrap her head around everything.

  “Because I wasn’t going to rat on Cara.”

  “But you’d send fake and threatening notes, worry us half to death in the process, and be saddled with security watching your every move? Knowing the whole time that their presence was unnecessary?” Our dad stood and walked behind the sofa and started to pace, his head down the entire time he strode back and forth.

  Emily didn’t have an answer for him, glancing back at Owen repeatedly.

  “I don’t even know what to say,” our mom whispered.

  “Me either,” our dad agreed.

  As I did my best to take everything in, struggling with trying to understand how worried she must’ve been to go to such lengths, I couldn’t help but be thankful that she hadn’t ended up going to my parents about me. She handled it in her own way. A weird, fucked-up way, but hers, nonetheless.

  “Let me ask you this,” I said, leaning against the couch and crossing my legs. “How the hell did you ever expect for this whole charade to end since you were the one behind it? Did you think Dad would just forget about it after you stopped sending the notes? Or were you going to continue to send them until he got so freaking paranoid that he locked us both away from society altogether.” My words were laden with sarcasm, but I couldn’t hold my tongue, not that anyone had ever accused me of doing so.

  She looked down at her hands clasped in front of her and said something, but her voice was entirely too low for any of us to hear.

  “Speak up, sis, because we’d all love to know.” This little sit down had gone from Emily telling my parents she was behind the notes, to a recap of my bad behavior, and if there was the slightest chance for me to bring it back around, I had to ask her the obvious question and take the focus back off me.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t think that far ahead.” At least she had the decency to appear embarrassed.

  “And you’re the smart and responsible one,” I chastised.

  “No one said you weren’t smart, Cara,” she corrected. “But you were definitely acting irresponsibly. You constantly threw caution to the wind, acting like nothing bad could ever happen to you.”

  The words bubbled up in my throat and tears welled in my eyes, the need to shout something back at her too great to hold back.

  “Something bad did happen!” I yelled but composed myself enough that I didn’t blurt out that I’d been raped. My brain furiously worked to form some sort of retort that wouldn’t make any of them suspicious. I looked to Ford and drew strength from him, wanting nothing more than to run to him and drag him from the room before I said anymore. “This entire fiasco happened.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I heard my dad mutter. I had no idea how this conversation was going to end, but what I did know was that it wasn’t quite over yet. If she wanted to confess, then I’d make sure she told our parents all her secrets, whether she was ready to or not.

  I felt attacked and vulnerable, and whenever I found myself in that sort of predicament, I lashed out. “Isn’t there something else you have to tell them?” I asked, smirking more than I should. “Something they need to know before you can’t hide it anymore?”

  Emily gasped while Owen’s eyes widened. I dared not look at Ford for fear he’d stare at me with disapproval. I realized why I pushed her to reveal her pregnancy well before she appeared ready to do so, but seconds after I asked her my question, I regretted doing so. The sooner my parents found out that Owen was the one responsible, the quicker both men would be relieved from their duty. Although, to be fair, my dad would no longer require their services going forward anyway, seeing as how there was no real threat. Other than me… to myself, apparently.

  My sister shook her head, looking to our parents, then back to me. She cleared her throat but refused to speak. I didn’t have to prompt her to answer my question because our dad spoke up.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, stepping forward until he stood a few feet from Emily. Owen shifted from foot to foot, and I actually felt bad for him, even though I’d been the one to open up this proverbial can of worms. “What else do you have to tell your mother and me?”

  “Why don’t you sit down, sir,” Owen suggested, clearing his throat after he spoke.

&nb
sp; “I think I’ll stay right here.”

  Ford stepped away from his brother and approached me, extending his hand for me to take. “I think we need to give them some privacy.” I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to leave before she told them about the baby, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay either. And because I couldn’t land one way or the other, I stayed seated. Ford dropped his hand to his side and moved to stand by the edge of the couch.

  “You’re starting to worry us, honey.” Our mom rose from the sofa and flanked her husband on his left side. “Did something happen? Are you in trouble?”

  “You can say that,” I blurted, snapping my lips shut when Ford tapped my shoulder. My parents’ attention remained on Emily, and the longer she took to tell them what was going on, I feared the worse their response would be, as if their reaction wasn’t going to be explosive to begin with. Well, our dad’s, at least.

  Emily’s lips parted while her hand rested over her belly. “I’m pregnant,” she finally confessed, taking a single step backward, closer to Owen. They looked to be a united front of sorts.

  “But that’s impossible. You’re not allowed to date anyone while…” He waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss the rest of what he was going to say. “And I know you wouldn’t go against my wishes. So… how are you—”

  I counted the seconds until he realized that the man standing behind his daughter was the father of her baby.

  Ford was next to Owen a second later. “I know this is a shock to you both. The news threw us, too,” Owen said.

  “Us?” My mother reached for my sister’s hand, but my father stopped her, his posture straightening and coiled with tension.

  “How far along are you?” he asked, clenching his right hand into a fist.