by Rebel Hart
I never noticed in pictures, but now that he’s standing here in front of me, I can see the resemblance between him and I. Though I certainly favor my mother, our eyes are the same shape. And the curve of his lips is the same as what I’ve studied in my own reflection every day. It stirs a strange tenderness in me, but it’s squashed by the threat lurking behind me. And the fact that he is the reason I am here in the first place. Any ounce of curiosity or kindness I could feel for him quickly fades back to anger and resentment.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” I gulp. But I quickly remember my life is still in danger. There’s no time for any of that now.
His eyes dart to something over my shoulder as the army of marching feet rapidly approach. His hand brushes my shoulder, pushing me aside.
“Kill him!” Thomas’s voice shouts from behind me suddenly.
I am barely shoved aside just enough to gauge how far away Thomas is from me when a deafening crack shoots through my ear drums, following by an incessant ringing. I can hear nothing else as I look to my father’s hand, raised and on the trigger, smoke trailing from the barrel of his gun.
My eyes dart over in Thomas’s direction, but everything is moving in slow motion. I see him falling to the ground. Blood instantly pools around his head. I take a couple of steps back from my father, my eyes bulging as I look back and forth between my dad’s gun and Thomas’s body. I am deaf and speechless, my eyes blinking rapidly as I try to process the scene before me.
Thomas is dead. My dad shot him. My brows raise as my mouth falls open, my palm shooting up to cover it. I step back again, searching for something behind me to steady against, but there’s nothing there. My gaze wanders around as my brain struggles to settle on my next move.
I feel suddenly heavy as my muscles get weak, my head feeling dizzy with a tight feeling in my chest. I replay it in my mind over and over, what bit of it I actually saw. My father’s hand raising, the crack of the gun, Thomas falling to the ground.
This is definitely not the first in-person impression I wanted of my father. But at least if he was going to kill a man right in front of me within seconds of us meeting, it was a terrible man who was going to kill me first if he had the chance.
I look to Emmett who is standing in the parlor doorway, keeping a safe distance from his father. But his wide eyes are glued to the lifeless body laying there. The rest of his cronies and the staff stand there frozen, just as shocked as everyone else.
I study Emmett further, waiting for him to fall apart the way Bernadette is in the corner of my eye. I think I hear her scream, but my ears are still ringing so it’s hard to tell.
Emmett is strangely calm. Shocked, but not upset. I assume it has to be the shock that is keeping him so collected, but then I catch a subtle nod between him and my father. Did Emmett know this was going to happen?
Chapter Twenty-Three
BOOK 1
We all stand there completely clueless as to what we should do next. Thomas is dead. I’m dumbfounded and have no clue what the fuck is going on. Emmett doesn’t look the least bit bothered that his own father was just shot right before his eyes, but Bernadette’s screams and cries grow more vivid as the ringing in my ears fades.
“Come with us,” my father states suddenly, causing me to jump as he takes me by the arm and leads me to an adjacent room. Emmett follows behind.
“What’s going on?” I ask, plopping into the nearest seat, taken aback by how comfortable the two of them seem.
They hesitate and look to each other for a moment, not saying a word.
“Someone better start explaining things real quick!” I snap. “Do you two know each other!?” My features twist with an impending sense of betrayal.
“Your father approached me three weeks ago,” Emmett starts. “His terms were simple enough. I grant him access to the manor grounds when he asked, and I wouldn’t lose Jameson Automobile Company. He’d no longer hurt you, and my mom and sister would be safe.”
I’m frozen under his explanation for a moment, my face contorted in shock. I quickly shake it away. “Wait, so you’ve been working with my father!? You son of a bitch!”
“Ophelia, please,” he begs. “I was so desperate to get out from my father’s thumb, I was happy to do whatever he asked. You don’t know Thomas like I do. Even with what you saw…you have no idea what kind of monster he was.”
“So you think mine is any better!?” I fire back, ignoring my father standing in the corner.
“I was trying to help you,” he defends desperately, kneeling at the foot of my chair. “That night you met with Malcolm and Liam, your father planned to kidnap you. We barely got you in time before his guys showed up to take you away. I convinced him you’d be safer with me.”
“Liam’s warning,” I mutter under my breath. Now it all makes sense. The ominous threat dripping from Liam’s words. That his explanation of things, by order of my father, would somehow make things easier on me when I was taken captive by him. “What would you have done with me?” I ask him timidly, afraid of the answer. “If Emmett hadn’t intervened…what were you going to do when you had me as your prisoner?
“The Elites thought they had too much bargaining power with you around,” he defends weakly. “I just needed to remove you from the game. So they no longer had you to hold over my head.”
“Take me out of the game how?” I ask, my voice trembling. “As in keep me somewhere safe until this was all over? Until you decided it was over? Or take me out as in…kill me?”
My mind freezes, unsure if I was better off with Emmett, right in the hands of danger and so close to his father. Or if I would have been more screwed in my own father’s possession.
“None of it matters now,” Theo says dismissively. “It all worked out. Thomas is dead. I’ll make sure his death is labeled as a suicide,” The flippance of his voice chills me. “The investigation into the extortion rings, child prostitution circles and illegal arms dealings will continue on the Whitworth and Blackwater families. But now the Jameson family is free. As promised.”
