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I said goodbye to Kian and finished up with my wound tending. I needed to get back over to the clubhouse, which was Bliss’s central command for operations. We had to get a break soon. We’d had nothing for days, which was disheartening, but I had to see it through.
My phone buzzed, and my heart dropped when the screen told me it was Brooke. I opened the text message.
My father is on his way to the hospital. Can you please come down here? I know you’re with someone else now and you probably don’t care about me anymore. I get it. But I can’t face him alone. You know how he is. I hate this.
I bit my lip. My instinct was to say no, but for once, Brooke wasn’t overexaggerating. Her father was a mean son of a bitch, and she had always been scared of him. Or maybe scared of his disapproval. Which he made no secret of, even when she didn’t deserve it. The hospital wasn’t far from the clubhouse. I could stop in on my way over and not be much later than I’d planned to be.
The hospital reeked with a combo of disinfectant and something that just smelled of sick. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be. I picked up pace, making my way to Brooke’s room.
Gordon Santry stood at the end of Brooke’s bed with his arms crossed. Like almost every other time I’d seen him, he wore fitted suit pants and a business shirt. His jacket was placed neatly over the back of the chair.
Brooke stared up at him hopefully, suddenly seeming about ten years old again.
I cleared my throat.
Gordon glanced over in my direction. “Weston.”
He held his hand out, and I shook it, but it was a lackluster effort by both of us.
“Daddy just got here, Vaughn. I’m so glad you came.”
I wasn’t sure which of us she was talking to, but since she had her hero worship gaze trained on her father, I assumed it probably wasn’t me.
He didn’t return the same sort of energy. His scowl seemed fixed on the bandages wrapped around her hand. “What on earth have you got yourself into?”
Brooke glanced nervously at me and then back at her father. She promptly burst into tears. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how this happened. One minute it was just some fun gambling, and then I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to tell Vaughn I’d spent all his money, so I just kept going on the credit they allowed me…”
Her father’s face screwed up. “Are you stupid?”
She fell silent, dropping her gaze to the bed without a word.
She reminded me too much of myself. It hadn’t been my dad who’d made me feel like that. I’d been lucky enough to have one of the good ones. But Harold Coker was cut from the same cloth as Brooke’s dad. He’d once stared at me with that same expression, determined to make me feel as small as Brooke appeared right now.
Irritation prickled the back of my neck. “Don’t call her stupid.”
Gordon looked over at me. “What would you call her actions then?” It was a barely held-back sneer.
“Desperate. Confused. It doesn’t mean she’s stupid.”
Brooke lifted her head. She mouthed “Thank you” silently.
I nodded and turned back to Gordon. “She needs your help. I can’t get money out of my dad’s business. I have none of my own. We need to pay these guys off or they’re just going to keep coming after her.”
“What makes you think these ‘guys’ she talks of are even real?”
I frowned, getting annoyed by his dismissive, ‘I know better than you’ tone. “What does that mean? Look at your daughter’s hair. Most of it was sent to me in an envelope. As was her finger, for Christ’s sakes. You think she did that to herself?”
Gordon just stared at me.
I blinked.
No. There was no way. “She didn’t cut off her own finger, Gordon! Are you insane?”
He sighed heavily. “No. But I believe my daughter might be.”
Brooke sucked in a gasp. “Daddy!”
“What, Brooke? You know your mother’s history. She’s…unwell, too.”
