Page 26 of Rampant

“That’s not happening. I don’t want to see him again.” The wedding was off the moment I removed his ring from my finger, before Rafe had shown up on my doorstep.

Dad placed a palm on my shoulder, and his fingers curled, gouging bone as I tried to inch away. “I had hoped marrying Lucas would help you move past your unhealthy fixation with your brother.”

My mouth hung open. “Myfixation with him? Are you crazy?”

He was twisting everything around, making me look like I was the one with the problem. Just the crazy daughter who’d come too close to repeating the same suicide attempt as her loony mother. He would always protect Zach. Always. Even if it meant I got trampled in the process. I bit my lip to hold back tears and finally let go of the hope he’d someday love me like he did Zach.

I clenched my hands. “You can lie to society,” I said, proud at the strength in my tone. “Even make the media do your bidding, but you can’t lie to me. Zach kidnapped me, herapedme, and he faked my death. I’ve been his prisoner for weeks.” At his unchanging expression, the familiar pang of rejection tore through me. “And I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure he rots in jail for it. I was only thirteen when it started.” I’d wanted to tell him for so long and now that the words were out there, dirtying the air with their horror, I felt the weight lift from my chest.

I had someone else to cover for. Someone who deserved it. Rafe deserved a full exoneration, and if stepping so close to death had brought anything to light, it was him. He might have done someverysick and questionable things to me, but he’d had eight years of his own hell haunting him, driving him to seek what he’d believed was due retribution. In some sane crevice of my mind I understood I was justifying what he’d done, making excuses because I loved him. If I had an unhealthy fixation on anyone, it was Rafe Mason.

My father leaned forward and pierced me with the same hazel-eyed stare as Zach, though his held a shrewdness his son’s lacked. “Since we’re being so candid, let me make something perfectly clear, Alexandra. I love you. I’ve always loved you like a daughter. But you and I both know Zach didn’t sink your car into the river.”

I opened my mouth, but words failed me.

“Rafe did.” He straightened to his full height and folded his arms over his chest. The ink in his corded muscles appeared harsher than usual under the lighting. “If my son goes down for this, so does Rafe.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a bundle of envelopes I’d never planned for anyone to find, least of all my father. He tossed them next to me on the mattress. “Judging by your own words, he matters a great deal to you.”

I shook my head back and forth in disbelief, in denial, like a pathetic Bobblehead. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Dad grabbed my hand and squeezed so hard, his knuckles whitened. “You had a mental breakdown, understand me? I don’t care what you come up with, butyoudid this. If you want to keep Rafe out of prison, you’ll do the same for your brother.” His calculating stare knocked the breath from my lungs, and his grip tightened further. “That sperm you talked about? Rafe’s name will be the one attached to it.”

My eyes widened, and I gaped at him, barely breathing. “How?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time, Alexandra. How do you think he was so easily convicted? Because of your word?” He thrust his face close. “Your word meansnothing. I control you. I’ve always controlled you. Your bout with anorexia? That was my doing, and you fell for it like the naive little girl you are.”

“But I wasn’t eating…” Why did my tone come out so uncertain? “I was anorexic.”

“No, dear daughter. You’d lost your appetite after the abortion and trial. It wasn’t hard to fill your impressionable head with the idea that you had a problem.”

I blinked, feeling sick to my stomach. “Why would you do that?”

“For Zach, of course. While you were locked away in that treatment center, he finally yanked the stick from his ass and took the Chandler Vs. De Luca fight seriously. For a few weeks, he wasn’t thinking with his dick.”

Footsteps sounded outside the door to my room. A doctor stepped inside, and Dad let go of my hand. The coldness in his features instantly melted. I shouldn’t have been surprised at how quickly he shifted personas, but I was. The threatening, ice-hearted bastard I’d yearned to love me since I was six was absent, replaced by the caring and doting father I’d allowed myself to believe in all these years.

The father who’d known about Zach raping me all along. The father who’d somehow known about Rafe kidnapping me. He’d left me on that island to be tortured. I sank into the pillows and closed my eyes, too exhausted and disheartened to analyze the implications, though one thing I knew for certain.

Abbott De Luca hadn’t just fooled the world; he’d fooled his own daughter.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Jax stalled outside the entrance of the hospital.

“I’m not sure of anything, but I can’t not see her.” Gritting my teeth, I stared through narrowed eyes at the building. News of Alex’s resurrection from the dead hit the media that morning. I was hoping she’d give me answers, but mostly, I had to know she was okay.

“Have you stopped to consider this stunt might land us both in jail?”

“Yeah, I have. Look, you don’t need to go in there. I won’t blame you for taking off.” We’d cleared the air the other night, but things were far from settled between us. He still hadn’t moved back into the cabin, and the subject of Nikki seemed to have moved into taboo territory.

Jax slumped his shoulders, and his sigh ruffled his hair. “Dude, this is a bad idea.”

“Undoubtedly.” I stepped past him, and the sliding doors opened. Jax hurried after, his steps thumping quietly on the polished floors. I didn’t know what had happened to Alex, how or where she’d been found. According to the media, she was in stable condition, but that was all I’d found out.

After a quick stop at the information desk to ask which floor she was on, my heart pounded as Jax and I waited for the elevator. He shuffled his feet, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but here. The arrow lit up, and the doors opened with a ding. A group of people exited, each giving us weird glances, their eyes roving over our bare arms and the ink on our skin.

Never failed to get a reaction from some people.

“I’m telling you, this is a mistake,” Jax said once the heavy doors slid shut and we were the only two that remained.

“I don’t care. After everything I put her through, I owe her this much.”

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