Hold Me Like a Breath

by Tiffany Schmidt

  To this book’s “fairy godfather,” Joe Monti, for choosing door #3.

  And to Emily and Courtney, for giving me the courage to step through it.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Tiffany Schmidt

  Once upon a time—nine years ago, to be exact—I didn’t know anything about the Family Business. My parents wanted it this way, and since my father was the head of the Family, his wishes were obeyed without question. My childhood was spent being loved and coddled by members of my family and members of the Family—I was taken for walks by Father’s second-in-command, flew kites with his enforcers, and played board games with my older brother, Carter. I was constantly told I was the most precious person on the estate … and the most fragile. These were the twin truths that governed the first eight years of my life.

  My innocence and ignorance ended on a day that started like so many others, with me skipping down the hallway that connected my family’s house with the Family clinic. This story became part of family lore, and even the parts I couldn’t possibly remember feel vivid and full of Father’s storytelling details. But I remember the beginning. I remember spotting a girl sitting cross-legged on the floor outside a closed door. She had red hair, a frilly blue dress, and a smile. She was holding a picture book, and even though she was older than I was, she struggled to sound out the simple words and read them aloud.

  I approached the girl, curious. The only children I ever saw were the kids of other members of the Families, but they were all boys, except for Magnolia Vickers. And she was “too wild” to be my playmate.

  “Can you help me?” the girl asked, and so I did. After looking up and down the hallway to make sure no one could catch me sitting on a hard floor—I sank down next to her and read the book about a raven-haired princess who ate a poisoned apple and fell into an enchanted sleep. It was one of my favorites.

  The girl squeezed me tightly in a sideways hug and looked at the pictures over my shoulder.

  Even back then I knew I should tell the girl to let go, but it was so nice to be hugged. I just smiled and turned a page.

  When the door opened and two tall, suited gentlemen emerged, we beamed up at them and I asked, “Daddy, do you know Kelly?”

  As usual, Father’s first reaction was to scan me from head to toe, taking a visual inventory of my well-being. On this day, his eyes focused on the arms twined tightly around my neck. His posture stiffened with alarm.

  “Yes, I do. Kelly, please be careful with Penny.”

  “She’s fine,” I said.

  “Careful” was my least favorite word. I leaned defiantly into Kelly’s embrace.

  “Penny’s my friend,” insisted Kelly, tugging a little harder on my neck, hard enough that I must have winced or flinched, done something that made both men spring into action and untangle Kelly’s arms from me.

  The other man hugged her to his side. “You can’t touch Penelope. She’s … easy to break.”

  I scowled. “What is Kelly doing here? Can we keep her?”

  The men laughed and shook their heads.

  “We were in that room discussing Kelly. She needs a kidney,” Father answered.

  I sucked on my finger while I considered this. “She needs it?”

  “Yes,” said the other man. He bent and kissed the top of Kelly’s head. “Very badly.”

  “Can we give her one?” I asked Father.

  “We can,” he said.

  “Then you’d better or I’ll never talk to you again.” I punctuated my threat with a small wet finger pointed at him, and both men laughed again. I failed to see the humor. My world was still simple back then, I still believed in black-and-white logic: if Kelly needed a kidney, she should have it—just like when I “needed” a new dress or unicorn statue, all I had to do was tell my parents and one would appear in my room.

  “Then, Bob, I guess your daughter’s getting a kidney.” Father held a hand out for the other man to shake. “It shouldn’t take me long to locate a match. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thank you,” Kelly’s father said. Then he bent to look at me. “Thank you too. I owe you …” He trailed off, swallowed, then managed a smile.

  “You’re welcome, Bob,” I answered.

  “Oh, no, missy,” scolded Father. “That’s Senator Forman to you.”

  “You’re welcome, Senator Forman,” I corrected, but mouthed the word “Bob” behind Father’s back, earning a less-sad smile and a wink from the other man. “Have fun with your kidney, Kelly!”

  Our dads stopped Kelly when she reached for another hug. They insisted we say good-bye by blowing kisses and waving. Then Father steered me down the corridor.

  “Come on, Penelope. You’re late for Dr. Castillo.” He gently tugged at the collar of my shirt and frowned at the purple marks emerging on my neck. “And I want him to take a look at these new bruises.”

  I twitched my shirt out of Father’s hand and sighed. I loved Dr. Castillo but hated his needles.

  There were far too many needles in my life. Far, far too many bruises.

  Chapter 1

  Mother had the ability to switch from serene to terrified much faster than any of Father’s sports cars could go from zero to sixty.

  It wasn’t the Business that generally spooked her, it was me; my blood, my skin, the color purple. She clung to those fears—held them tighter than she’d ever be able to hold me. Today I planned to ask her to loosen her grip.

