Chapter 15 #2
Alicia had always heard of the monster mother-in-law. No one warned her about a psychotic father-in-law.
“You okay?” Linda smoothed her daughter’s sweaty bangs. “Baby?”
“I’ll be fine, Mo…” Before Alicia could finish addressing her mother, a voice screamed down the hospital hallway.
“You will let me see her!” It was the kind of voice that struck fear into Alicia’s heart.
Not because she feared the woman herself, but because it instantly reminded her of the one who put her in this place to begin with.
Why do they have to sound so alike? “I don’t care if she already has a visitor! Do you know who I fucking am?”
A nurse dropped something in front of Alicia’s door. She didn’t bother to pick anything up. How could she, when a haggard woman in a suit mowed her over and launched herself into Alicia’s room? Even Danica’s bodyguard struggled to keep up with her!
“Alicia!” Linda didn’t exist anymore. She and the chair were thrown back, almost comically so, as Danica barged between her and Alicia. “What happened! Who did this to you!”
Danica Moreau did not ask questions. She barked. She shouted. She wormed her way into every conversation and didn’t care who got in her way. For as much as Alicia missed her girlfriend ever since this bullshit started, she only wanted to cry now. There were too many emotions overcoming her.
“Who is this?” Linda mouthed from behind Danica.
“Answer me, Alicia!”
Nurses congregated in the doorway. Some were ready to jump in and pull Danica away from the bed. Others were calling security. Yet others hissed, “That’s Danica Moreau!”
Alicia tried to respond, but tears fell from her eyes the moment she opened her mouth.
What are you doing? Hold me. Her hands feebly reached for her.
In a matter of seconds, Danica had Alicia wrapped around her shoulders, her tears wetting the navy blue dress and steel gray sweater.
Desperation crashed into her. Danica held her so tightly that something bruised beneath Alicia’s gown.
“I’m all right,” she repeated, overwhelmed by her scent and the powerful touch of her body. “Thank God you’re here.”
She said that, yet something hung heavy in Alicia’s heart.
“I heard from my bodyguard.” Danica lowered Alicia down. A hand remained clasped around hers. “As soon as I heard, I canceled my meetings and flew back here. I haven’t stopped worrying since the moment I heard you were in the hospital from a fire. What happened?”
Her bodyguard halted the security approaching the room. Linda remained perplexed.
“There was an accident.” Alicia’s voice must have been a type of aphrodisiac, for Danica kissed her, stealing the last of her breath right from her lungs. Linda gasped behind her.
“Alicia! Who is this?”
As soon as Danica pulled away, Alicia said, “Mom, this is my girlfriend, Danica.”
She turned, as if she hadn’t even noticed Linda’s presence. “Pleasure to meet you,” she grumbled. Linda was a non-entity, taking up space in the room. “I’m her fiancée.”
Alicia slammed her head against the pillow. “Danica!”
“I’m serious,” she growled, hand on Alicia’s face, thumb on her mouth. “Now, more than ever, I see that I need to protect you better. You’re my fiancée, Alicia. Marry me so something like this never happens again.”
“You’re what now?” Linda was up. No matter how many bodyguards this woman had, none of them could stand up to the wrath of Mama Bear. “Explain!”
“We’ll discuss this later.” Danica finally turned to Linda. “Danica Moreau. Pleased to meet you. Don’t worry about any of this. I’ll cover the costs.”
“I…”
“Remember how I said I was dating someone?” Alicia managed a small smile. “Guess things got serious quickly. Don’t tell Dad yet.” When Linda remained dumbfounded, Alicia continued, “Mom, could you give us a few? There’s something I need to talk to her about.”
For as many questions as she certainly had, Linda was probably glad to take a break from the chaos in her daughter’s hospital room. “I’ll go get you more water.” She left the room without taking the pitcher with her. The door closed behind her. Alicia was alone with Danica.
“You can’t go deciding things like that,” Alicia said, torn between embracing her again and turning away from the woman who declared herself fiancée. “Give a girl some time to recover before asking her to marry you.”
“I’m not asking.” The sharpness of Danica’s voice made her suck in her breath. “You will marry me, Alicia. At the very least, come live with me. Shit like this would never happen under my watch.”
When tears returned to her eyes, Danica attempted to wipe them away.