“I can’t believe anything you’re saying.” My fingers rub into my temples as Emmett stays at my feet, looking to me desperately for approval or forgiveness. We exchange a knowing look. My father isn’t denying that he would have killed me if it came down to it. Maybe I was better off with Emmett. Especially if he knew the entire time we had my father to fall back on, hoping he would come in and take care of Thomas.
“You both seem like lying snakes to me,” I snap. “I can’t trust either of you. Your solution to learning my own father wanted to kidnap me…was to just do it yourself instead?” I muse in disbelief to Emmett. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” is all I can manage to say, as my hands rub absently against my arms. “You’re like a bunch of children fighting over candy. But you don’t even care that real human lives are at stake.” I step to the other side of the room, needing to be as far away from them as possible.
“We would have never let you get hurt,” my father protests dryly. His calmness makes me sick. As if this whole thing was just some minor blip.
“I did get hurt!” I scream, jumping to my feet. “I have done nothing but get hurt from the day I got here! And you’re both to blame!”
“I did what I had to, Ophelia,” my father responds coldly.
“We both did,” Emmett adds.
My mouth slacks as my eyes widen. I have to look away from them. I can’t stand the sight of either of them. I rub my eyes, trying not to see them, and am at a loss for words.
“You didn’t have to do any of this!” I scream back to my father. “You’re the one who fucked up when you gambled away all of that money! You could have just accepted your fate and left things alone. You had plenty of money. You didn’t have to come back here and…,” I turn away and cover my mouth. My face blanches, turning white, as I shake my head.
“But the lives that matter the most made it out unscathed,” Emmett offers with a startling indifference to the d
eath of his own father, leaving me to wonder how I’d feel if my own monster of a dad had just been shot right in front of me.
I pivot on my heel, my brow raised as I tilt my head. “I am hardly unscathed,” I scream. “You’ve both caused irreparable damage. I’m not just some toy or game piece for you to toss around. I’m a human being! Your daughter!” I turn to my father with tears in my eyes, and then back to Emmett. “And I’m your…” I stop myself, unsure of how to finish the sentence, but his eyes look to me hopefully. My eyes blink rapidly and unfocus as I my hands carve back through my hair before my arms drop limply to my sides. “Someone that you should care about, but then again…I guess that makes me sound stupid. You’ve done nothing from day one to indicate you care about me at all.”
“That’s why you’re here, Ophelia,” he argues back. “Because I do care about you.”
My chest tingles as my stomach hardens. I feel lightheaded. I try not to excuse any of Emmett’s behavior, but knowing he was intercepting my father the night he kidnapped me almost makes his actions more tolerable. I shudder to think what my father had planned if he had been the one to kidnap me instead.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Emmett!?” I ask, shaking my head. “I may not care for my father…but I don’t know if I ever could have willingly assisted in his murder.”
“You don’t get it, Ophelia,” Emmett fumes. “Thomas Jameson was enough of a monster to justify me being an accomplice in his murder. We’re all better off. You’ll just have to trust me on that one.”
“So, what now?” I blurt without thinking, frightening myself with my own question as it hangs in the air. No one answers, but my mind skips across the possibilities.
I can’t imagine ever having any kind of relationship with Emmett. If that’s even something he would want. Everything up until now was a product of force. And now that I know he’s been working with my father for weeks; I can never trust him again.
Now that I am not being stalked by a pedophilic murderer and he’s not perched on a doorstep with a gun in hand, I am finally able to study his features more carefully. My father is a handsome man. His dark brown hair is wavy, similar to my mother’s and my own. But with touches of blonde, giving him a more Caucasian shade. He’s tall and slender, and his words are sharp. Intimidating. But I could see him turning that over in a second, becoming a complete charmer.
My mother always said I had a mischievous smile, and I wondered why when she said it, she sounded sad. Angry at times. I can see now it’s because that smile came from my father. He has the same devilish spark to him. I can picture them as teenagers, both young and attractive. Falling in love with each other. But then I remind myself they were in Jameson surrounded by the Elites, and I can only hope my mother’s experience wasn’t anything like mine.
There is nothing to be salvaged between my father and I. Knowing what I know now, I would have been fine never meeting him. And now that I see firsthand what having him around brings, I am eager to put him back out of my life. But while I’m here, I think I might as well try and get some answers.
“What happened with you and my mother?” I ask him suddenly in desperation. “Tell me everything. I deserve to know after everything you’ve put me through.”
He takes a seat with an exasperated sigh, running his hand across the top of his hair. I study his hesitance, but finally his lips part as he braces himself. “We went out west after the Elites took everything from us,” he explains. “Lala started a bakery and you were born, while I worked trying to rebuild my fortune. But then I found out your mother was cheating on me. I did things I’m not proud of. I flew into a rage. I beat her. That’s when she took you and left.”
“My mother would never do something like that,” I defend.
“She didn’t cheat on you,” Emmett blurts suddenly, shocking both of us. “That was my father and his friends. They set her up. They weren’t going to stop coming after you because of all the money you squandered.” His head hangs sheepishly in fear of my father’s reaction. The words spilled out faster than he meant, sounding too accusatory.