  I timed my entrance to the dining room with the exit of Father and his entourage. I saw the back of my brother’s blond head bend down an inch or so as he spoke in Father’s ear. As usual, Garrett Ward was with Carter. I always noticed Garrett—especially when he noticed me. This time he did, pausing at the edge of the room to lean one broad shoulder against the wall’s ornate molding and throw me a wink from his gray-green eyes. Then he disappeared along with the other Wards; Father’s second-in-command, Miles Banks; my tutor, Nolan; and the half-dozen Family members buzzing around Father like flies over a carcass.

  “Good morning, Penelope. Tea?” Mother lifted the pot from the table as I slid into my chair.

  Father and Carter gulped coffee by the gallon, I was an orange juice drinker, but Mother was all about the antioxidants and whatever other healthy things made tea taste like hot water plus dirty sticks.

  I’d stopped drinking it years ago, when I outgrew tea parties and the excuse to eat sugar cubes, but Mother never stopped hoping and today I wanted the brownie points.

  “Sure.” I flipped
my cup over on its saucer and slid it toward her.

  In a khaki shirtdress with a navy cardigan she looked effortlessly elegant. Her blond hair shone with highlights, some she’d picked up on the tennis court and some she’d paid for at a salon. Her makeup and nails were classically understated, and she arched one sculpted eyebrow as she filled my cup. She handed it back, then placed a vitamin tablet directly over the L imprinted on my napkin ring.

  I served myself some eggs and fruit, smiling as innocently as I could, pretending everything about this breakfast wasn’t strategic, from waiting until the others had left the room to the fact that it was a Wednesday, when Mother had an early-morning massage and tended to be most relaxed.

  “How are you today?” she asked. “What’s in the folder?”

  Beside me on the table was an inch-high stack of papers in a bright red folder. It was all the research, data, and support for an idea I knew she’d hate.

  But what choice did I have? No white knight was coming to rescue me. At seventeen I was too old to believe in fairy tales, was sick of waiting for a miracle, and knew the only person who could save me from death by boredom on the estate was me.

  I took a deep breath. “Mother, I’ve been tracking my latest platelet counts.” I flipped open the folder and reached for the pages that displayed my blood test results in five different types of graphs.

  “Sweet pea, please do not start this.” She sat back in her chair, her mouth turned down and her forehead creased in disapproval. I’d overheard her talking with other Family wives recently; the topic was Botox and who had and hadn’t gotten it. Mother had pointed to these wrinkles and called them her “Penny lines.”

  She was married to the head of a crime family that trafficked in illegal human organs and I was her biggest source of worry?

  “But, Mother, my counts have been good. If you would just listen,” I said. The “Penny lines” deepened, as if her soul-weary sigh or my request to be heard had pressed more fatigue into her face. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m not asking to go hang gliding! I’m asking—”

  “Hang gliding? Don’t even joke about that. Any head trauma could cause—” Instead of finishing the statement, she pressed a shaky hand to her lips and shook her head.

  “Fine, no joking. I want more than this.” I knew the irony of my gesture—that my hands sweeping in a circle indicated the enormous dining room with its table for fourteen and two chandeliers. Outside the row of soaring windows was a magazine-worthy patio, grass as green and lush as any golf course. A hint of the pool was made visible by the reflection of sun off its infinity surface and the glass of the solarium—built just for me so I’d have an indoor paradise year-round.

  “What is it you want, Penny? Whatever it is, buy it. You know you don’t have to ask.”

  “That’s not the point!” I stood up so quickly my chair tipped over and crashed to the ground.

  The noise made our cook, Annette, poke her head out of the kitchen. “Everything okay?”

  “Did you hurt yourself?” asked Mother, the color draining from her face.

  “I’m fine.” My words were forced through clenched teeth as I fixed my chair and sat. I closed the red folder. That conversation would have to wait until Mother wasn’t quite so panicked and I wasn’t quite so angry.

  Mother nodded at Annette, who vanished into the kitchen; then she turned back to me. “Sometimes I forget you have your father’s temper under that deceptively sweet face. Darling, your safety, your health, have to be our first priority.”

  “I feel like I’m suffocating. What about one day off-estate? I understand your concerns, and I promise to be extremely—careful,” I spit out that word like a mouthful of spoiled food. “I’ll bring whatever security you want. I’ll bring Caroline or another nurse if it would make you feel more comfortable. But I need to get off-estate. Just … please?”

  She stood and tapped one fingernail on the back of her chair as she thought. “I’ll make you a deal: How about a picnic? I’ll set it up—”

  I dropped my fork. It clattered against my plate and made her flinch. “You will?”

  “—while you go see Dr. Castillo and get your ABC.” She walked around the table and touched my dark-blond hair, running her fingers through it in her no-chance-of-bruising-Penny caress. I hated it; it made me feel like a dog.

  ABC. My childhood name for a Complete Blood Count, since I’d insisted that “CBC” was not how the alphabet went.

  It was a name I hadn’t used in ten years, and I wasn’t in the mood to be infantilized, but … picnic.

