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“Hugo.” My mother places a hand on his chest. “She’s still our child.”
He swats her hand away. “I don’t care. She needs to hear this.”
“Hear what?” I look at both of them, but neither of them seems to want to answer me. When I turn my head to Jasmine, even she refuses to answer. What’s going on?
“I didn’t mean for it to happen. I—”
“Jill. We know the truth,” my father interjects. “You can’t talk your way out of this one.”
“What?” I’m thoroughly confused now. “Who told you?”
Footsteps are audible outside my room, and we all turn to look up when someone appears in the doorway.
But the dark eyes that connect with mine send a chill down my spine.
Luca.
His brown hair falls over his face like a curtain to hide the spite, and it makes me forget my parents are even here.
Of course it was him.
Of course he told them everything that happened.
“Luca,” my mother says. “Thank you so much for coming.”
“I’m not here for you, ma’am,” Luca says, eyeing me down so much that it makes me want to tug this blanket over my head and pretend I don’t exist.
“Of course,” my mother says, throwing in a lukewarm smile. “Your parents, are they here too?”
More footsteps are audible, the click-clacking sound sending my heartbeat into overdrive. And the second they show their faces, I feel like I might as well prepare my own burial.
Silence fills the room as they look at me first and then my parents.
“Baas,” his father says.
“De Vos,” mine responds.
The air is filled with electricity. Not the empowering kind, but the kind that predicts war.
“So … Jill is alive,” Lex sneers in an unimpressed manner.
As my father flicks his eyes at Jasmine, she steps away from my bed in obedience.
“We’re very lucky,” my mother replies with a warm smile in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“You call that luck?” Lex retorts.
I frown, feeling terribly confused as I look at both my parents, who are standing up with fists balled like they’re ready to fight. “What’s happened? What’s going on?” I ask. “And where’s Liam?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Luca says, his lip curling down viciously. “Liam is dead.”
My heart stops right there and then.
Oh God.
Liam.
Liam is … dead?
No, it can’t be.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “He was right there.”
“Where you left him, in the water, trapped in his seat,” Luca says.
Anne approaches me and stares me down.
SLAP!
The sting of her hand on my cheek takes a while to register.
My mother steps in and grabs her wrist.
“Don’t you touch my daughter.”
They have a standoff, eyeing each other down before Anne finally retracts her hand.
I can still feel her hand on my cheek as the red mark begins to glow, but it doesn’t faze me.
“She deserved that. And plenty more,” Anne spits, fighting the tears.
She’s right. I do.
I’m broken. Shattered into a million bits. That’s how I feel.
And no amount of repairing my body here in this hospital bed will fix the destroyed remains of the hearts inside this room.
I killed him.
I killed Liam.
I drove that car straight into the storm.
Straight into the water …
Tears well up in my eyes, and I can’t keep them from running down my cheeks.
“Is he really dead?” I mutter.
“You tell me, girl,” Lex says, throwing me a deadly glare. “Because they can’t fucking find my son’s body.”
“And now they’ve declared him dead,” his mother adds, unable to keep the tears at bay.
Oh, God.
He’s really gone.
Down there in the deep, all alone.
And he begged me to go back.
I bury my face in my hands. “I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I’m so sorry.”
“You should be,” Luca spits. “You killed my brother.”
I wish more than anything that I could take it back.
That I could’ve stopped myself from losing control over the car. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“But it did,” Lex replies, his anger taking over his grief.
“I will never have my son back,” Anne says, blinking away the tears with the fury of a scorned woman.
Lex throws my father a look. “And someone has to pay the price.”
What? Pay the price? How?
I can’t exchange my life for his even though I wish more than anything that I could.
He deserved so much more from the life he was given. And I took it all away from him.
“You will hear from us.” With a final warning, Lex and Anne De Vos leave the room.
Only Luca remains, staring me down from the doorway, the spot he hasn’t left since the second he stepped in.
“I told you, you shouldn’t have run away from me,” he says.
Through the tears, I scream, “Get out!”
“Jill!” my mother scoffs at me.
But I pay her no attention as my gaze locks with Luca.
Because he knows exactly why all of this happened.
Why I dragged Liam into that car to begin with.
To escape him.
“Hope the hospital takes good care of you,” Luca says, licking his lips as he turns around to walk out the door. But not without a final glance … and a warning. “You’re gonna need it.”
