Chapter 3 #2
Nodding, I stuck the key in the lock and removed the cuff from her wrist. I left it hanging on the bedpost as she pulled her wrist away and rubbed a short, green-manicured nail over the bloodied gash there. “I’ll have a first aid kit brought to you for that.”
Her nose wrinkled at me as she stared in what looked like disgust. “Well how nice. After today, could you send a psychiatrist and a whole police crew also, Mr. Knight?”
“Yesterday,” I corrected her.
Her pretty lips plumped in confusion. “I’ve been out a full day?”
“Give or take a few hours, yes. No police will get involved, but if you’d like to talk to them, fine.
As for a psychiatrist, they’ll explain that you have PTSD, that you should take care of yourself, and potentially have therapy.
I’m happy to schedule you an appointment with mine, if you’d like, over the next few weeks. ”
“I don’t want an appointment. I want a plane ticket home.”
“I told you you’d die if you left.”
She studied me, as if she were trying to figure out a math problem or an impossible equation. “I think I might just take my chances.”
“Afraid of me, Ms. Darling?” I asked the question because I wanted her to be. It held power, and I’d embrace wielding it over her or anybody if it got me what I wanted.
“No.” One word that challenged me, taunted me, and made me more intrigued with her than I normally would ever be with a woman. It was especially true now because I heard the tremor in her voice, caught how she’d wanted to say the word with conviction but faltered just at the end.
“So you’re choosing to be reckless and stupid with your own life,” I summarized, straight to the point.
Her eyes widened. “How dare you—”
“I’m not a teacher and you’re not a child. I’m not going to coddle you.”
“Is that what you think I do all day?”
That came out wrong, but I wasn’t going to admit it. Dragging a hand down my face, I tried my best with a different angle. “I don’t have time for bickering, but you’re staying … For your safety. And for my daughter’s well-being.” The latter was mostly what I cared about, what I needed her for.
“And how long will I have to stay for that?”
For as long as my daughter needed. Mia’s needs weren’t my concern. But my daughter’s love for her was. With me working overtime to ruin everyone who’d threatened my child, she would need stability.
And the idea that Franny was being targeted as leverage meant my relationship with my daughter had to change too.
Everything had to change, but not at the detriment of Franny if I could help it. If Mia could help it.
I’d keep the nuisance here as long as necessary. Instead I answered, “At least until the end of the summer.”
She spun around, as if looking to grab anything of hers she might be leaving behind. My crew had packed most of her belongings, and she hurried over to her purse and a duffel. “I think leaving today is better.”
“You’re not leaving, Ms. Darling.” I waited a beat. “You’ve signed a contract that commits you to providing services to the children of the academy for the summer. Do you recall?”
“That … was a job offer.” Her hands fisted together enough that her tan knuckles whitened. “Look, let’s be frank. If you’re keeping me here because of what I saw, honestly, I barely talk to my older sister, and definitely not my parents. I … don’t have many friends. I won’t tell anyone—”
“You could tell the whole world, Darling. No one would do a thing. You’re here because Franny will need you this summer.”
She pinched her lips together before murmuring, “Someone shot at your daughter and me. We had to hide in a crawl space. I should have been made aware that there was a possibility I would actually have to use such a thing.”
Fuck, did she want an apology? I wasn’t born a gentleman or a businessman. I’d grown up with a father that wasn’t and a mother that could endure the most brutal shit in the world. Kindness was only a tool where fear and power were threaded behind it as a base.
Still, Mia Darling was a necessity, because I had a daughter that I didn’t want raised in the same type of world I was raised in. I hated admitting fault, but I appreciated that she’d included my daughter in her worry, nonetheless. “I should have had better control of that situation, Ms. Darling.”
That’s all she would get from me.
She raised a dark eyebrow and crossed her arms as if she wanted more. “I agree. And then your response was to kill them and choke me. Can you at least control your response in the future?”
What the actual fuck? Was she now reprimanding me like I was the child here? “You’re using the word choke very loosely. If I’d choked you, you’d be dead.”
