Chapter Nineteen #3
“You are fools,” I correct him. “You may not have seen what all of your rigorous training did to Emaly, but I did. Sasha saw it too, but was too afraid of you to stand up for his sister. She was hurting every single day. She was struggling every single day. She pleaded with you to stop skating because she couldn’t handle it.
And you saw that as weakness. Emaly isn’t Kerri Strug or any of the other athletes who pushed through their injuries for the sake of a medal.
She never wanted that life. She wanted to make a difference.
What she’s doing now is her happy place.
You’re going to have to accept that and back the fuck off. ”
Mikhail’s jaw twitches as he slowly releases my shirt and shoves me away. I stand straighter, catching myself before I stumble. “You did not answer my question.”
I did. He just isn’t accepting it.
There’s a lot that I can’t say about Emaly. I promised I would keep her secrets to myself until she was ready to explain them. It was her choice about who to tell and who not to.
So, all I say is, “Yes, she is. But you already knew that. And you’re choosing to take it out on me because some illnesses are out of our control.
Some of them can’t have money thrown at them to cure it.
You’ll have to live the rest of your life knowing that you continuously pushed your only daughter away when she needed you the most.”
He clenches his jaw. “I care more than you think.”
I shake my head. “I don’t buy that for a fucking second, Yokav. There’s always a motive at the end of the day, and it only benefits you. Stop pretending like you care.”
“If I didn’t,” he says, as I walk toward the door, “then why would I ensure you’re on this team? The only way to keep my daughter in our lives is through you.”
I pause. Is that what he really thinks? I turn to face him slowly.
“Most fathers would simply be there for their children for no reason at all. I wouldn’t know what that’s like, as you well know.
My father would probably be relieved if I wound up dead, but the feeling is mutual.
If you want Emaly to be in your lives, how about you try being in hers?
No ulterior motive. No threats. Just because you care, like you claim you do. ”
He doesn’t offer me anything. Not a nod, not a blink, not a single action that shows he heard me or my advice.
I huff out a dry laugh. “Who am I kidding? Some people just aren’t cut out to be parents.”
I refrain from flipping him off as I walk out of his office, no matter how badly I want to. I hear him say something in a different language, then a loud crash from a distance. I don’t stop to see what he threw or hit. I don’t care.
Because, unlike him, I can admit it.
*
I finally call Emaly back when I’ve cooled off from my meeting with her father, but she doesn’t answer.
She doesn’t see the three texts I sent after leaving a voicemail either.
It isn’t uncommon for us to miss each other, given her hectic work schedule and the time difference between the coasts.
She always gets back to me when her shift is over or whenever she wakes up.
When my phone buzzes with an incoming call, I pick up, thinking it’s her. “It’s about time,” Ashton says, sighing. “Are you done ignoring me now, or do you plan on keeping up this charade? We’ve got things to discuss.”
My free hand grips the steering wheel, twisting until it makes an unruly sound against the leather. “I think I said everything I had to the last time we spoke.”
Uncharacteristically, my manager is silent.
He’s usually the first one to speak up and insert his opinion where I least want it. Hell, it’s a wonder he didn’t show up at my house after the phone call we had.
When Ashton speaks, it’s obvious he’s had time to reflect on what happened based on the guilt in his tone.
“I wish I could go back in time and prevent my brother from getting in that car. If I could change the timeline of events, I would. I would have tried harder to get him the help he needed instead of brushing him off. I would have enrolled him in a program. He was an alcoholic, and I knew that. But I never, never thought he would do what he did.”
Nobody thinks their friends or family are capable of killing people. It may have been unintentional, but every choice he made that led to the Brontes’ deaths could have been prevented. He made all the wrong decisions and has to live with it, just like Winter and her sister do.
“Nobody thinks that,” I tell him. “I didn’t think my parents were capable of half the shit they were. But we can’t control what they’re going to do, and we can only help them as much as they want to be helped.”
As mad as I am at him, I can’t hold a grudge forever.
