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Jordan carried me into the already cramped interior of the ambulance and sat me on the end of the gurney with Mom. Crouching down in front of me, he silently took the towel Samuel offered him and began to finish cleaning the gore out of my hair that the paramedic had missed.
It took every ounce of strength I still had just to sit upright, but I did it because I didn’t want to freak out my parents any more than they already were. “I-I’m sorry,” I whispered in an unsteady voice. “I didn’t want you two to have to worry about me. There hadn’t been any issues since the dressing room incident, so I thought maybe he’d stopped.”
“What dressing room incident?” my dad demanded.
Jordan’s eyes met mine, and I gave a nod at the unasked question in his. “Someone destroyed her dressing room on the last day of filming. I’m assuming it was Garon. The detective found part of a device that suggested there had been a camera hidden in there, and I guess he’d been spying on her for a while.”
I was thankful he didn’t mention what Garon had done with the footage from that camera.
“There’ve also been packages delivered,” I told them after a small hesitation, wanting to tell them everything so they had the full story. “Murdered little birds, messages…” My stomach turned. “Pictures of him doing…things to himself.”
“He sent you shit too?” Mom yelled.
I blinked a few times before her question finally registered. “I’m sorry, what do you mean ‘too’?”
She pressed her lips together and quickly looked away, but not before I saw the guilt on her beautiful face.
“Mom?” I breathed, but she wouldn’t look at me, so I focused on my dad. “Daddy?”
Running his hands through his long hair, he crouched down beside Jordan and took one of my hands. “I know we should have told you, and I’m so sorry now that we didn’t. But you had so much going on the last few months. The show was ending, and you seemed so caught up in trying to decide which part to take next. Between that and still seeming so sad after Cole’s death and Jordan being a dumbass, we just didn’t want to add more to your stress level, Arie.”
I shook my head in denial. “Are you saying you knew I had a stalker?”
“Your mom was getting letters and packages. Things taped to the window of her car or random boxes left at our front door. We gave it all to Braxton and swore him to secrecy and then asked him to put a secret security team on you. Not even Nevaeh or Barrick knew. Only lately, the letters had gotten more threatening, and we were so relieved when Jordan hired Samuel for you. But we thought it was only because he’s so possessive. We had no idea that you were having issues with the stalker too.”
“You should have told me!” I cried.
His blue-gray eyes narrowed. “Oh yeah? Like you told us about what was going on with you?”
Guilt and shame hit me, and I lowered my eyes to the towel in Jordan’s hand. The starkness of the blood and brain matter against the white cloth turned my stomach, so I quickly looked away.
Straight back into my dad’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Us too, sweetheart.” He tucked a few locks of my hair behind my ear and thankfully didn’t encounter anything slimy in the process. “The last letter showed up a few days ago, and Braxton started shadowing you himself. He saw Garon outside your building and followed him into the garage. That’s when he called us. We didn’t realize it was Garon until today. But after he stopped contesting Cole’s will so abruptly, we should have suspected he had something else up his sleeve.”
I shuddered, remembering how he’d tried to kiss me, the things he’d said.
I only wanted to forget this entire day.
“Okay, folks, we should get going now that the cops have given the go-ahead for her to leave the scene,” the paramedic said as she appeared at the back of the ambulance beside Samuel. “Um, technically, I can only let one of you ride with us, and we tend to let daddies ride with mommies-to-be.”
I let out a disappointed whine at her spilling my secret just as my parents started yelling at the same time.
“What the fuck do you mean daddies? The only daddy in here is me!” my dad bellowed at the woman. “And you’re damn right I’m going to be riding with my baby girl.”
“You’re pregnant!” Mom exclaimed, throwing her arms around me. “Oh, sweetheart, is that why we were having dinner with the Moreittis tonight? Oh my goodness! Are you okay?” She started running her hands over me frantically now. “Are you sure he didn’t hurt you?”
“I just need stitches, Mom,” I assured her.
“Where?” Her eyes scanned over every part of me
she could see but wasn’t able to find a wound bad enough to need medical attention.
Biting my lip, I pulled up my shirt to show them the deep gash on my lower abdomen. It was the first time Jordan had seen it too, and my gaze went straight to his face. I could see the banked rage in his eyes and the set of his jaw, but he kept his mouth shut and just held my hand a little tighter.
“That motherfucker better be glad he’s dead,” Daddy snarled.
