59. Bay
FIFTY-NINE
bay
“It’s not going to be long, Dad. They’re going to want to kick you out soon. You’re takin’ up space.”
The constant beeping sounds answer me back as Dad lies still unconscious, showing no signs of waking.
And I need him to wake up.
Not because I want to tell him that I arrived with Nessa pulling at her blonde hair and apologizing to me back-to-back, but because I require some sort of parental advice that calms me down and makes me see reason.
Torin did this.
There’s no doubt in my mind when Nessa explained to me that CPS stated there’s been neglect in the household. That drugs were found in our home, along with needles and remnants of cocaine.
All a setup.
And I’m titter-tottering on the edge of strangling Pretty Boy or shaking him so hard to see reason.
However, the reality is that I don’t have a leg to stand on.
I may have not put the final bullets into Judah, but I’m starting to believe that maybe my going out to the woods was the green light for Torin’s brother to follow me.
To act.
It doesn’t make me feel good that I won my life that night. That the man who promised me it was going to be okay double-crossed me. Torin and I are shredded, and I’ve never been in a situation where I wanted to equally save it and sage it all in one go.
“Things are good, Dad.” I give him the best smile I can even though he can’t see it and hope it sounds in my voice. “Don’t worry. I got it all under control.”
Don’t lie to him.
Fuck you, I’m not going to tell him that the world is literally crumbling around me.
My sisters are gone, and Levi is working on getting them back on the bullshit allegations against me. I don’t know what that includes. I’m not sure if he has a connection within CPA, knows a worker there, but he told me to let him handle it without any interference. Just to come up here and visit Dad so he’s not alone today while Levi works on the mess Torin made.
“If you don’t wake up soon, Dad, hamburgers aren’t going to exist anymore. They have these plant-based ones that you’d hate.”
Nothing.
I want to curl up in bed next to him and never wake up. I can’t stop bouncing my leg, I’m trying my best not to pace the room, but all I can think of is what Levi is doing, and if he’s having any success whatsoever.
A small knock sounds on the door, and I glimpse over my shoulder, thinking it’s one of the nurses coming to check in, when Emilio Wildes walks in, dressed in a navy-blue suit, and the air of power around him.
I don’t bother blinking or moving, as I can’t help but notice his hair slicked back and the way he adjusts his jacket. Those blue eyes heavily weighing me down and— he’s in my father’s hospital room.
Shooting up from my chair, I round it and glower at him for coming here. “What are you doing?”
Emilio doesn’t flinch when I move toward him, and he steals a glance at my father that only sets me off on another wave of rage.
“ Get out .”
His gaze flicks back to me as he jerks his head toward the door, surprising me when he doesn’t utter a single word for Dad to hear or not here.
I follow, ready to get rid of him in seconds because I can’t do this.
I can’t deal with another man with the last name Wildes in my damn vicinity right now.
Closing the door gently behind me, I round on Emilio, but he gets to me first.
“I heard what happened.” My retorts and clapbacks die on my tongue as I stare back at my sperm donor and the flat expression on his face. “Let me help you.”
I’m desperate at this point.
There is zero reason for Emilio to help me, but I can’t help but feel slightly relieved that he came when he discovered what happened.
However, this is Emilio Wildes.
Everything comes with a price.
“What do you want?” I mutter back as the hospital staff bustle and move around us. “I can’t deal with drama right now. I have enough on my own?—”
“Haven…” My birth name smacks me in the face. I hate how he might know that I’m Penn Northcott’s granddaughter and this is why he approached me at the Stowaway in the first place. “I’m worried about what this is doing to you and your pending issues.”
Bullshit.
“I’m fine,” I deadpan. “What did you need?”
“I came to tell you that I’m working on your sisters. As far as the house is concerned, I can’t help with that. I have no pull on a bank, as much as it pains me to say?—”
“How would you help get my sisters back?” Because, right now, the house is the last thing on my mind. It’s not relevant until I can obtain Mae and Ellie and fix this problem. I can’t imagine what they must be thinking right now, and I never got to say goodbye or assure them that everything was and is going to be okay.
