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I was definitely still being stalked, but at the moment I had bigger fish to fry. “Dad, you didn’t answer my question. Who attacked you?”
“Who?”
“Yes, who attacked you? Who hurt you?”
“I… I can’t remember.”
Oh, just fucking great. Now I had no idea if he was telling the truth, or if he was going with my genius plan of acting scrambled for the sake of dodging uncomfortable questions. “You can’t remember who attacked you, yet you’re sure it wasn’t Cobee. You do see how contradictory that is, right?”
“I know it wasn’t Cobee because he bawled like a damn baby when you shot the shit out of him. He told me point blank he wanted nothing to do with any more of this stalking business.”
I tried biting my tongue to keep it still. I made it almost four seconds. “I shot the shit out of Cobee because I was scared to death, okay? Don’t try to make me feel like I should apologize. That’s on you.”
“I know, sugar, and I do apologize, please believe me.”
“I don’t know that I should.”
“Eden. Sugar, please.” Distress filled his expression, and in an instant I felt like a jerk. “I swear on your mother’s grave that I just wanted you to come back home. I’ve missed you so damn much. You’re my baby, my only child, the only family I’ve got left. Knowing how things ended between us… I swear I just wanted to make things right, but I didn’t know how to get you back in order for me to mend that fence.”
“So you tried to mend that fence with a campaign of terror? Most people would’ve sent a text.”
His exposed eye closed, and I could hear him swallow. “After everything that happened, I just… couldn’t. Please, please forgive me, darlin’. Forgive me for being an old fool.”
“You are a fool,” I muttered, fighting back tears that even now burned my sinuses and clogged my throat. Eventually I’d let them go, but only when I could use them to their greatest effect. They’d seem real to the world, because they would be—true tears of a pain and betrayal that was even now drilling a bloody hole right through my heart. “In fact, you’re a damn fool because you haven’t even noticed that I’ve already forgiven you.”
His uncovered eye opened to look at me warily. “You have?”
“Of course I have, silly. When I first put it all together I’ll be the first to admit I was furious with you. God, there are no words to describe my level of rage. But then as I sat here next to your bed hour after hour, thinking you might not make it, the anger slowly turned into something else. You know what it turned into?”
He stared at me, his throat working though no sound came out.
“It turned into pity, because karma has finally caught up to your conman ass.”
“I’ve told you time and again that karma is just a superstition created to keep the gullible in line,” he muttered, his voice thick. “Karma can’t lay a fuckin’ glove on me, girl. No one can.”
“Someone did.” I let out a low breath and stroked his bruised, whiskery cheek with all the love I had for him. Good or bad, right or wrong, he was who he was—a scoundrel, a conman, and above all, my father. I didn’t know if I could ever fully trust him again, but I loved him enough to keep on trying. “Whether it was karma or something else, I believe we both know you’re lying in this hospital bed because of your own scheming. Somewhere along the way you unleashed a monster into the world, and it turned around and tried to murder you. That’s the reason I’m not mad at you anymore. I mean, Jesus, just look at you. You’ve been punished enough. All that matters now is that you heal. You have all the time in the world, so just rest quietly and focus on getting better, okay?”
“No ma’am. No quiet lie-in for the likes of me.” The words rasped in his throat, no doubt still sore after the intubation tube had been unceremoniously yanked out of it the day before. “There’s so much to do at HEG, and no one around to do it. It’ll die a quick death without me at the helm. I have to show the world that I’m still in charge.”
Dread rose like a wave in my chest. “Dad…”
“Did they say how long they want to keep me here?”
“Dad, I don’t see how HEG can go on.”
He stilled. “What the hell’re you talking about, girl?”
“Well… I’ve been told you’re going to need reconstructive surgeries for your face. No one knows how many, though I do know your next surgery is scheduled for some time later this week. Obviously you’re not camera-ready, but that’s not the main issue. The only priority now is for you to lay low until the authorities catch the monster who did this to you. As much as I’d like for you to help them, you still have to act like you’re too scrambled for any law enforcement to talk to you, at least until you can establish a solid story.”
“Pulling the wool over the cops’ eyes has never been a problem.”
Clearly his brain still wasn’t firing on all pistons. “I know you’re slick enough to run circles around the cops, but not even you can pull off playing like you’re mentally incapacitated while still being sharp enough to run HEG.”
“Oh.” A cloud of confusion flowed across his face. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
Which was exactly my point. “The only way I see this panning out in the long run is for you to step back from HEG while you convalesce.” Which was a good thing, as far as I was concerned. I hated the idea of my father putting himself back in the spotlight while his attacker was still on the loose.
“Step back? Don’t you dare.” Again he shook his head, only to groan before trying to hold onto the bedrail with his cast-covered hand. “Don’t you dare say those words. I’ll never step back, or step down. This isn’t over. I won’t let it be the end of me, or HEG. You hear me? I won’t fuckin’ let it.”
