Page 7 of His Win (His Obsession 3)

"What have you done?" my mother whispered.

"Nancy!" my father admonished her. "Let Veda talk."

I stared at her, and I wished I could say that I was surprised by her remark, but I wasn't. Other than being born with a heart defect, I had no idea what I'd ever done to deserve her hatred, but now wasn't the time to get into it. I looked at my father. "Nicole is gone," I managed to get out before my voice caught. "She...she was killed. In Mexico."

I watched the color drain from his face as he stared at me in disbelief. "What...in Mexico...I don't understand..."

My mother was unusually quiet, and when I glanced over at her, she was staring at me like I'd just grown a second head. "If this is true," she said while my father struggled to understand what I'd just told him, "why are you telling us this and not the authorities?"

"Mom, it is true. I'm so sorry." Unable to hang onto the little composure I'd had, I burst into tears before I'd even finished what I was saying.

"I don't understand," my father repeated.

I just shook my head. "She's gone, Daddy. I'm so sorry."

"No. Not my little girl. No." His face crumbled, and he reached for my mother, who still stared at me like I'd lost my ever-loving mind.

I kept talking, hoping to get through to her. "She was in Puerto Vallarta. At a spa," I improvised. I couldn't tell them she was at a rehab facility. I didn't even know if that was true or somewhere she'd been forced to go so the press couldn't get to her. "She was...shot...in an alley. They shot her. She must've screamed for help, or..." I threw up my hands. "I don't know why."

My mother hadn't moved an inch, and her expression hadn't changed. "How do you know this?"

I couldn't lie to my parents. "Because Nicole had gotten involved with some bad people. She was...engaged."

"Engaged!" my father exclaimed.

"Yes," I told him. "I didn't know. I'd never even met the guy before she sent me an invitation to be in the wedding."

"You were with your sister constantly." My mother waved away my explanation. "How could you not have met him?"

"Because he's a criminal, Mom. And I think she knew I'd try to talk her out of it."

"A criminal?" my dad repeated. Tears ran down his cheeks as he tried to comprehend what I was saying.

"I've been in hiding ever since, because I look so much like her. They're afraid the ones who killed her will come after me. Thinking I'm her," I explained. I didn’t bother to clarify that “they” were criminals also. And that I had fallen in love with one of them myself.

"Oh my god." My father wandered over to the table and clumsily sat in a chair. A few seconds later, heartbreaking sobs echoed through the kitchen. For a moment, I couldn’t move. I’d never heard my father cry like that before. Walking over to him, I bent down and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. We cried together for our loss, my father hanging onto me like a lifeline as my mother stared at us like bugs under a microscope.

When our grief was exhausted, I got up and grabbed a box of tissues from the counter, then took them to my dad. While he cleaned up his face, I turned my attention to my mother, wiping at my own tears. "Mom, I'm so sorry..."

"How long have you known about this?" she asked me, completely dry-eyed.

"What?"

"How long have you known?" she repeated.

I tried to think. "A few weeks now, I guess." I tried to pinpoint the time and couldn't. "I was in hiding—"

"And you couldn't even pick up the goddamn phone and let me know my daughter had died?"

"Nancy. That's enough." My father tried to reprimand her, but there was no anger in his tone. Only grief.

I stared at my mother. She was angry at me. "No. I couldn't. I wasn't allowed. Are you angry because I didn't tell you right away, or because it was Nicole who died and not me?"

"Veda, you know that's not true," my father said.

I ignored him. This was between my mother and me. For my entire life, she’d made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. And why? Because I’d been born with a heart defect? I’d never understood why she’d nurtured Nicole and discarded me. And I don’t know if I ever would.

"I'll believe this when I hear it from someone official," she decided. "Perhaps your sister just got tired of you and ran off somewhere with her new husband."

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