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Part One
Chapter One
Alana
I did it.
I declared war on West Senior, on Damion’s father. I named him the man who murdered my father, and I did so with a live audience on live television.
There’s no turning back now, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I exit the stage to find Craig, the private bodyguard I’ve hired to facilitate my escape, waiting on me. He’s a tall man with sharp features and a fit body that declares him capable of fighting off Damion’s father. I’m not sure about the goons West Senior might hire, though, and Craig is no match for Walker Security, but the fact that he’s an off-duty police officer represents trouble I don’t believe anyone wants. You kill a cop, you live with the consequences, but then I’m not sure Damion’s father believes in consequences.
But he will when I’m done with him.
I’ll be his consequence.
There’s no escape for him now. He’ll have to deal with me. Of course, I have to deal with him as well, and that means attorneys and money that will drain me, but I don’t care. The police will have to listen to me now that the masses have heard my voice. Which is why that’s exactly where I’m headed: to the police station to force them to listen to me.
Craig quickly ushers me forward toward a rear door of the building, where a car awaits us, ready to deliver me to a detective he knows well, someone he believes will be able and willing to take my accusations seriously. I’m nervous, yes, but after what I just did on national television, I’m all in and committed to my plan to take down Damion’s father. And then, just maybe, Damion can clean up the West empire and live his own life.
Without me.
A gut-wrenching idea where a necessary reality lives.
I know what I’m doing ends the two of us, but I love him enough to want the best life for him, even if that means I can’t be with him. I take comfort in the certainty that I’m doing the right thing for everyone I love. And despite my anger at her, the ones I love include my mother, who is still in the wrong bed, brainwashed to the point of it becoming terrifying. She’ll be dead next, and I have to ensure the world knows that if she dies, Damion’s father made it happen. My only comfort in her protection is that both of my parents dying close together would be suspicious, and being West Senior is not a stupid man, he’ll know this. But he can’t hide the affair with my mother, and that makes him suspicious to the public, even if law enforcement has blown me off to this point.
They can’t blow me off now.
We reach the exit door, and Craig holds up a hand, indicating I need to wait to exit until he’s cleared a path. He eases outside to scan our surroundings, and just then my cellphone vibrates in my pocket for maybe the third time at this point, and I snake it out to find Damion’s number. Just the idea of speaking with him, of hearing his voice, shreds me inside. I’ve ended us. There is no way around it, and it hurts in a deep, soul-wrenching way.
But so does the idea of Damion’s father holding him captive and ruining him.
Craig motions me forward, and I shove my phone back inside my pocket and do so with firm resolve. There is no me and Damion anymore. And that’s simply a fact that cannot be changed, and I will not allow him to talk me into backing off of my plan with his own demise as the endgame. With nerves jumping about in my belly, I exit the building to find a man standing next to a black sedan with an open door.
Without hesitation, I cross the space between us and slide into the vehicle. Craig follows quickly and shuts himself inside the backseat with me. The driver claims his place, and we are off to the police department. My phone buzzes with a text, followed by two more. I tell myself to ignore the messages, but find myself removing my cell from my pocket to find messages from Damion and not one, but two different reporters.
I click on the message from Damion that reads: I need you to come to me, Alana, come home, and if you won’t do that, go to the Walker offices. I don’t trust my father not to do something crazy right now. You poked the bear, baby, and he’s got really big claws and fangs. Please. I’m begging you. We can do this together.
Only together wasn’t how he tried to protect me in the past, now was it? And I understand the divide he placed between us now in ways I never did before.
I don’t reply to his plea or to that of the reporters who simply want headlines and ways to twist my story and my reputation.
My phone goes inside my purse this time, and I sink back into the cushion. I’m not done poking the bear, I think, and I’m not allowing Damion to shut me down before I see his father’s fangs up close and personal. My eyes lower, and I replay the last time I saw Damion at the cemetery, only moments after my confrontation with my mother and his father. I live that moment, right after I’d stormed away from them, all over again.
I reach the limo waiting on us, and Damion’s there, in front of me. He doesn’t have to turn me to face him. I do it myself. “We’re done,” I declare. “I’m done, Damion. I’m going to my apartment. I’m not going with you.”
“Alana, don’t do this,” he pleads with torment in his eyes and in that rich timbre of his voice I love so much. But when he reaches me, I hold up a hand.
“No. Just no. I need time. I need space. I need a lot of things I can’t have with you.”
He recoils as if slapped, and I climb inside the car and yank the door shut. “Drive,” I say, and once we’re out of the cemetery, I direct him to a hotel. Damion will look for me. I won’t be there.
I blink back to the present, and I feel as if I’m naked in a sea of dark water filled with broken glass; it cuts me, and I bleed. Soon, I will bleed out, but it doesn’t matter, as this is where I belong.
I have to do this alone. It’s the only way to protect Damion.
Oh, how much I wish I could see him and touch him one last time, but that would be dangerous. He’d tell me all the reasons and ways to make his father pay, which saved me in the process. I don’t want to be saved. I just want to end his father as fast as I possibly can, no matter the price to me.
