Page 108 of Free to Fall

I don’t turn around to face him. He doesn’t deserve my forgiveness, not right now. Not when I trusted him to protect me, us, them. To know the first man I loved, my father, kept something so critical from me is almost worse than the icy daggers Liam hurled at me. “You swore to me there was no chance of them being hurt.”

“Sweetheart.” I hear the plea in his voice, the desperation.

It shatters the remaining parts of my heart that are still intact after Liam bulldozed over them. Slowly, I face him to find my Uncle Keene a few paces behind him. Their expressions are equally devastated and horrified at today’s turn of events.

If I cared to look into a mirror, I imagine mine would be similar. The only thing keeping my heart from calcifying is knowing Bailey’s safe. That’s it.

There’s nothing else keeping me breathing.

I can’t dredge up even the slightest remorse even as my hands dig into my purse. Finding what I’m searching for, I pitch the keys to Liam’s house and car into the air toward Uncle Keene. He catches them one handed before asking, “What are these?”

“Since you arranged for me to work for him, you can give them back to Liam with a message.”

“What’s that?”

“I quit.” With that, I head straight for the exit.

Before I reach it, my father catches up to me. He grabs onto my shoulder to stop me. “Laura. Please, sweetheart. Let me explain.”

Stepping away from the touch that got me through dealing with my “stalker” these past few months, I say coldly, “What is there to say, Dad? You lied to me. You said you would protect me and them, but you had your own agenda.”

“Protecting you was my agenda!” he shouts.

“Was it?”

He rears back as if I’ve slapped him. “I can’t believe you’d ask that.”

“And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me Olivia Tiberi was after me. That Al was part of her family! You knew. You knew and you didn’t give me the chance to protect myself or the people I love!” I scream, finally releasing some of the pressure valve inside of me. I point my finger back in the direction of the ER. “You’re the reason that little girl is lying in that bed.”

“No, Laura, Olivia Tiberi is.”

I step back, the automated doors opening behind me. I need to get out of this hospital, away from my father, away from Liam. Away from everything. “Maybe you’re right. But you’re the reason I feel like my heart’s dead inside me. Live with that.”

Spinning on my heel, I sprint away from the man I grew up knowing would always protect me. If I had known it would be him who had let me crash to the ground, maybe I wouldn’t have fallen in love with a man just like him, I think, as I slide into the back of the Uber.

The driver takes off and I don’t look back.

I can’t.

I’m certain I’ll die if I do and I won’t give a dead Olivia Tiberi that satisfaction.

Chapter

Sixty

The Lockwood Industries corporate pilot, Claire Hastings, welcomes me, Kalie, and Grace on board with a respectful, “Dr. Lockwood, Ms. Marshall, Ms. Bianco,” and firmly shakes each of our hands. Her voice barely penetrates the haze I’ve been living in since yesterday when she advises us, “Flight time to San Diego is estimated to be a little more than six hours. Take your seats. We’ll be cleared for takeoff shortly.”

Kalie guides me to my seat, ensuring I’m secure much like Grace did when she packed what little belongings I had from our hotel in the middle of the night—both of them fueled by fury and unwavering loyalty—so we could beat a hasty retreat away from Connecticut. Their voices cocooned me like a protective shield, berating Liam for his inappropriate cruelty. “He loves you!” Kalie exclaimed.

“How could he treat you like this after everything you’ve been through?” Grace seethed, her loyalty burning bright.

I didn’t say a word when they started discussing a plan to get me as far away from where my father or Liam Payne could be as fast as they could.

I didn’t protest. I wouldn’t have even if I had the energy to.

In fact, if I could have asked Grace to build me a new heart in her lab of prosthetic body parts, I would have. Even having something as synthetic as a heart that didn’t feel emotion was more appealing to what mine was experiencing right now.

Despite the luxury and space Uncle Ryan’s jet has to offer, Kalie and Grace don’t give me any. Crowding me—one on one side, one across—we taxi toward the runway with the speed of a snail when all I want to be is hurling through the sky, placing time and distance between me and what happened yesterday. I manage through dry lips, “Did someone let the authorities know where we would be if they need my statement?”

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