Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
“Frankie…”
“Swear to God.” She held up the Vulcan sign with her fingers. “But…it was only because I got a text from somebody. I was too busy being shocked by what I saw to pay attention to where I was going. One second, I was taking the steps, and the next I was rolling down them. Look, my phone is even shattered.”
I looked at the phone, then back up at my girl. “What kind of text were you getting that you were so shocked?” I asked as if I believed what she’d said.
I was still quite skeptical.
My daughter wasn’t clumsy. With eight years of ballet under her belt, she was as far from it as one could get.
This time, Frankie hesitated. “I don’t think you want to see it,” she admitted.
Gabe snorted.
“I’m pretty sure he does,” Gabe drawled.
Frankie held out her phone.
“It’s the first message.”
I opened her phone, went to the messages, and felt my stomach nearly fall out of my ass at what I saw.
No wonder she’d tripped.
“That’s your mother…doing a line of cocaine.”
“Holy crap,” Gabe drawled. “Talk about damning evidence. Who’s that man with her? Who sent you that?”
“That’s my friend from high school. He asked for my telephone number through Facebook, and I gave it to him. Then he sent that about two seconds later. He said he was at his brother’s house and recognized her,” Frankie whispered.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Son of a bitch,” I handed the phone back. “Send that to me.”
“And me, too,” Gabe interjected.
I had a splitting headache.
Goddammit.
I honestly had no fucking idea what was going on with Beatrice anymore.
She wasn’t the woman I knew, that was for sure.
Beatrice had always been careless, but this? Her snorting a line of cocaine? That was the most reckless thing I’d ever seen her do.
“Let’s get you to the hospital,” I murmured. “The faster we get it done, the faster you can leave.”
If only that were the truth.
***
When a man gets to a certain age, there comes a time where he no longer likes drama. He wants to be who he is. He doesn’t want to deal with his ex-wife’s bullshit. He doesn’t want to fight. He doesn’t want to do a goddamn thing.
All he wants to do is live his life. Drink his coffee and beer, love a good woman and sit back and relax.
He gets to a time in his life where he no longer deals with anyone’s shit.
Whether that person is his ex-wife or his future father-in-law who isn’t crazy about the idea of him being with his daughter. Oh, and he doesn’t think you can keep her safe.
Unfortunately for me, I was dealing with both of those at that very moment.
“All I’m saying is that she should come home,” Gabe said. “You’ve proven that you can’t take care of what’s yours.”
He looked pointedly at my child, and I felt my entire body still.
Cora was in the hallway, talking to Luca, and Gabe and I were in the waiting room while Frankie was taken to x-ray to ensure that she didn’t have a broken wrist on top of a broken nose and split lip.
“If Cora wants to go, I won’t stop her,” I murmured, feeling as if I was a failure.
Gabe was probably right. Until I could get this shit figured out, I would continue running around in circles.
“She will,” Gabe said absolutely.
I wasn’t so sure. Gabe might be surprised what Cora would and wouldn’t do. Her home wasn’t his home anymore. It was mine.
And Cora had already proven that she didn’t like change.
But, if he could convince her to go, I wouldn’t argue. Right now, I needed her safe, and the safest place to be was at her father’s where she would be under twenty-four-hour protection.
I just didn’t think she’d go. Not willingly, anyway.
Gabe’s phone rang, and I chose to walk away and leave him to his call.
Thank God that I did, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen Beatrice and her mother walking into Frankie’s room as if she owned the place.
Cora, knowing that Frankie wasn’t in there, backed away, moving farther down the hall where Frankie and an x-ray technician had disappeared.
Luca followed her, keeping an eye on the proceedings that were going on behind him by using the mirror on the wall that the doctors and nurses used to push beds around corners and make sure that they weren’t going to hit anybody in the process.
Beatrice walked into the goddamn hospital room like she had every right to be there.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I didn’t have time for this.
Then the nurse rounded the corner with my daughter, and things went to hell.
“My baby, are you okay?” Beatrice started forward.
I reached her before Beatrice could throw herself at Frankie.
“Don’t touch her,” I snarled.
Beatrice looked at me like she was taken aback.
“That’s my child,” she disagreed, trying to pull herself away from my grasp.