Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
I lift a hand and keep walking.
A short walk later, I enter to boardroom to find the room full, my father at the opposite end of the table from me. We stare each other down, lion to lion, and the room sparks with discomfort. Max clears his throat. “Anyone have anything to say before the vote?”
“I do,” my father states, glancing around the room. “I know you all so very well. So much so that you should take comfort in voting for me.”
My cellphone buzzes in my pocket on silent mode and I ignore it, as my father pins me in a stare, “Don’t you agree, son?”
The statement, meant to diminish me as a player, has my lips curving. “I do not agree, old man.”
His eyes flare with hot spikes of anger. “Age is experience.”
My phone buzzes again, and again I ignore it as I challenge, “Age is exhaustion.”
It’s right then that Naomi pokes her head in. “Damion. There’s an emergency situation. I need you now.”
My father’s eyes glow with satisfaction that tells me he knows exactly what’s going open. “I can handle the vote.”
I don’t give two fucks what he does. I step into the hallway and Naomi shoves a phone at me. “Blake.”
Fuck, I think. I settle the cell to my ear. “Blake.”
“Alana’s father was killed in a car accident this morning. She doesn’t know. Someone I know saw a flag I had on his file and called me from the scene. You need to go to her.”
There might as well be drums exploding in my ears. “This is no accident.”
“I’m aware,” he says. “We’re working on proving that. A car is waiting on you downstairs. Adam said Alana is filming. He knows to keep her away from the news.”
“I’m on my way down.” I hand Naomi the phone, ignoring her concern as I start walking and I don’t stop until I’m in the backseat of the SUV sent for me, with Savage across from me. He says nothing but I do. “If Caleb did this—”
“He did. I know he did. I’ll handle him.”
That’s all he says and it’s enough.
She just told me about rehab for her father this weekend and new hope for his future. And now this. And I did this to Alana. I pulled her into my life, I pushed my father too hard. I might as well have killed her father myself and she’ll eventually get to the same point of view. I’ve lost her, just when I’ve found her.
Right now though, I need to hold her up, because she’s about to crumble.
Chapter fifty-two
Alana
I’m sitting behind a desk that is an exact replica of my Blue office desk filming when Lana whispers to Delilah, my director, and she calls out, “Cut!”
Delilah then shouts, “Fifteen-minute break. Clear the room.”
Clear the room?
My brows furrow at the direction I’ve never heard, but everyone certainly hustles to comply. By the time I’m standing, Delilah and Lana are exiting the room. I hurry around the desk, and intend to follow, when Damion steps inside the room, and the look on his face, the absolute dread I sense in him, has me gasping for air.
My heart twists, squeezing like a band around it. “What is it?”
He closes the space between us, folds me close against his warm, strong body and whispers in my ear. “Alana, baby, there’s been an accident.”
I jerk back, and now my breath just won’t fill my lungs. “Tell me.”
There’s anguish in him that shreds me even before he says, “Your father’s gone, baby.”
The words don’t quite sink in. I have to repeat them in my mind. Your father’s gone, baby. My fingers stretch and then curl around his lapels and I’m trembling, tears streaming down my face. Why am I crying? My father is fine. “No,” I say. “No. What does that mean? Gone? He skipped out on rehab? He didn’t make his flight?”
“He’s gone, baby. I’m so sorry. He’s gone. There was an accident and—”
I don’t hear the rest of the sentence. The room spins and there are screams in my head, my screams. Tears explode from me and my legs give out. Damion catches me and holds me to him or I’d be on the floor. I can’t, I think. Just—I can’t.
And yet, I do. Somehow, after completely losing it, I pull myself together, at least a little. “My mother?”
“Walker is locating her. She doesn’t know.”
“Take me to her.”
Walker hunts her down at her apartment, and I’m the one who tells her my father is dead. Despite barely holding it together, I manage to hold her as she cries, but there is a coldness in me toward her that is wholly unfamiliar. She hurt him. She hurt him so very badly. And she can’t take that back.
He’s not coming back.
Chapter fifty-three
The next three days are the hardest days of my life.