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“Her daughter?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. She told me she had a daughter, and she would be mad if her daughter were in my position, and no one was around to help her. She stayed in my room for like two hours, holding me in my bed while I cried.I slept in her arms.” I said the last bit loudly as my fear and anger got the better of me.
Shock registered on his face. “Look, I don’t want to scare you,” he said. “I’m unsure how to proceed. What to say. I never actually expected you to have seen her. I just had to ask.”
I prepared myself for what I was certain would be a total mind-fuck. “Please, just be honest. That’s all I ask. Clearly, I’ve been lied to a time or two. I just need the truth.”
His lips pressed into a flat line. “Very well.” He straightened his suit jacket nervously. “That woman has no children. We’ve already looked into her. She’s a ghost. We know she’s dangerous and a weapons expert. We know she’s killed a lot of people. You were either left alive for a reason, or you were left alive as an accident—one she plans to rectify. I believe that visit was a warning. Maybe not to you, because you obviously had no clue who she was, but to anyone looking into her. Those lilies?” He pointed at the flowers, and my eyes instinctively followed before turning back to him. “That’s her signature. She leaves them at her kill sites. You asked for me to be honest. Here’s my honest opinion. I believe you’re in danger, and I think you need to get the hell out of Indiana. Fast.”
I swallowed hard, fear coursing through me. “She said those were her favorite flower,” I said. It was more to me than to him. It just kind of popped out.
“Seems like that was the only truthful thing she told you,” he said. There was a heavy sigh, and I looked up to meet his worried eyes. “You’re eighteen. Your father and I can’t tell you what to do. As a lawyer to the Avery family, which includes you, I can tell you that you’re free to do whatever you want and suffer no consequences from him. Your bills will still be paid, your family home will be kept out of foreclosure until you decide whether you want to keep or sell it, and the vehicles will be kept out of repo status until you decide to pay them off or sell them. You are free to do as you wish.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t because I found anything funny about the situation at all. “Doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice at all.”
He shook his head, his hand gently resting on mine. “I’m so sorry that I don’t have better news. Again, I didn’t come here anticipating this. I honestly thought I’d come here, give you the information you’d need to get everything squared away, show you that picture—the one you’ddefinitelydeny recognizing at all—and then you’d make a decision all on your own without any pressure on whether or not you wanted to come live with your birth father. I know it isn’t much of a choice, but if you didn’t want it, I know Rick. He would find a way for you.”
I looked into his eyes, and I saw honesty there. “How so?”
He shrugged. “Honestly, he’d probably keep the armed guards by your side everywhere you went. It would be like miniature secret service.” He laughed a little, and it made me smile, though the darkness never stopped threatening to swallow me whole. “At least until you came to visit him a couple of times, got to know him, and hopefully came to a different conclusion. Hewantsto know you. You’re his oldest. His first child. You’re his baby girl, and he desperately wants to get to know you. That being said, he also wantsyouto want this. He won’t force it on you. The choiceisyours, but I’d be lying if I said you had much of a choice. You’re right about that.”
I sighed heavily, my head falling back on my pillow. “Fuck.” The second I said it, I looked over at him with regret. “Sorry.”
He waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I cuss like a sailor. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. Army.”
Ah, that explained the seriousness earlier and why he looked like he’d go to war for me if he had to. With his age, I’d be surprised if he hadn’t been deployed at least once. He had veteran written all over his face, though the Armani tailored suit covered it up a little.
“I have stipulations,” I said. He nodded, and I continued. “First. I’ll go, but only if I can visit my parents’ graves. They didn’t even have a funeral. Now, because there’s some psycho bitch running around threatening me withflowers, I can’t even have a proper funeral for them. However, when all this calms down, Iwillbe returning to do just that.”
He nodded. “That can be arranged. What else?”
“My family home stays in my name, and I reserve the right to come back whenever I like after all this crap is over. Also, I’m not changing my last name. From what I was told, there’s a good chance my adoptive parents hadnothingto do with my kidnapping, so that means they were innocent. They willalwaysbe my parents, and I won’t dishonor them like that.”
He nodded again.
“Lastly, I’m a private person. I donotwant my face in the public eye. I don’t want to do any long-lost daughter routine for the press. I don’t want some sob story to be all over the news. And I’m not changing how I dress or who I am for anyone. I don’t care if my personality or clothing is harmful to his career. He either accepts me as I am, or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t like my platform boots and black riveted pants and skirts, and my weird shirts, that’s fine. I don’t expect him to. But Idoexpect him to respect them.”
He smiled. “I think all that can be arranged.”
I nodded. “Fine. Oh, I lied. One last thing. I grew up in Indiana. I’m not fake, and I don’t like fake bullshit either. If I go there, and it doesn’t work out, I don’t want any hard feelings. I also don’t want to be forced into a family I don’t fit into if it comes down to that.”
“I completely understand. I’d feel the exact same way.”
I sighed. “Good. In that case, when do we leave?”
He grabbed the papers on the bed and placed them all in the briefcase. “Get dressed. We leave today.”
My eyes widened. “Today?”
“Yep. We were ready for anything. We have a private jet with a full medical team on board, and all the medical supplies they could possibly need. You were only a couple of days away from release anyway, so you’ve been cleared for travel so long as you did so with precautions in place. You’re mostly healed, so your doctor doesn’t foresee a problem, but better safe than sorry is the motto from here on out. Once you get to California, you’ll be on limited mobility for the next week, and then—provided there are no complications between now and then—you’ll be free to move around as you please. No bending or lifting, no ladders, no exercising—light walking is okay—and no sex.”
I laughed. “Well, I guess I’ll have to cancel my weekly orgy. They’ll be so disappointed.”
He snorted. “I can already tell you and I will get along just fine. I think you will with Rick as well. He’s a funny guy.”
“I hope,” was all I could manage because I’d once again begun to freak out. Every time I started to get comfortable, something crazy like that happened to blow up my life.
I needed a vacation.
