by Maya Hughes
“Esme isn’t his.” The look of shock on her face might have been comical, if it weren’t so screwed up. Allan was Esme’s father. Rhys knew. He knew she wasn’t his, but he’d kept her, cared for her, and raised her anyway. Melanie spit fire and venom at me as I stood there in stunned silence. Security tried to escort her out, but I needed to hear what she had to say.
She laid into me, telling me just how much my vendetta could end up costing Rhys. His daughter. I went numb as it finally clicked into place. How my fixation on revenge could end up destroying a little girl’s world. Mel stormed out of my office, her threats of retribution if I didn’t fix it hanging in the air.
I’d been so focused on what his parents did in the past. On what I’d lost. On how they’d wronged my family, I never stopped to think of what may have happened after those dark days. Of how the ripples of our lives stretched far beyond anything I might have imagined. The realization about what I’d done began to sink in. The consequences might have had a far greater reach than I anticipated.
I left the office not even attempting to do anymore work. My head throbbed and my palms were sweating as I tried to figure out how to unfuck my life and the lives of everyone else I’d screwed up.
I needed to talk to Rachel. I made it back to my apartment and hadn’t even taken off my coat when I turned right back around determined to see her. I’d stand in front of her building all day if I needed to.
I put my hand on the knob and I jumped, the knock thumping from the other side startling me. I swung it open and the small glimmer of hope in my chest died when I saw who was on the other side.
“Allan, what are you doing here?” Allan rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and came inside, rubbing his hands together and breathing into them. His eyes ringed with red. Once again, someone other than the one person I wanted to see came barging into my life.
“Hey Killian.”
“Hey Allan, what are you doing here? I thought I told you not to come to the city.”
“I couldn’t stay away.” Please don’t let this be about Esme.
“I want her. She’s Beth’s and I want her,” he said, pacing in the living room, running his hands through his hair. I closed my eyes. The water rising around me. He didn’t even need to say it. I knew and it was like a gut punch. This was not happening.
“Esme,” I said, opening my eyes. It was true. Everything Melanie said was true. I’d believed it then, it explained so much about Rhys’s behavior over the years. Made so much sense.
“Yeah, you should have seen her that day in the park. She was so cute, man. She looks just like Beth,” he said, his eyes glassy as he rushed up to me, grabbing onto my shirt. I clenched my fists as my anger and disgust at the shit Allan was trying to pull neared its peak.
I brought Allan into this because he said he knew more about Beth’s death. That there had been a cover up. A cover up to protect Esme. To stop the rumor mill and an investigation, which would have exposed his secret. And now a little girl’s life was in the balance. I’d done that.
“Did you talk to anyone about this? About Esme being yours?”
“Yeah, I went to a lawyer. Wanted to see what I needed to do to get my little girl back,” he said, pacing again, and I bit back a scoff. His little girl.
“Allan, your little girl? You don’t even know her. You haven’t even met her.”
“I have. Beth used to bring her around. Used to let me give her piggyback rides when we would go out.”
“When you would go out? You mean when you’d be using?” I said through gritted teeth.
Allan rolled his eyes like he didn’t see how the fact that he’d met Esme when he was high out of his mind and gave her a few piggy back rides didn’t mean that he wasn’t winning father of the year.
“Whatever, man. I’m here to get my kid. I never should have left her that night, but I was messed up beyond belief,” he said, shaking his head, rubbing his nose and running his hands through his hair.
“That night? What night?” Melanie hadn’t said anything about Allan being there when Beth died.
“The night Beth died. I was freaking out and had to get out of there,” he said, dropping a bomb like it was passing conversation that he left his toddler daughter in a rest stop bathroom with her overdosing mother. I clenched my fist at my sides. The vein in my neck throbbed as I tried to hold it all together.
“You didn’t say you were there that night, Allan. You just said you knew she didn’t die the way Rhys said she did. That he was the reason it happened.”
“What would me being there matter? And he was the reason it happened. If he’d just given her the money she asked for and stopped trying to have her under constant watch, trying to shove her into rehabs, then she’d still be here. She’d be fine. Instead, he was always trying to control her, so she came to me. Came running back. Knowing what a mistake it was.”
The blinding rage that thrummed through my veins made it hard to think straight. I rushed him, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him up against the nearest wall. Little bits of plasterboard rained down on us as his head whacked off the wall.
“You left her there! She was overdosing and you left her there in the fucking bathroom with her daughter? With your daughter?” I raged, unable to comprehend how someone could be such a shitty human being. I knew he had his issues, but I didn’t think even someone like him could have done something so shitty.
“The cops would have arrested me if I called them,” he whined, his eyes wide in fear. And rightfully so.
“You left her there to die, you son of a bitch! With her kid! A kid you’re trying to come after now,” I shouted in his face. He wouldn’t get her, there was no way a court in the world would award him custody, but it would go to court, it would be made public. It could destroy that little girl’s life.
“I wasn’t in my right mind, man,” he said, grabbing onto my hands. When he did, his sleeve lifted and I got a look at his arms. Angry red lines streaked across his wrist right where his watch was. I dropped him. Disgusted with him. I grabbed his arm and he tried to pull it away. A single glare from me and he froze. I shoved up his sleeve. Even more marks in various states of healing ran up and down his arms.
