Chapter Twenty-One
Janea
Eros and the guys were probably losing their minds, but I had no other choice but to leave Ambrose with Lydia and a few of the prospects who came with us to the park.
I’d been couped up so long at the clubhouse that Lydia felt sorry for me. She didn’t see any harm with me going with them to park as long as we had some of the guys come with us. We both believed it was safe because it was broad daylight, and we had the guys.
But we couldn’t have been more wrong.
I took a walk alone near the park’s pond, then the next thing I knew I had to tell Lydia I needed to leave with my father’s men, two men I’d known most of my life.
“Where am I?” I asked.
The room was small, with scuffed hardwood floors, and places where the varnish had faded.
The ivory walls had large discoloration stains near the ceilings.
A single window lets in filtered light through blinds that hung lopsided with one slat bent just enough to catch the eye.
A sagging, threadbare armchair with golden upholstery covered in giant maroon flowers sat in the corner along with a small end table covered in dust beside it.
I sat, tied to a wooden chair next to a coffee table that had large water rings all over it, and a gouge taken out of the wood.
“Where is he!” I yanked the rope digging into my skin. “I can’t believe how you’ve manhandled me like this! Tied me to a fucking chair!”
Neither would look at me, but they had the nerve to look ashamed. As they should. I’d known both these men for most of my life. They would have never treated me like this if my mother were alive.
“Both of you should be ashamed of yourselves. Where’s my father?”
They looked at one another, but before they answered the door opened. I expected to see my father, but of course in walked Shannon with a smug smirk on her face. “Gerald and Caleb, could you please give us the room?”
They looked at me then at her like they didn’t want to but thought better of it. And I knew why. They didn’t want to endure the wrath of my father for not listening to his girlfriend.
When the door closed behind them, she faced me and glared. “You just couldn’t keep your damn nose out of it, could you?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked even though I already knew.
“Don’t play stupid, Janea.” She rolled her eyes. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Just imagine our surprise when we received a call about the Governor removing his entire security detail at the last minute before his dinner meeting.”
Thank God he listened.
“What does that have to do with me?”
She drew her hand back, and the sting to my face was immediate. “You stupid, bitch!” she screamed. “You’ve ruined everything! I’m supposed to be the First Lady of California. And you had to open your big, fucking mouth!”
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” I sneered. “You think you can get away with putting your hands on me, you stupid bitch!”
“What are you going to do, Janea?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not a goddamn thing. Just like I got rid of your mother, I can get rid of you too.”
My mouth dropped open. “What the hell did you just say?” I asked in disbelief. “What did you say about my mother?”
A smile spread across her lips. “Don’t look so shocked, Janea. The bitch was going to die, anyway. I just sped it along.”
I tried my best to reach her. She took a few steps away from me as she laughed.
“What the hell did you do!”
She shrugged. “Just slipped her a fatal dose of something, to make sure she wouldn’t wake up.”
“When I get out of this, I’m going to kill you myself.”
She laughed. “And how do you plan to do that? No one knows you’re here, and by the time they figure it out, you’ll be dead. Nobody is going to stand in my way. I always get what I want.”
“Does he know?”
There was no way my father knew she had a hand in killing my mother. He couldn’t know.
She just smiled. “Does it matter?”
“Yes!”
She laughed. “Of course he does,” she answered, like I was stupid for not knowing the truth. “We’ve wanted to be together for a long time, but your mother and you were always in the way.”
I shook my head. The amount of rage coursing through my body was unreal. “You’re not going to get away with this.”
“And who’s going to stop us?” Her shrill laughter pierced the air. “Your biker? He’s not coming for you either.”
Before I responded, her phone rang. She pulled it from the back pocket of her jeans. She smiled when she looked at the screen, then turned the phone towards me so I could see who was calling before she answered.
“Hey honey,” she said in that sweet sugary voice she used only with him. It made me want to vomit. “I was just talking about you.”
“Daddy!” I screamed. “Help me!”
I didn’t know why the hell I was asking him for help. He wanted me dead.
She looked at me and smirked. “What about the biker?”
She smiled and nodded. “I’m glad you took care of him. We can’t have any more mishaps.”
I thought I was scared before, but I didn’t want to bring any more problems to Eros because he had done nothing other than try to help me.
“What did you do!” I screamed.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes, and we can be done with all this,” she said. “Love you.”
When she ended the call, she slid the phone back into her pocket. “Roger is on the way. Then we can get this over with. I’m tired of dealing with you.”
“You’re a piece of shit,” I sneered. “You won’t get away with this if it’s the last thing I do.”
“We already have.”
With no more words, she walked out of the room. There was no way I could stay here. My father wasn’t going to save me. And something happened to Eros. I only had myself to rely on. I only had a few minutes to come up with some kind of plan.