“I’m alive because of Dee.”
“Who?”
“My bodyguard.” Alicia snorted. “You know, the woman you hired to shadow me, even if I didn’t know she was there?”
“And she’ll be duly compensated and commended for her actions. I chose well when I hired her.”
Sure, take all the credit. Alicia wanted to smile, but the dangers hanging over them were too real. How the hell could she smile at a time like this? One small smile was spared for her arrival. That was it.
“We need to talk,” Alicia said. She entwined her fingers with hers. “It’s serious.”
How did a woman tell another she loved that her father had done this? How did she present such evidence? How in the world did she make Danica believe her?
“What is it, my love?” Danica pulled Alicia’s greasy hair away from her head.
I’m so unkempt. She smelled of body odor and anxiety.
She looked like a pale, oily mess. While she suffered no burns, she coughed every few minutes.
The doctor said she would recover soon enough, but smoke inhalation was no joke.
A few more minutes, and she would’ve been dead.
Just what Russell wants. “You can tell me.”
“I think I know who started that fire. It was no accident.”
Finely trimmed brows furrowed into the deepest scowl Alicia had ever seen on that already stern face. “Tell me. Now.”
Alicia didn’t doubt that Danica saw herself as her savior.
The woman who would protect her for the rest of her life.
The only one fit for such an honor. Money?
She had billions at her disposal. Love? Her heart was tepid at best, but the intent was there.
The woman wanted to love. She wanted to create domestic harmony and spoil one woman for the rest of her life.
Security? What kind did Alicia want? She could have it.
All Alicia had to do was say a name. She was waiting. An old boyfriend. A stalker. Someone from work. A good-for-nothing neighbor. Danica was ready for any of those. She would sic her own militarized team on them if the police refused to do their damn jobs.
But her own father? Was she ready for that?
“I should clarify,” Alicia began. “I don’t know who set the fire, exactly, but I do have a pretty good idea who arranged to have it happen.”
Something glistened in Danica’s dark eyes. Did she know? Did she have an inkling, even subconsciously?
“Your father.”
Was Alicia imagining the deafening silence in the room?
Did she make up how hard her lover squeezed her hand?
No? She really was crushing Alicia’s bones and making her wince and cry for relief?
One thing was for sure. Alicia did not imagine that visage of pure, unadulterated disbelief taking over the entirety of Danica Moreau’s face.
“Don’t jest about such things at a time like this, Alicia.”
She whimpered from her crushed hand and the disapproving look on Danica’s face. “I’m not joking,” she insisted, even with the meekest voice she could muster. The tears returned yet again. This was what she feared. “Your father has threatened me multiple times.”
“He’s all bluster.” Danica spoke with finality.
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know him like I do.” At long last, Danica dropped Alicia’s hand, both landing on her hips as she pushed back her jacket and exposed the fashionable belt around her midsection.
“He threatens and bullies people into agreeing with him. I’ve seen it a million times in the boardroom.
He says he’s going to cut someone’s throat, but the only cutthroat business he engages in is decimating banquet dinners.
” A scoff of disbelief escaped her. “Put that idea out of your mind. If it wasn’t an accident, I’ll find out who did this. ”
This wasn’t the time. This wasn’t the damn place.
Yet Alicia couldn’t hold back the words frustratingly pouring from her mouth.
“Even your mother has warned me! She told me all about the horrible shit your father did to her! Which includes healthy doses of physical abuse and lighting her on fire, Danica!”
She had never seen this woman shocked before. Not truly. She had been surprised. Startled, maybe. Shocked? Never. Apparently, the only way to shock Danica Moreau was by accusing her father of foul bullshit.
And bringing up her mother.
“What are you talking about?” No emotion existed in her voice. Even her face calmed into the blankest expression donned before Alicia. “What’s this about my mother?”
Alicia swallowed. Where was her mother and that water? “I’ve met your mother before. Three times.”
Danica loomed over the bed, head slowly coming down toward Alicia’s.
“Start. From. The beginning.”
Now Alicia knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of Danica Moreau’s ire.
Was this what her employees felt like when she was on a tear?
Did she inherit this wild and cold look from her father?
Was this what Alicia had to look forward to should she marry this woman and accidentally piss her off?
I can’t. I can’t look at her. Alicia turned away, fear gripping her heart.