“That’s what you want to argue about?” she almost screeched as she threw up her hands.
After snatching her purse up, she shoved it over her shoulder.
“You know what? You have a beautiful home from what I can tell. And an absolutely perfect daughter. I don’t know what type of life you’re living here, but I know I want no part of it because it must not be legal. ”
“Jump to a conclusion like that, you’ll find yourself in a hole you can’t crawl out of.”
“It doesn’t really feel like I’m the one in a hole here. I mean, were those people there for you yesterday, or for your daughter?” I opened my mouth to answer, but she continued. “Actually, don’t even tell me. I don’t want to know. That way, I can wash my hands of this more easily.”
It was actually best she didn’t learn more about my life. She only needed to be involved in my daughter’s. “So easily? So you don’t care about my daughter at all then?”
“What?” Her stance snapped upright, and those pretty brown eyes ignited with a blaze that was wild. “Don’t twist my words when it comes to my students.”
“You’d leave her?”
She frowned, and I knew I had her. She’d need to stay, but I could warp her perception if that’s what it took. She gripped her purse so tightly I saw the whites of her knuckles as she fought with herself on what to do.
“My daughter still needs a teacher.”
“Teachers don’t live with families—”
“A nanny that teaches, then. Franny would be devastated if you left. Surely you can adjust to a new environment for one of your students.”
As if on cue, my innocent little girl came barreling into the room. “Ms. Darling!” she cried, and the woman’s face changed from fury to pure, unfiltered joy.
“Franny! Oh, my sweet Franny.”
I might as well have not been in the room in that moment. My daughter flew at this woman like a chick finding comfort in a mother hen.
And Mia Darling welcomed her by dropping to the ground to catch and curl around her like she could protect my daughter from the world—and from me.
Her eyes filled with tears instead of anger as she soothed Franny, who was now sniffling in her arms. Mia didn’t look at me but focused solely on calming my child.
She must have surmised that I was abominable as a father, a man who’d hurt my own baby.
My jaw worked up and down. It was an accurate assumption, honestly.
Even if I hadn’t meant for my world to bleed into my daughter’s life, it had.
For a child, she bottled her emotions exceptionally well.
I figured she mustn’t have been aware of the gravity of the situation, but even still, I’d brought in the best child psychologist to talk with her yesterday.
Valerie was a trusted employee and had been a stand-in for a nanny for quite some time. She’d assured me that my daughter didn’t have signs of trauma, that she’d seen almost nothing and was okay.
Franny sniffling was not “okay” behavior, though.
I considered whether I wasn’t observant enough, hadn’t parented well enough, and had overlooked my most important priority.
“I thought you were hurt,” Franny whispered, but then her eyes widened as she took in Mia’s scraped wrist that was, of course, bleeding now. “Oh, you are!”
“No. No.” Mia hurried to cover her wrist with the white sheet and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Those are just some scrapes from …” She glanced up at me. “A terrible bracelet I had on.”
“Ms. Darling, my grandma always says if jewelry hurts, it’s not good enough. I had earrings once that weren’t for sensitive skin. They made my ears bleed too. You’ll need a Band-Aid for your wrist.” Franny frowned and then looked at me. “Daddy, make sure you fix her wrist, okay?”
I nodded slowly and considered my daughter’s concern, considered how her eyes softened when she peered up at her teacher and murmured, “No one told me anything after how mad you were on the way home. Then Grandma said we had to leave you. I didn’t want to.
The hide-and-seek game wasn’t very fun for you, was it? ”
“I’m not sure I love hide-and-seek,” Ms. Darling whispered as if they were sharing a secret.
“I didn’t like that game either.” Franny wrinkled her nose and glanced at me like we all knew the secret of the game.
Then I heard it, the genuine laugh that fell from my daughter’s lips.
Pure. Real. Rare. I hadn’t heard it since yesterday, and the more I worked, the less I heard it.