I understand that some people are beyond help.
If he’d done more to offer his brother some resources, it would have been better than turning a blind eye.
But what’s done is done. Even if he had put Adam in a program, that doesn’t mean it would have worked.
People have to actually try to get better, and it sounds like his brother didn’t want to.
My mother and father didn’t either. It’s life.
“What pisses me off is that you knew who Winter was. It makes sense why you never wanted to go to any of the events if she was there. What I want to know is, why go through the trouble? Why lie about who she is to you if you feel so bad about your brother screwing up her life?”
It doesn’t add up. One second, he feels bad, but the next, he’s taking her off the Furrever Home event that she worked her ass off for. What is his motive?
He says something unintelligible under his breath before another sigh. “Do you think I can just let go of the past that easily? For fuck’s sake, Tom. I changed my last name just so my clients didn’t have to be associated with my family.”
“That doesn’t change who you are,” I snap back, shaking my head. “Just because you took your mother’s maiden name doesn’t mean it changes who your brother is or how he impacted Winter. You knew all of that, and you still inserted yourself in business you had no right to.”
“It’s my job to be part of any PR for you,” he counters gingerly.
“So it is my business. Everything about the events pertaining to you and your image is where I need to be. I meant what I said before. I don’t want to see her dragged through the mud if she’s associated with you in a negative way.
You and I both know what the vultures can do if they see her around you.
Her life is hard enough without all the press you can add to it.
She got enough of that after the trial.”
So, is he looking out for her? If he knew exactly who she was when I asked about her, how long did he know she worked for Janel? How long has he been keeping track of what she’s doing?
“You knew she was working there, didn’t you? That’s why you chose Starrs Strategy.” It’s posed like a question, but I don’t need confirmation; I already know the truth. “How long have you been keeping tabs on her, Ash?”
Once again, he pauses. Which means it’s probably been for a long time.
“Since after Adam was sentenced,” he admits.
“I needed to know she and her sister were okay. When I found out she’d gotten her degree in a public relations field, I knew she’d probably wind up at one of the few agencies in the area. ”
“She could have left town,” I point out.
“But she didn’t,” he replies tightly. “She chose to stay because her roots are here. I knew she would stick around because her sister did the same. They’re all each other have. Being here keeps them close to their parents.”
The fact that he’s thought about this pisses me off.
Because he knows so much about the girl I’ve wanted to learn more about since she walked into the conference room with a giant coffee stain across her chest. I knew somebody with that much to prove had to have gone through something unimaginable.
I saw right past the facade she’d been wielding because it’s so similar to mine.
Our pasts are our biggest motivators, and our trauma is our weapon. The problem is, we usually use those against the wrong people.
“My parents spent the first few years of Adam’s incarceration in denial,” Ashton admits to me solemnly.
“They didn’t want to believe their son left two people to die.
Eventually, they accepted it. And years later, they chose to never acknowledge it, as if it would go away.
But it was never going to. Not for Winter or her sister, Kourtney.
Not for the rest of their family either.
I refused to pretend as if it didn’t happen.
Sue me if checking in on her and making sure the girls are okay is a bad thing.
Nobody else did. From what I can tell, not even their extended family put that much effort in.
After the news stopped reporting on it, very few people acted as if they cared. ”
Winter never mentioned anything about extended family, so it must be true. If it were really only her and her sister, I could see why Ashton would want to keep an eye on them. He’s older, with more money and authority. But how much of that did he use to help them?
So, I ask the question I don’t want to. Because then I’ll have to figure out if I’m willing to tell Winter the truth or if I’ll be just another person who lies to her. “Did you have something to do with her getting that job?”
He’s had connections in the industry long before I came into the picture.
He’d been new to the scene around the time of his brother’s hit and run, but he would have known the key players.
And it was him who suggested the success rate of Janel’s firm with sensitive PR cases like mine.
If he played puppet master to line all of this up, he’s used us for…
what exactly? To make himself feel better or to make Winter better? To get good karma points?