Page 106 of Sinful Palace

“That doesn’t matter. It’s all about public perception, and it would’ve looked terrible,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “I couldn’t have a stain like that on my image. Especially if Chloe had actually died. You could’ve been charged with murder or manslaughter. Imagine how bad that would’ve made me look.”

“I was sixteen, Mom. People would’ve understood that I lost control of the scooter.”

She scoffed. “No, they wouldn’t. Chloe was your high school nemesis. No one would ever believe it was an accident.”

“They would. Also, if you’d helped Chloe, she’d probably be fine now, and she could’ve testified that it was all an accident. Did that seriously never occur to you?”

Mom let out a sigh. “I didn’t have time to consider what might happen,” she said. “When I got that call from you, I had to make a snap decision. I chose to protect your reputation and my career over Chloe, assuming she was already dead anyway. I know it was wrong now, but at the time, I felt like it was the right thing to do.”

“If you say so,” I muttered. “What happened after the fixers picked me up?”

“They took you to the hospital and met me there. At that point you were unconscious,” she said. “I told the ER doctors that you crashed your scooter in our driveway. You had a severe concussion and lots of cuts and bruises, so they admitted you.”

I bit my bottom lip and leaned forward. “Why don’t I remember any of that?”

Mom nervously shifted her weight in her chair. “The fixers and I took care of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I asked the doctors if you would remember the accident despite the concussion, assuming they’d say no, but they said yes. It was bad, but it wasn’t that bad. As soon as you felt better, you’d remember everything.” She paused and slowly shook her head. “I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Why?”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Because I know you, Willow. You would’ve wanted to do the right thing. You would’ve wanted to contact the police and let them know it was you who hit Chloe. Then I’d be screwed for trying to cover it up, wouldn’t I?”

“So what did you do? How did you make me forget?”

Mom briefly squeezed her eyes shut and scrubbed a hand over her face. “One of the fixers had a contact in the hospital,” she said. “A doctor who could help us for the right price. He arranged for you to be transferred to a smaller private facility, and then we started the process.”

I leaned back, eyes narrowing again. “What process?”

She rubbed her chin and sighed. “The doctor put you on a small but regular dosage of fentanyl.”

I stared at her, aghast. “Fentanyl? Isn’t that like heroin?”

“It’s ten times stronger than heroin, actually.”

“Holy shit, Mom.”

“The plan was to get you hooked on it until you finally forgot what happened,” she said, pointedly avoiding eye contact with me. “It took a while. Every time we woke you up, you seemed to remember, so we had to keep giving you more and more. Then it finally worked. You woke up one morning with absolutely no idea what happened. I asked you what your most recent memory was, and you described the day before the incident.”

“What happened then?”

“We started weaning you off the drugs. That was the hardest part,” she replied. “People get addicted to fentanyl very quickly, and the withdrawal process is awful. You had terrible fevers, sweats, and aches, and you kept having nightmares, too. You’d wake up moaning and kicking every few hours.”

I grimaced. “I remember some of that part.”

“When you were lucid enough, we told you that you had a bad case of mono. A lot of kids from your school had it at the time, so it seemed like a good cover story.”

“Did anyone else know apart from you and the fixers?”

Mom shook her head. “No. Your father had no idea. He was away on that business trip to LA when the incident happened, and when he got back, we told him the mono story.”

I shook my head slowly. “I can’t believe you did all of that just to protect your own career.”

She leaned forward, eyes wide. “Honey, you have to—”

“Don’t call me honey,” I snapped.

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