Chapter 24 – ANNA
24
ANNA
W e were quiet on the short drive back to my parents’ house. So many unsaid things lingered in the air between us.
When Carter pulled up outside my parents’ house, he turned to me with an eerily placid expression.
“I want you to promise me you’ll keep your phone on you at all times and you won’t set one foot out that door without telling me where you’re going first.”
“Okay.”
“Anna.”
“I promise. And you promise me that if you find Josh, you’ll tell me. I have…evidence. I can put him in prison.”
“I can think of a few better places for him.”
“ Carter .”
He ground his jaw. “I’ll tell you if we find him.”
I didn’t miss how he didn’t agree to let me try to put Josh behind bars. The fucked up truth was, I wasn’t sure if I would feel safe even if he did go to jail. One day, he’d be let out, and then what?
I shuddered at the thought.
Before I could get out of the car, Carter caught my wrist and pulled me back to him. He gave me one last, bruising kiss. I buried my hands in his hair. My heart pounded in my chest, but my blood felt icy cold. This kiss felt like a goodbye.
Tears stung my eyes when I tore away from him, but I didn’t let him see them.
I strode up the walk to the Vaughn estate and I didn’t look back. If I saw him waiting for me, I might change my mind, turn around and go running back to him. I owed it to myself to at least think about everything he said without him being so close he clouded all my judgment.
I opened the front door and was greeted with the familiar smell of soap and lavender. Obediently, I slipped my shoes off at the door, intending to walk straight up to my room, but I stopped when an orange light caught my eye.
Since when did anyone light the living room fireplace in the middle of the day? I loved when we lit fires. It made the oversized, empty house feel more homey. Usually, we only lit them for holiday parties.
I dropped my bag by the stairs and padded into the living room to see Dad sitting in front of the fire, staring into the coals beneath the flames.
He looked tense, hunching over with his elbows on his spread knees. Sensing me, he turned, resting his temple against his clenched fists.
“Look at you…” he said in a dangerous whisper, mouth tight with malice. “Right back where you started. Do you enjoy being Carter Cole’s little whore?”
I reeled back a step. He might as well have slapped me across the face.
“How did you know I was with him?” My voice sounded feeble, even to me.
Dad scoffed.
Of course he knew. When it came to prying into other people’s business, Hudson Vaughn was even worse than Carter, and that was fucking saying something.
At least Carter did what he did to find me. To keep me safe. Mostly.
What was my father’s excuse?
Straightening my shoulders, I shook it off, refusing to be that sad little girl anymore. I was a grown woman now and he couldn’t— wouldn’t —dictate my life.
“I’ll see whoever I want. I’m an adult. You don’t get to dictate who my friends are.”
“ Friends ? That boy is not your friend. He’s trash. He doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as my daughter.”
“Then how come he’s invited to every society gala in town? Hell, they practically make him the guest of honor. Because all anyone in this town really cares about is money. You’re the only one who cares about the fact that he used to be poor. Get over yourself, Governor. ”
“He’s not good enough for you!”
I rolled my eyes. “As if you care about what’s best for me. You’re all about your image, just like always.”
“I forbid you from seeing Carter Cole again.”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “You forbid me? Okay. Sure. Well, if you’re so bothered, I could always move out.”
And I realized I could. I didn’t have much money, but I could stay with Summer. She’d let me crash in her guestroom without a second thought and I could get a normal job. Pay her back for my living expenses. I could do it. Maybe I should.
“You’d move in with him?” Dad looked aghast.
“Maybe,” I said flippantly, even though I hadn’t considered it, not really, anyway. “Or maybe I’ll just get my own place. I don’t know.”
Dad pushed to his feet. Even in his middle age, he was still tall and imposing. “Before you throw your cards in with that man, there’s something you should know. I offered him a bribe to stay away from you six years ago. He happily accepted.”
My stomach dropped, and I needed to grip the back of the sofa to stay standing.
He… what ?
“How do you think he got to where he is now, hmm ? My money, that’s how.”
No. Wouldn’t.
There wasn’t any way the Carter I knew would have thrown me away for a payday.
…was there?
Unless there was a reason.
His mom’s cancer. The money could’ve paid for her treatments. My eyes burned and my chest ached as if it was empty, hollowed out to the bone.
Would he have done it to try to save her?
Could I forgive him if he had?
I remembered that pain, feeling it like a fresh cut instead of an old scar.
He’d been so cruel. So punishing.
No. I couldn’t forgive him for the things he said to me. The way he left me broken and all alone when he promised he would never do that. But a part of me could understand, even if I couldn’t live with it.
“You’re just as bad as him,” I choked out before clenching my teeth at him. “How could you do that to me? To him? He was just a kid. An abused kid on the verge of losing his mom. God. You’re not just as bad, you’re worse. ”
“Me? You think I’m the bad guy here?”
“I don’t think it, I know it.”
“You want to see bad, Anna Grace?” He sneered at me, rushing forward to snatch my wrist and drag me from the room.
