Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Tatiana
When I wake up again, Jazz sits in a chair next to my bed. Her face is as white as the walls closing us into the small room.
A monitor beeps somewhere behind me, beating out a steady heart rate in the space. The television that’s mounted on the wall is turned onto a news channel, but the sound is off. My best friend is staring at the screen with glassy eyes while bouncing her knee.
“Jazz?”
She gives a start and leaps to her feet. “You’re awake. Can I get you something? Food? Jello? Morphine?”
“Where’s Dante?”
She bites her lip.
I frown. “He didn’t come?”
“Your mom didn’t dare call from her phone. She says your father checks her calls. She didn’t want me to do it either.” Wringing her hands, she shrugs. “You never know. She said she left you a burner phone with the other stuff, whatever that is. She didn’t have time to explain.”
I curl my fingers around the chain in my palm, fisting it until the edges of the cross cut into my skin.
Jazz hesitates. “She told me you’d be better off not calling him at all.”
I shake my head, not wanting to go there again.
She jumps into action, lifting a travel bag from the floor. “She packed you clothes and toiletries as well as a few essentials for the baby.” She points at a big stuffed dinosaur sitting in a visitor’s chair in the corner. “And this.”
Absently, I wonder if that means my mother knows the sex of the baby. Did the doctor tell her? Is it a boy? If it were a girl, my mom would’ve gotten a unicorn or a mermaid. That’s just how she is. I can’t help but smile.
Jazz drops the bag. “Fuck, Tiana.” Her composure slips. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I wish I could explain, but my throat is too dry to speak.
“Water,” I rasp. “Please.”
“Shit. Sorry.” She grabs a cup from the nightstand and holds the straw against my lips. “Of course.”
I manage to take a few sips. Water has never tasted so good.
She clutches the cup between her hands. “How do you feel?”
“Not great,” I say honestly.
“The doctor—” Her voice wobbles. She clears her throat and tries again. “The doctor said the damage is extensive, but it will heal.”
I don’t meet her eyes. I can’t. I’m too ashamed of what happened, of what my father did.
My gaze lands on the news broadcast. What captures my attention isn’t the car lying on its roof, consumed by flames. It’s the name of my father that rolls in a caption over the bottom of the screen.
CEO of Teszner Agglomerate and ten people killed in an explosion earlier tonight.
I blink. I must be hallucinating. It’s probably the meds.
“Tiana?” Jazz asks uncertainly. When she follows my gaze, she clamps a hand over her mouth and mutters behind it, “Dear God.”
The sirens of police cars, firetrucks, and ambulances turn around and around on the scene, throwing red and blue light into the night.
Jazz grabs the remote and turns up the sound.
The camera turns away from the flames, zooming in on a news anchor huddled in a coat with a beanie pulled low over her head.
“Pawel Teszner was estimated to be worth billions, which made him one of the wealthiest men in the country. Speculation is that the motive for the attack is crime related. His son, Leander Teszner, refused to comment.”
Footage of Leander leaving our apartment building comes onto the screen. He’s dressed in the cashmere coat and leather gloves my mom gave him for Christmas. A scarf is wound around his neck.
Reporters storm at him, shouting questions, and cameras flash in his drawn face. My father’s men clear a path for my brother as he fights his way through the throng of people to a car parked on the curb, repeatedly saying, “No comment.”
The camera cuts back to the news anchor. “So far, no one has taken responsibility for the attack.”
“Dear God,” Jazz whispers again, her face ashen and her wide gaze glued to the television.
A news presenter comes on, sitting behind a pristine white desk and dressed in an equally white designer dress. A video recording of firefighters dousing the flames plays out on a big screen behind her while a small square pops up in the corner with real-time footage of the anchor.
The presenter flashes a row of straight white teeth that’s as perfect as her styled hair and flawless make-up. “Our anchor, Charlotte Davis, is at the scene. Charlotte, we understand that the explosion could’ve been caused by a rocket.”
“What the…?” Jazz mumbles, her features frozen in a look of horror.
The beep in the room picks up its pace as the facts sink in.
“Yes, Alicia,” the anchor says. “A group of adolescents who were camping nearby said they heard a noise and saw a blaze that looked like the tail of rocket. A second later, the vehicle in the middle of the three-car convoy exploded. Both cars at the front and back were impacted. The ATF hasn’t confirmed the cause of the explosion yet. ”
The presenter folds her manicured hands on the desk. “What about the other casualties?” She checks a piece of paper that lies in front of her. “An early police report says the attack claimed eleven victims.”
“That’s right, Alicia. The victims have been identified.” The anchor looks me straight in the eyes as she continues. “Mr. Teszner was traveling with nine bodyguards and his wife.”
My ears start ringing. My head buzzes. I swear there’s only cottonwool where my brain is supposed to be in my skull.
Jazz looks at me quickly, her blue eyes round.
I feel as if I’m in someone else’s body, as if this isn’t happening to me but to a different person.
It can’t be. I begin to shake. The beep in the room intensifies, the continuous sound hurting my ears and grating on my nerves.
Someone shot a rocket at the convoy in which my parents and their guards were traveling.
Their route was top secret. My father had been paranoid about keeping his itineraries guarded.
No one knew when he’d leave the house, and when he did, only his closest guards and the driver knew the roads he’d take.
But I did.
The men talked around me as if I didn’t exist.
The truth twists like a corkscrew into my stomach. Not even Leander knew the route my father planned on taking tonight. My mother had no idea either.
But I did.
I did because I heard them when I hovered outside his study, searching for the right moment to tell him I was pregnant.
And I told Dante. He asked me when my father would be out so we could have one whole night together.
So I told him everything.
He knew.
My mother was right.
Dante used me.
He told me himself he and my father were enemies, that my father could never know we were seeing each other in secret.
No.
I think I may break apart. My heart shatters into shards inside my chest. I clutch a hand over my stomach as if I can protect my baby from the vicious betrayal of his father.
Jazz, who knows my family as well as she knows her own, covers her mouth with both hands. Her chest moves rapidly, matching the rhythm of the pulse drumming in my ears. I told her about our plans, what Dante and I were going to do.
“Tiana.” Her tone is brittle. “Did you tell him?”
My selfishness is my worst punishment, tearing me apart. How I hate myself.
The only sound I’m capable of making is a raw, animalistic cry that twists my mouth. I can’t speak. I can’t say it, because doing so will mean I have to admit the truth.
It’s my fault that they died. They paid with their lives because I wanted to sleep in Dante’s arms.
My blind love and stupid naivety are the reasons my mother is dead.