“You’re fucking using?” I asked, shoving him away. He stumbled and fell against the wall.
“It’s the stress. The stress of all this. Seeing my little girl and not being able to take her home,” he whined. I wanted to put my fist through his skull. My breathing was heavy and my vision clouded. Everything I’d done. All my plans to right the things I thought went wrong with my life, everything paled in comparison to the havoc he could wreak on Esme’s life. And for what?
Rhys didn’t do anything wrong. He was just trying to protect Beth. I saw that now. Pushing her into rehab, but she came running back to Allan, a man she thought she loved. A man who left her in a rest stop bathroom to OD with her kid there beside her. I couldn’t imagine what that did to Esme. All the issues I’d had in my life, they didn’t even compare.
Finding my mom in the morning was something so terrible I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but to be there, by her side as it happened and not be able to do anything about it. That was a whole other level. My memories were terrible, but they were nothing like that. Suddenly, the depth of my selfishness crashed down on me like a pounding wave that didn’t let up.
Allan already put the wheels in motion by contacting a lawyer. No doubt once they saw who he was going up against they saw dollar signs flashing. I needed a drink. I grabbed a tumbler off the bar and downed a glass of scotch. Fuck! I slashed my hand across the bar, knocking glasses and bottles all over the place.
“You need to leave, Allan,” I said, my hands resting on the now empty bar, glancing up at him. He was scratching his face and I didn’t even want to know what drugs he was on. He probably didn’t even want Esme. He saw this as a chance for a big payday. It was amazing he’d lived this long. And then it became crystal clear. How I could fix this sit
uation.
“I’m not leaving without her.”
“Yes, you are,” I said, my teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached.
“I’ll give you five million dollars if you leave and never contact them again. I’ll get you into a rehab.”
He scoffed, but then his eyes bulged and his greedy little mind whirred with just how much he’d be able to score with that much money.
“Do you want the money?” I asked, knowing the only answer he’d be able to give. The pull was too strong. He was too far gone. He nodded his head vigorously.
“Will you leave them alone and never contact them again?” He shook his head so hard I thought he might pull a muscle. So much for being in this for his daughter. And I’d let him play me. Used my own hatred for Rhys to blind me for what plans of his own he’d put in motion.
“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars right now.” I walked to my wall safe in my office, punching in the numbers. The beeps rang out in the stone-cold silence of the room. Allan sniffled and shuffled his way in, wary. As he should have been. I grabbed the stacks from the safe and handed them to him. I called my assistant to make the arrangements. A car from the rehab facility would be in front of my building in an hour to get him.
“I’m leaving. I expect you to get in the car when it gets here. Go to rehab, straighten yourself out, and make a new life for yourself. I’m giving you enough to start over and do something good for once,” I said, grabbing my coat. I let my doorman know a car would be showing up in an hour to pick Allan up. I had no doubt in my mind he wasn’t going to be there when that car showed up.
“Thanks, Kill. I appreciate it,” he said and I winced at my name. That’s me, that’s what I do, right? I grabbed an old briefcase and shoved the money in there. I escorted him to the lobby, but I had to get out of there.
“Goodbye Allan,” I said, pushing through the lobby doors. My stomach rolled as I walked across the street, tugging my coat collar up against the freezing wind that sliced through the city streets.
29
KILLIAN
Unable to take it anymore, I broke down and went to her apartment. As I climbed the four flights of stairs I cursed her for not renting in a place with an elevator. The cold wind seemed to rip right through the building. I didn’t understand why she lived the way she did. I could tell she was a rich girl from the beginning.
She might be working as an assistant, but she had money. Growing up as a scholarship kid in a place filled with kids of the rich and famous, you got pretty good at identifying who was like us and who was like them. The money she tried to hide radiated off her and she couldn’t hide it under no label clothes and bags. Everything from the way she spoke and carried herself to how enjoyable she found the mundane told me she was taking her first jaunt outside of the playground she’d grown up in.
When she first came to me I wanted to use her like I’d been used. She was using me for information and I was more than happy to use her right back. Use her in ways she couldn’t imagine and would love every minute of. She had enjoyed herself, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, so had I. She wasn’t like every other nameless fuck I’d had over the years. Her moans, cries, and begging chipped away at something in me. Something I’d locked up a long time ago.
And now I saw how my father twisted everything in my life for his own benefit. To carry out his own vendetta and I’d fallen for it. I’d used her like he used my mom. Broken something in her like he had my mother. It nearly brought me to my knees to know that after all this time, as hard as I’d tried not to become him, that was exactly what I was. A phone call to the parole board in California confirmed what I suspected. He didn’t have permission to travel to New York and he’d already missed three of his probation officer meetings back in California. I was only sad I wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing his face when those bars closed behind him for the last time. But there was so much more I needed to fix.
I needed to find her. I needed to find her now. I knocked on her door and Dahlia, her resting bitch face firmly in place, answered the door. The daggers in her eyes added another layer to my guilt. Apparently, the face was no longer resting, it was a fully animated bitch face.