I was sure I’d do just about anything as a parent to continue to hear it.
Even if it was keeping Ms. Darling.
“Probably there was too much blood for you, Ms. Darling.” Franny’s small hand smoothed over her teacher’s cheek. “Daddy says some people are afraid of blood. I’m sorry.”
Seems Valerie missed these concerns. Franny hadn’t let on—to me or the trained psychologist—that she’d stopped watching her tablet long enough to take in the scene.
The only person she opened up and gave that information to was a teacher I didn’t know at all, that I shouldn’t want to know, but that I was going to find out everything I could about.
“Oh, Franny. None of this is your fault. Don’t apologize to me.” Mia’s gaze held mine over my daughter’s shoulder, and her look held disgust and contempt now.
“Were you scared?”
Mia combed her fingers through my daughter’s hair and whispered, “A little. Just a little. But you’re fine. And I’m fine.”
“I was a bit scared too. It’s better we’re home and safe with Daddy,” my daughter admitted to her, and I slid my hands into the pockets of my slacks so I could clench my fists and hold back my fury.
Someone had tainted the life I’d built for my daughter.
Someone had tarnished her joy, her innocence, her perception of safety.
Someone would pay dearly.
I collected each and every one of these realizations as ammunition for how much I would torture them.
“That’s right, Franny. We’re here now.”
My daughter didn’t look at me. Instead, she pulled back to look at Mia directly and combed her hair, and the woman didn’t stop her. She just let a small smile slip like those two had secrets between them. “You’ll stay, right? Daddy said he’d ask you to teach me here instead of the bad place.”
“The bad place?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back to school. You can’t go either.” Franny shook her head solemnly. “Okay?”
“Oh, Franny.” Mia continued, “Your dad is here and—”
“He can’t teach me like you do, and he’s very busy. He’s a doctor who helps lots of people, you know?”
“A doctor? Is that what you call it now?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
It was technically true. I wasn’t exactly practicing, but I’d become a surgeon at a private institution overseas—one of the youngest in my class.
I thrived in that environment. The structure, the silence, the adrenaline rush of that razor-thin line between life and death.
Put me in an ER at a hospital and I’d relish in the control and precision under tight timelines.
The pressure. The thrill. Saving a life or watching someone die out was a rush.
“A doctor among other things, Ms. Darling.” Right out of med school, I contemplated if it would be enough. A fresh clean slate, a wife that strengthened the syndicate’s ties, and a newborn.
But my wife had left Franny and me.
Then, the order of Paradise Grove was disrupted. Of the syndicate I’d been raised and bred in.
I was a Diamond always in the end. A part of an elite society hidden behind country clubs and contracts.
Billionaire ties and businesses. Men and women who controlled policy with the same ease they controlled people.
They sat at the table with governors, rewrote city maps, buried bodies with clean hands, and decided which businesses rose and which burned.
The Diamond Syndicate didn’t run just Paradise Grove—we shaped the country from behind silk curtains and blood-soaked ledgers that we deemed necessary.
When my father disrupted my home and my paradise, he put my daughter’s life in danger, and in turn, I took his.
I didn’t ask for power, but I took it if need be.
Ruthlessly. Coldly. And without remorse.
“Please say you’ll stay. Just for a bit.” That little girl knew how to get what she wanted.
Mia looked at me, and that’s when I saw her hate for me but love for my daughter. “Your father and I will have to discuss some things, but—”
“But you’ll stay?” Franny smiled big and patted Mia’s hand before turning to me with a look of victory. My child negotiated Ms. Darling perfectly into her assembled trap.
“Of course I’ll stay …”
“Heart-in-pinkie promise?” my daughter asked as if it meant something.
They both puckered their lips and kissed their pinkies before hooking them. “Heart-in-pinkie promise. I’ll stay, Franny.” She glanced at me in resignation. “But just for a little while.”
My daughter’s face lit up, and that’s when I knew: Ms. Darling would be staying with us for much longer than she thought.