“I have connections,” he divulges. “I am a powerful man, Haven.”
“It’s Bay.”
“Whatever,” he dismisses, not showing an ounce of remorse for his constant throwing of that name at me. “You and I need to push this bullshit hate that you have for me behind us and find a middle ground.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?”
“I have an idea,” he pledges. “However, you’re going to hate it.”
Figures.
“Then keep it.”
Emilio narrows his eyes a bit at me. “Don’t be so prideful. It’ll only hurt you in the end. And I’m not asking for someone’s life here.”
“Then you must’ve heard what I did to Judah.”
His nostrils flare, showing me the first sign of emotion. I don’t know if I just shot myself in the foot, or if this is going to quickly backfire on me. “I heard.”
And that’s it.
It’s all I get from the powerful Emilio Wildes.
“And?” I press. “Do you think I shot and killed him, too?”
“Does it matter what I think?”
“It does when I believe you might be setting me up.”
He perks a brow at me. “In what world would finding your sisters and bringing them back have anything to do with setting you up?”
“You could use them as hostages.”
Emilio averts his gaze and almost rolls his eyes. “You watch too many movies, Haven. Get a grip.”
Those three words send me over the edge because I’ve gotten more than a grip . I got a reality check that reminds me that I shouldn’t have fucked with Pretty Boy. That I should’ve told Levi that it wasn’t a good idea.
That I gave myself too much credit to imagine that I could pull this off.
“I could tell you the same thing,” I hedge onward, keeping my glare on him. “But here you are.”
“Vivian will be dealt with.”
“I heard that too. Still doesn’t get my house back.”
“I don’t want you working yourself to death and throwing yourself into a dangerous position.” He steers his sole focus back to me. “And we both know that includes what Wallace is going to get you roped into.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to get me killed so you can’t use me for the Titan seats.”
His brows knit together as though he’d never thought of it before. “Isn’t it your birthright?”
“You have two heirs. Male heirs.”
“That’s a little sexist of you, Haven.”
“My name is Bay .”
“You are my daughter. It doesn’t matter which name you want to keep. You’re making me sound like a villain when all I want to do is help my children. Just because you’re in my life, doesn’t mean that I’m going to disown the others. It doesn’t mean I won’t take care of them or want the best for them. It changes nothing but that I have a daughter that was always mine. Ramsey and Torin have been in my life since they were young.”
My stomach clenches painfully as I stare at him. He only said two names, not three.
Judah never mentioned his father’s name, but that he was an asshole and he didn’t like how he ran things. That he was a dictator who wouldn’t listen to reason or other ideas.
Mind you, Judah didn’t listen either, however, I wonder how much of that was true.
“Why did you mention just them?” Emilio frowns at me with knitted eyebrows. “There’s Judah.”
“I remember my son,” he leers. “But he’s dead. And he wanted nothing to do with me.”
I can see why.
However, it still left a reckless and confused young man out there in the world with no guidance other than Matteo’s.
“The solution is simple,” he continues as I maul over old memories and the current shitshow I’m still standing in. “I’ve made it no secret that I’ve wanted you in my family. You have another one…I understand that. As shitty as it sounds, Roger is no longer a threat to me. Your sisters have nothing to do with this. I’m not going to lock you in a basement and keep you away from them.”
I remain silent because nothing he’s saying is resonating with me. It’s not fixing anything. It’s only keeping me away from Dad.
“Since you are my heir, and you seem so concerned about the boys and stepping on their toes if you take the Titan seat…you’ll marry into the family.”
My stupid-ass heart, I hate the thing. Because my first thought goes, runs, and sprints to Torin.
That if I marry Torin, he’d have to deal with me.
He’d have to forgive me.
Emilio must see something flash across my face, because he continues and smashes that thought into two. “Ramsey.”
Fuck no.