“What do you want?” she demanded, blocking my way.
“I’m here to see Rachel.”
“She’s gone,” she said, glancing behind her. I wasn’t going to let Rachel hide from me.
“Then I’ll wait,” I said.
“You’re going to be waiting a long time because she’s not here.”
“Dahlia, if you just let me speak to her. Let me explain. I can…I can explain it to her.”
“You can explain nothing to her because she’s not here,” she said, like she was speaking to a small child.
I wasn’t going to let her stand in my way. I shouldered past her and into the apartment.
“Hey,” she said as I made it past her. Nothing looked out of place, everything was still here. “I said, ‘she’s gone’.”
“If she’s gone, then why is all her stuff here?” I said, gritting my teeth.
“Because she left it. She gave me a check for the rest of the lease and took her purse and left. Said she needed to get out of here fast. I’m guessing that has something to do with you,” she said, her arms crossed over her chest.
“She left everything?” It didn’t make sense. I burst into her room, throwing open her closet. Everything was still there, every hanger, every sneaker and shoe, all sitting at the bottom of her closet. And then I looked at her dresser. Who moved out and didn’t even take their clothes? Then I saw it or better yet, saw what was missing. The music box. It was gone. I still remembered how happy she was, winding it up and telling me the story.
“I never go anywhere without it.” And then it hit me. She was really gone.
“I told you. She’s gone. Best friend I’ve ever had and you chased her out of the fucking city,” she said, tears in her eyes, and her voice wobbled through her gritted teeth.
“I’m sorry, Dahlia. I’m more sorry than you can know. If…If she gets in touch with you can you just let her know I’m sorry and I’d like to talk to her.”
“Get out,” she said, stabbing her finger at the front door. I left, even more adrift than when I’d come. I needed to find her. I called in every person I had and Frankie too to help me find her. That was where the mystery got deeper. I couldn’t exactly go to Rhys and ask him for her hiring papers. I had her name, but all the searches came up with no one who matched her. She’d used a fake name. Perhaps I underestimated her. Did I really know this woman at all? I thought she was a little rabbit stuck in my trap, but maybe I’d been a bigger part of hers.
I staked out her apartment, and no one other than Dahlia came in or out. Even though she wasn’t there, I wanted to be a little closer to her. A few nights later, I saw Dahlia out on the street. Her hands tucked into her pockets as she stomped down the street in heels so high I didn’t know how she balanced on them. Everything about her screamed don’t come near me, but I’d never been good at doing what other people wanted.
“Dahlia, I need to talk to you,” I said. She jumped and wobbled on her feet. I reached out to steady her and she ripped her arms away from me.
“Don’t touch me,” she shouted, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground. My lip was split open, again. Warm liquid was covering my face when I realized I was bleeding. Someone screamed, but my vision was so blurry I couldn’t even tell who. My bell was completely rung. Next thing I knew I was in the air, picked up by my coat.
“Put him down,” someone shouted. My vision cleared and I was face to face with the man from the gallery opening. His face was a mask of rage. Dahlia tugged on his arm to try to get him to put me down, but even leaning her whole body into it he didn’t budge one bit. He wasn’t even wearing a coat in the freezing, nearly midnight air. My blood dripped down into his hands.
“Ivan, put him down. Please,” she said, pleading. He glanced over his shoulder at her. Sh
e had tears in her eyes and only then did he loosen his grip. I slid out of his grasp and stumbled, trying to catch myself on the ground. I righted myself and the heated conversation with Ivan drifted to my ears. He stomped off, but not before glancing back at me and letting me know just what he promised to do if I screwed with her ever again. I held my hands up in surrender. I didn’t intend on doing anything to Dahlia.
“I just wanted to talk,” I called after him. He just shoved his hands in his pockets and trudged off.
“Fuck. Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, motioning for me to follow her. When we got back to their apartment it was the same feeling I got before. Rachel was gone. Whatever warmth and smell that existed when she was here was long gone.
Dahlia came back with a first aid kit. She snapped on a pair of black rubber gloves and cleaned my cut with alcohol. I winced and sucked in a sharp breath as she aggressively cleaned my wound. It felt like she was taking more pleasure in this act than she should when she cracked a smile at my discomfort. I took a deep breath. It was now or never. I didn’t think she wanted me to bleed all over the apartment or get her giant friend in trouble, so now was my chance to speak, with a captive audience.
“Do you know where she is?” I asked, clasping my hands together in front of me.
“Do you mean Rachel? The woman who you screwed over to destroy the life of a man who’s practically a saint? That ‘she’?” she asked, angrily jabbing at my cut with some gauze. I winced again, taking it. I deserved it. I deserved it and so much more.
“Yes, that’s who. I need to know, Dahlia. I need to know where she is. That she’s okay.”
She whipped out some butterfly bandages and started taping me back together.
“I don’t know where Rachel is.” The way she said it was funny.
“Is she safe? How can I get in touch with her?”
“I can’t tell you. She sent me a message a little while ago to let me know she’s safe.” She stared down at the bloody gauze in her hand. “You destroyed her, Killian.”