  My head danced with visions of checkered blankets, sunblock, and sand. Or, if the ground was deemed too hard, restaurants with outside tables beneath colorful umbrellas. And once the whole outing went well, I’d add that to the evidence inside the red folder when I presented my argument. Tomorrow. I’d do it tomorrow.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” If kissing were a thing we did, I would have given her a kiss And if hugging were allowed, I would have squeezed her tight. Then again, if hugging were allowed, I wouldn’t have needed permission to live a normal life beyond the estate’s walls. It’s not that hugging me was always dangerous—just that the same embrace that would be fine if my counts were good would band me with arm and handprint bruises if they’d had a dramatic drop. My parents had decided to order everyone to “err on the side of caution” and made all physical contact with me verboten. No one disobeyed my parents. Ever.

  Despite the eleven years I’d had to absorb the fact that I was “breakable,” “fragile,” “untouchable,” … I still missed hugs. I still missed a lot of things.

  I said “thank you” one last time and bounced out of my seat.

  “Yes, yes. All right now.” She hid her smile by feigning interest in a flower arrangement. “Run along to the clinic and I’ll arrange everything. Come find me in the front parlor when you’re done.”

  It took less than a minute to get from the dining room to the clinic if I went the direct route: past Father’s office, straight through the double oak doors at the rear of the library, down the white tile hallway, and through the second set of doors—stainless steel this time. The clinic was made up of five rooms and a storage closet: two for patient stays, a surgery, Dr. Castillo’s office, and the consult room where Father, doctors, and other members of the Family met with VIP patients.

  When I was little, I thought Dr. Castillo lived on the estate—I remember being shocked to learn he had a house fifteen minutes away and a family I’d never met. In my mind he must live in the clinic, because he was always there when I needed him. For 80 percent of the year, I was his lone patient. Only the elite of the elite—like the daughter of a former senator turned current vice president—were allowed to have their transplants here instead of at one of the six “spa” locations. As a child I’d resented those other patients—he was my doctor—now I welcomed anything that took attention off me and my platelets.

  As usual I paused outside the dark paneled door to Father’s office, wishing I were allowed to sit in on his meetings, or still small enough to hide in the cabinets and eavesdrop. He was yelling—not super unusual—but what was unheard of was another voicing shouting back: Carter’s. I wished the door was thin enough to give me answers, or that my brother wasn’t too busy to give them to me himself. Too busy to give me the time of day lately.

  I left my red folder in the library under a coffee-table book about castles. For weeks I’d been planning to bring it up with Dr. Castillo, to ask his opinion on its contents, to ask for his endorsement, but I kept wimping out. If remission was a possibility, a word strong enough to hang my wishes on, wouldn’t he have said it by now?

  Dr. Castillo was waiting for me in one of the exam rooms. It was Wednesday after all, and my Wednesdays meant blood tests, not massages.

  “There’s my favorite pincushion!” He’d been making this joke for a decade, since before his dark hair had grayed at his temples. And despite the number of times h
e’d poked me with needles, he was one of my favorite people.

  “To your throne, my lady.” He pointed to the blood-drawing chair while he readied his supplies on a tray. I rolled up the sleeve of my pink pinstriped shirt. Opened and closed my fist to get my blood flowing.

  Over the past ten years we’d perfected our medical choreography: tourniquet, squeeze your hand, quick pinch, open your hand, almost done, press here, bandage, you’re all set.

  I fixed my sleeve and fished a lollipop from the jar he held out. I was much too old to need a reward for “quick pinches,” but I wasn’t going to turn down sugar.

  As usual, he’d gotten one for himself too.

  “Any new bruises, petechiae, etc.?” He pulled off his gloves and the candy wrapper, then examined my ankles for the pinhead-sized red dots that showed up on my lower legs whenever my counts started to drop.

  “None,” I answered. “And guess what? Mother’s taking me off-estate for a picnic!”

  Between the lollipop and that statement, I sounded about five, but he didn’t mock me. “Really? That’s great, Penelope. With the way your levels have been lately, I support the idea of loosening your restrictions. Unless this platelet count comes back low, you still don’t need an infusion and there’s nothing here to give me pause. Just be mindful of your actions. And have fun.”

  I tried to smile at his encouragement, but it was hard not to get caught on “unless” and his other loaded statements. After “careful,” “pause” and “mindful” and “platelet counts” were my least favorite words. And I didn’t need his reminders—my life was run by my counts. Had been since I was six and developed the inconvenient habit of turning all shades of purple and spontaneously bleeding. After a year of testing and more testing, I’d finally been diagnosed with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.

  Everyone but Carter shortened it to ITP. He liked to joke that I was idiot-pathetic. Not that idiopathic was much better—“of unknown cause.” My body destroyed its own platelets and no one could tell me why.

  Most children outgrew it. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones. I was chronically idiot-pathetic. I’d likely spend the rest of my life at the mercy of my platelet counts, watching for bruises and other symptoms, worrying that any injury could result in internal bleeding and worse.