“ Ow , let go.”
He didn’t release me until we were in his office. I rubbed the sore spot on my wrist as he unlocked a filing cabinet and began tearing through files.
I should have left right then, before his fingers closed on a worn manilla envelope and opened it, drawing out a fist full of images he threw over the desk in front of me.
Because now I couldn’t unsee them.
It was a menagerie of pain and gore and horror.
Images of a man so broken I couldn’t even tell who he once was. His face was completely smashed in as if it’d been bludgeoned with a sledgehammer. There was hair and blood and bits of bone and teeth. No face. A prone body with no face.
I turned and bent at the middle, spewing the breakfast Carter made me all over my dad’s Persian rug.
“What…” I gagged, coughing to get the acid out of my throat. “What is that?”
“That’s the work of your beloved street rat, Anna.
He climbed a pile of corpses to get to the top.
No. Those images could be from anything. Carter wasn’t even in them. This could be another one of my father’s lies.
In my gut, I knew I was in denial, but I couldn’t rectify them together—the Carter I knew as a kid on the beach and this man he’d become. Though he’d always had this in him. I’d seen it in glimpses before, he’d just stopped hiding it.
I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Go ahead. Ask Carter. He’ll tell you that it’s true.”
I held back a sob.
“You know what, Anna, go .”
“What?” When I looked up, I found him not staring at me anymore, but rubbing his palm over his mouth, leaning a hand against the wall for support like he was too tired to stand on his own.
“Go. You’ve been nothing but trouble since you were a teenager. So go ahead, run off and find some ramshackle apartment or move in with Carter, let him be the end of you. I don’t care, as long as you keep the family’s secrets while you’re still breathing.”
He might as well have twisted the knife. I always knew he didn’t care, but hearing him admit it still stung more than I ever realized it could.
“What family secrets?”
“You know which ones.”
The ones I accused him of six years ago. I’d had evidence then, too, of him siphoning money from his fancy charity. I should’ve done something about it then and saved us all the heartache.
“I’ve seen your photographs,” Dad held up a handful of film rolls. I knew, with sickening certainty, exactly which rolls they were because I left them at Summer’s place. She texted me to say she’d drop them by the house for me, and I hadn’t seen the message until it was too late to stop her going. Of course he looked at them. Of course.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? You’ve gone around telling people about that disgusting club you worked at. Worse, you showed them the evidence.”
“It was a cocktail bar,” I said in a low voice. “And I’m not ashamed that I worked there.”
“You should be ashamed! We gave you everything. You could have gone to Yale, and really made something of yourself. Instead, you were an ungrateful brat. You spat on all the sacrifices we made for you. You would rather be a whore than act like you give a shit about this family.”
I felt like all the blood had drained from my veins. All the worst things I ever thought about myself, Hudson Vaught just gave them voice. The worst part was that he wasn’t just trying to hurt me. That was what he really thought.
I stared at the floor. My brain repeated all the insults people threw at me in a shitty refrain. I’d never felt more pathetic. More breakable.
Dad put a heavy hand on my shoulder, squeezing hard enough to bruise. “Well, I won’t let you ruin our family name,” he muttered. “I let you have your little hobby, but photographing weddings and sunsets is one thing. Showing off how you lived like a degenerate for six years? I won’t let you destroy us like that.”
He left the room and it took me three precious seconds too long to realize he was still holding my film.
I gasped, rushing after him, slingshotting myself into the sitting room where he was already standing by the fire.
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed my negatives into the flames.
“I had my tech team erase the versions you saved to your laptop’s hard drive as well. If you have any other copies, you better hope I don’t find them.”
He turned swiftly on his heel to storm out the other archway and back out to the hall.
For a moment, I froze, watching the film light. Then I was there on my knees, reaching into the embers. Trying like hell to save even one frame.
Because I didn’t have any others save for the few small prints in my bag.
Before my skin could fully burn, slender arms grabbed me and pulled me back. I fought them, but I didn’t have the strength. My muscles felt broken and unusable as my vision went and my body wracked with chest aching sobs.
The film quickly flaked into cinders, and I collapsed against my mom. She stroked my hair as I cried.
“I’m so sorry, darling,” she whispered into my hair after a few minutes. “So, so, sorry.”
“They were…they were…the only good thing I’ve done since I left.”
“You’ve done so much that I’m proud of,” Mom said gently. “You’ll take other pictures. He can’t take away your talent.”
I wished I could just believe her. Just wipe this away and forget all about it. But I couldn’t.
“I have to get out of here.”
I sniffed, disentangling myself from her. “I’m leaving.”
“I know. It’s okay. Let me give you my credit c?—”
“I don’t want his money,” I snapped, fixing her with a stare I hoped conveyed just how serious I was. “I’m never coming back here, Mom. As long as he lives in this house, I’ll never step foot through that door again.”
I felt Mom nod, her fingers gently rubbing my back as her blue eyes welled with tears.
“I understand, darling. Do what you have to do.”