Somehow, she spoke. She started from their second meeting, after they had sex in her family’s penthouse, and she sent her on her way. Russell’s first threat in the building lobby. The deranged woman with the burn scars who hopped into the back of Alicia’s ride home.
When she mentioned the burn scars… that was the only time Danica’s eyes whirled in anything but anger.
Alicia explained what happened in Chicago.
Julia, back again, this time dropping in on a café and subsequently inviting Alicia to another hotel, where she told the most harrowing tale.
It was not easy to replicate for the woman’s daughter.
How could Alicia even gloss over the atrocities Danica’s estranged mother suffered at the hands of her father?
All the fear she lived with? Recounting a moment of abuse in Danica’s own childhood that she claimed not to remember?
The tipping point for Julia to finally leave… and then have the nightmare grow?
How did she tell the woman she loved that her father tried to have her mother killed in one of the most horrific ways?
Plus, it was fire! Clearly, it was Russell’s go-to weapon against the women he deemed too big a nuisance in his life. I wasn’t good enough for his daughter. I was a threat. So, he tried to kill me. That’s what one does, apparently.
Danica remained standoffish through this tale, but she did not interrupt.
Instead, Alicia received the hard look of a woman who didn’t want to believe a single word.
This was the moment she realized that Danica actually did not know this woman she claimed to love so much in so little time.
Alicia wanted to agree that she was an idiot. For all you know, I’m crazy.
“You always talk about trusting your gut,” Alicia finished with. “My gut tells me that your father wants me gone so badly that he’ll kill me. What are you going to do about that?”
Danica didn’t speak for another minute. Her eyes glanced around the room, from the thin blanket on Alicia’s legs, to the sun setting outside, to the drab clock on the drabber wall.
Baseball players walked to bases on the TV screen.
Nurses argued whether to ram into Alicia’s room.
Linda crowed in the background that she had a right to be in there, too.
“Why didn’t you tell me about my mother supposedly harassing you?” So, that was the most important thing? Somehow, Alicia wasn’t surprised. “How do I believe you?”
Alicia knew that was coming. “She gave me a small package to give you when we were in Chicago. I put it in your suitcase. You didn’t see it?”
“No,” Danica was quick to snap. Then, “I don’t unpack my suitcases.”
“Of course you don’t.” Who had done it? Was it Ms. Clayborn? Or her shit for brains brother, who was obviously working for Russell? The moment Mr. Clayborn saw that wedding ring, he knew what it was. And got rid of it. Alicia would bet more than her life on it.
“These are hefty accusations.”
“You think I don’t know that? For fuck’s sake, I’m not making it up!”
Danica lowered her hands from her hips. “You’re not feeling well,” she rationalized. “This has been a trying time for both of us. I’ll let you get some rest. When it’s time for you to be discharged, I’ll set us up in a hotel.”
She turned to leave, with nary a kiss or another hold of the hand. Alicia pushed herself up in the bed. “You don’t believe me,” she said matter-of-factly. “Fuck you, Danica.”
Ms. Moreau stopped.
“You’re just like him,” Alicia snarled. “Your mother was right to warn me, wasn’t she? You’re all shit. You’re all a bunch of murdering thieves!”
She didn’t mean to get that nasty. Not right now, anyway.
But Danica walking away from her? Not offering her a bit of solace besides throwing money at the situation?
Fuck her. Alicia didn’t need her. She didn’t need any of this.
The whole reason her life was literally burning down was because she insisted on dating this woman.
What good was she, anyway? Just because Alicia loved her didn’t mean it was good for her. That they were good for each other!
“You might want to take that back.” Danica glared over her shoulder.
Alicia wasn’t afraid of her. Julia had been right to warn her, but not because her daughter had turned into an abusive fuckwad like her father… but because she was a spineless piece of shit who would let her die before admitting life wasn’t perfect.
“No,” she said. “I will not. Get out, Danica. I never want to see you again.”
She gave Alicia one last lingering look before storming out of the room.
Her bodyguard rushed after her down the hall, finally letting security take over Alicia’s room and the nurses and bedraggled mother back in.
They fawned over her, asking her if she was okay, taking her temperature and blood pressure, but nobody could save her hardening heart from the malice it constructed out of blood and spite.
Maybe she was Moreau material, after all.