Page 40 of Beautiful Rush
What did I believe in? I was self-absorbed but too self-aware not to notice. Did that make me a narcissist? I had no idea.
I felt hollowed out inside, but my legs were heavy like they were pushing through concrete. The park felt gritty, and the air was anything but fresh but still we trudged along under the guise of getting fresh air.
My brothers would have kept walking, but I parked myself on a bench, the heat sapping the energy out of me, and pulled a cherry danish out of the bag. My favorite. I took a big bite as they sat on either side of me. I chewed and swallowed then washed it down with iced coffee. The pastry tasted like sawdust and regret. But I kept eating it, staring straight ahead while my brothers waited for me to tell them I was ready to hear what they had to say.
I watched a woman pushing a stroller. Next to her, a little girl with brown pigtails was riding a pink scooter, one hand on the handlebar the other one holding a cherry popsicle that was dripping down her arm. She was wearing a pale purple T-shirt with a unicorn and glitter rainbow on it, pink shorts, and cotton candy pink Converse high tops.
She was smiling. She looked happy. I envied her childhood innocence. Had I ever been that untroubled and carefree?
I tossed the half-eaten pastry back into the bag and set it next to me, my hand wrapped around the iced coffee that was slick with condensation. “Okay. I’m ready.” I wasn’t ready. I’d never be ready.
Killian did the honors and gave it to me straight. “Your father was sentenced to thirty-four years in a high-security federal prison.”
Thirty-four years.
Thirty. Four. Years.
Dread unfurled in my stomach and clawed its way up my throat. I couldn’t breathe.
Why was I shivering? It was hot out here. So hot that I was suffocating. Cold sweat pricked my skin and I felt clammy all over.
I watched the world through a filter, so surreal it felt like a dream or a silent movie in slow motion. Mouths moved, but no sounds came out.
Thirty-four years.Thirty-four years.Thirty-four years.
The words played on a loop in my head, the sound of a freight train blocking out the noise around me. The train was picking up speed, racing through my head, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was going to explode.
I can’t breathe.I can’t breathe.I can’t breathe.
Oh my God. I was dying. I couldn’t get any air into my lungs. Why couldn’t I breathe?
“Keira…”
“Babe. Just breathe.” Connor’s voice came from a long way away, like he was calling to me from the other end of a tunnel, the sound just an echo.
“In. Out. In. Out,” he coached. “Nice deep breaths.”
I listened to the sound of his voice and tried to do as he said. Deep breaths.In. Out. In. Out. In through my nose and out through my mouth. I kept doing it, forcing myself to take deep measured breaths in time with his words, until the world righted itself and the trees and the grass and the sky came back into focus.
Connor was rubbing my back. Killian was holding my coffee. And I felt like the world’s biggest loser. “I’m sorry.” I shook my head, trying to clear the fuzziness. “I don’t know what that was.”
“You had a panic attack,” Connor said calmly, like this was perfectly normal and happened every day.
“I don’t get panic attacks,” I protested weakly. Which was stupid because obviously I’d just had one, according to him.
He laughed softly. “You’re good. It’s all good.”
I took a few ragged breaths and wiped my sweaty palms on my shorts.
Killian handed me my iced coffee and I guided the straw to my mouth and drank, hoping the cold liquid and caffeine would give me a boost. I felt like I’d just been rag-dolled by a killer wave and tossed up on the beach.
“Your father was sentenced to thirty-four years in a high-security federal prison.”
I turned the words over in my head, attempting to apply logic and reason and objectivity.
Justice had been served. My father was not one of the good guys. He’d been found guilty of racketeering, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit drug trafficking. And those were just the charges that stuck. I was certain that wasn’t the extent of his crimes.
He had sanctioned murders. He had ruined people’s businesses, extorting money from them in exchange for ‘security.’ If they failed to deliver or cooperate, his punishment had been brutal and merciless. Drugs, arms, money laundering…there was no limit to what my father had done for power and money. And for decades, he’d gotten away with it.