Levi would never go for this idea, for one. Two, psycho. Three, I think Torin said he was gay. And, four, how stupid would I need to be to bury myself deeper into more Wildes bullshit?
“I don’t need an answer right now,” Emilio premises. “However, think of the things it would serve. You’d never have to worry about money again. You could buy a house of your liking, Ramsey won’t have access to it, and you can pay off Roger’s medical bills that are stacking up by the day since he’s been here.”
Emilio knows exactly where to strike because all those are legit reasons it would be a good idea. A marriage would solve all my problems.
If it wasn’t to Ramsey Wildes.
“The girls would never have to worry about food and clothes again. There would be?—”
“Stop,” I clip out under my breath, hating the glimmers of hope flicker in my head.
This isn’t real.
The kindness and the drop-in that Emilio just presented at this door are not going to make me live happily ever after.
“I wouldn’t live in The Landings,” I grind out through clenched teeth. “If you just handed me the money without the husband.”
“I never said you had to.”
“The answer is still no.”
Emilio studies me for another moment, his pride probably holding him to his spot before he gives me a curt nod. “If that’s what you wish.”
And he doesn’t give me another opportunity to speak, striding down the hallway and taking all his fantasies with him.
But that’s when the worst happens.
It’s when a fleet of people in scrubs rushes the hallway like a pack of wild beasts startled by a large animal and shoves through Dad’s hospital room like the room is on fire. When the ongoing drone of a machine flat-lining pierces through my chest and has me sprinting behind them inside Dad’s space.
They all surround his bed, speaking words that don’t reach my ears in waves but just as sounds.
Two hard pads—the things that resuscitate people—are placed on Dad’s naked chest next to the blue hospital gown he’s wearing.
He’s leaving me.
“Dad…” My voice is barely a strain over the hospital help in the room as I step closer. Tears enflame behind my eyes, but all I want to do is see his face.
Not his chest that arches every time they turn that machine on to make his heart start beating again.
This isn’t happening.
I notice that Dad doesn’t move as a male voice shouts for someone to do something. It doesn’t register.
Nothing happens.
“Dad,” I say again as nausea builds in my gut because this—he wouldn’t do this to me.
He can’t.
“Miss, you can’t be in here.” I see a woman approach out of my peripheral, but I refuse to pry my focus off my father. “Miss?—”
“Pronounce him dead at five thirty-six?—”
“ No! ” I scream, sprinting toward the bed and feeling the helpless dread that courses through me. “No, no, do it again!”
“Miss, please— ” Someone grabs my arm, but I yank it free, locating a small sliver of space where I can see Dad’s face.
“Dad!” I plead. “Dad, wake up . Dad?—”
“Honey,” someone says somewhere. “He’s gone.”
My body immediately begins to shake uncontrollably because that’s not possible.
It’s not.
He wouldn’t leave me. He promised. He said he was going to get better. I was going to feed him hamburgers. I told him I would. I’ve been doing it for days.
“I’m so sorry, Bay.”
No.
My eyeballs burn as I stare at Dad, and I want them all out but here all at the same time because I can’t do anything. I can’t save him.
“Dad,” I try to say more calmly. “C’mon, stop it. You need to pull through this. I need you.”
“Honey, he’s gone?—”
“ Stop saying that!” I scream at whoever just said that to me. “You need to do more. He can’t be gone. There’s no way he’d fuckin’ leave me!”
The room fills with an eerie silence, and it’s then that I’m alone.
That it’s final.
That Dad…he is gone.
My cell buzzes in the back pocket of my jeans and my brain immediately registers to Levi.
I can’t tell him, but I need him here. He needs to help Dad. He needs to make them do something.
Hitting the green button, I bring the phone up to my ear. “Levi…I need you?—”
“Bay, I need you to get up here,” he says urgently as I hear a male barking out something in the background about getting off the phone. “I’m up at St. Clair Shore Sheriff’s Department with Muncy. He’s fuckin’ setting me up.”