Page 71 of Bad Blood

My heart stills as if it’s going to stop beating, but I will it to continue going.

“What, Mom? Tell me.”

“Cal was hired to investigate your father. While he was digging around, he found out that Jack, the man who abused you, paid your father money to have you.” Her voice breaks and my heart shatters into shards of fragile glass as I struggle to comprehend what she’s telling me.

“What do you mean? I don’t… understand.” My voice shakes and the rest of me follows. My brain is rejecting the information even though my heart has already received it.

“Billie, your father accepted payments for Jack to rape you.” Tears stream down her cheeks. “He did it because it meant he could climb higher in the firm.”

I stand as if invisible strings pull me up and hold me in place. My arms flop to my sides and my mouth slackens.

My trembling lips move, but no words come out, although there are a myriad of thoughts racing through my mind.

“D…Dad…” I choke out.

“Yes. It was him, Billie. And when I killed Jack, I just made it easier for him to get the position he wanted. All those years, he held me captive and made me believe I was in the wrong, when it was him. He did terrible things to people, but he destroyed us. He stole the light from your eyes and he didn’t even care. He just wanted money and power so much that he sold his little girl’s virginity to a predator to get where he wanted to go and that is why I don’t want you anywhere near him or anywhere near L.A.”

A sound like a tortured cry pours from my throat and all I can do is scream.

Emotions attack me from right and left, ravaging my insides.

Fear. Anger. Disappointment. Hurt. Pain. Sorrow.

Hatred.

It all slams into me like a tsunami. As I fall and my soul weeps with tears from my heart, Mom catches me.

People say the truth can set you free, but my truth anchored me into hell and shattered the glass house I never even knew I lived in.

Chapter21

Chad

There’s only one vindictive bitch who has the balls to do what was done to Billie and me.

One.

One who would know the password to my phone because I made the mistake of telling her when I was drunk out of my mind.

Of all the drunken hookups I’ve had with Jenna, I regret that the most. I regret them all, but that one was the kicker. The thing that took me down when I least expected it.

I figured out it was Jenna who put the whole thing together the instant I saw the video playing.

She’d have known I would figure it out, too—and that it was she who drugged me. That was why I couldn’t find her anywhere yesterday when shit was going down.

At the club, she must have slipped something into my drink when she hugged me. Then all she had to do was watch and wait. I’ll never know what she actually wanted from me. But when she saw what was on my phone, she must have decided she’d hit the jackpot. The video and the contract I emailed Billy were two damning weapons she used against both of us.

Yesterday, my day was split between looking for her and trying to call Billie.

Perhaps it wasa good thing I didn’t find Jenna because God knows what I would have done.

I just walked into English class hoping she’s here, and she is.

The bitch is here talking with her group of disciples as if nothing happened.

I know her so well. That’s why I knew to try here first thing. Since she knows me too, she knew I’d be mad as fuck yesterday and if she were a guy, I’d kill her—no exaggeration. In the Bratva, when a fucker does what she did to me, the answer is death.

There’s no way around it.

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