I see the dots connecting in my father’s eyes, but any regret is quickly shrugged away. “She went back to her maiden name, Lopez, after that,” my father finishes, looking as if he’s fighting away the new information.
“So it turns out you laid your hands on my mother for no reason, forcing her to leave,” I gaff at the whole idea. “The Elites strike again. Stopping at nothing to destroy anyone who crosses them, even if children’s lives are destroyed in the process. Though I can’t really say we were so bad off without you around. Brendan is ten times more honorable than I think you could ever be.”
“Yes…Brendan. Your stepfather,” he concedes with a knowing nod. “I looked into him when he and your mother got engaged. He is a good man. That’s why I never intervened.”
“You’ve got some nerve,” I shriek. “So you’ve been keeping tabs on us this whole time!? And what do you mean…that’s why you didn’t intervene!? What makes you think you’d ever have any right to try and influence her life after everything? And my life too.”
“She belonged to me before anybody else!” he roars back in a sudden show of emotion. More than he’s shown this entire time, even after having just killed a man. “I promised to take care of her.”
Funny, I think. Girls really do go for men just like their fathers. Apparently even if they don’t know their fathers. I could imagine Emmett saying the exact same bit about me belonging to him. He has several times. Always pointing out that I am his.
“So, you were taking care of her when you beat her?” I square up to him, too pissed to back down, even though he towers above me in height.
“I don’t expect you to understand any of it,” he resigns, turning to calm himself. “I loved your mother. I was furious when I thought she had betrayed me and been with another man. And it was right after everything that happened with the Jamesons and Whitworths. I was humiliated. Desperate.”
“I wonder if your family and their friends were pleased with themselves, Emmett,” I channel my anger back to him. “They had already ran my father out of town. He was completely broke. You’d think they could have just let him be. But no…you just had to come and put one last nail in his coffin.”
I am angry about it, but I’m glad in a way that things happened as they did. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if my father had stuck around. I want to say as much, but I can see he is already reeling from Emmett’s confession about their responsibility in breaking up my parents’ marriage.
“I’m going to give you two a moment alone,” Emmett responds, his eyes hopeful and desperate.
“I don’t have anything else to say to you,” I bark as he exits the room.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you don’t leave without seeing me again,” he states calmly before turning to shut the door.
It almost makes me want to crawl out of the window just to prove him wrong, but I’m left alone with my father who is coldly staring off into the corner.
“So…do you have anything else to say for yourself?” I sneer, crossing my arms expectantly.
“I can leave you alone now, if that’s what you want,” he offers sympathetically. I can’t tell if the softness of his voice is out of respect, or just a manipulation tactic. “I can walk away from all of this now that Thomas Jameson and the rest of them will be going away.”
“And what about Emmett?” I ask, my voice wavering. “What makes you trust him so much more than the rest? How do you know he won’t come after you for revenge?”
“I could tell Emmett was scared shitless of his father from the moment I first met him,” he explains. “His father would have dangled the company over his head for the rest of his life, threatening to snatch everything away any time he didn’t comply with his whims. Thomas would have made his son do terrible things. Turned him into a monster just like his dad. Emmett could see it coming and wanted n
o part of it. Now he’ll walk away with his father’s fortune. Free to call the shots without the Elites pushing him around.”
I roll his explanation around in my mind, wanting it to be true. But I don’t know who I can trust. “How do you know he’s not already just as fucked up as Thomas Jameson?” I propose. “He sure has put me through hell. Something I’d think my own father would take issue with.”
“Things are different around here,” he answers flippantly. “You’re dealing with generations of ruthless entitlement. Emmett is salvageable though. I can tell you that much.” He stands and begins to button his coat.
I study his movements in confusion. “You’re leaving!?” I belt out unexpectedly. Moments ago, I was praying for him to just go. Now I’m offended that he would just walk off. “You’re just going to leave things like this? What about me? What do I do?”
“You and Emmett will tell the police you ditched school and came back to the house to fool around and found Thomas Jameson dead. I’ll take care of the rest. After that, you’re free to go.”
Free. I don’t even know what that word means to me anymore. Now that it’s so close, it’s almost frightening.
“Talk to the police and go home, Ophelia,” he orders me, turning for the door. “I won’t be bothering you again.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I mutter, my eyes darting to connect the dots. “You said you loved my mother. But what about me? Does finally meeting me mean nothing to you?”
I see him shake his head with his back turned, but he won’t look at me. “I know I’ve done too much damage,” he answers with quiet resolve. “You and your mom are better off with Brendan. Without me. I’ve been working your whole life toward what transpired today. And now that it’s over…it’s time for me to go.”
“What will you do?” I ask, fighting back bewildered tears. I don’t want to care, but some primal part of me still does.
“You don’t need to concern yourself with that,” he reaches for the door handle, pausing one last time to glance over his shoulder, his eyes still not meeting mine. “I’m going to make sure you’re taken care of, Ophelia. You’ll go back to WJ Prep on scholarship, and if you need anything after that for college…I’ll see that it gets taken care of.”
