“They told me you were dead,” she says the words like they pour out of her soul. “They told me you were stillborn.” I take a step back as if she struck me. “I begged to see you. To hold you. To tell you how much I loved you, but they refused. My mother and sister were adamant it wasn’t something I wanted to see. They stood beside me as I picked out a fucking casket for you to be buried in. It was the size of a bread box. My sister told me she would take care of everything for me.” She puts her hands on her stomach. “I forced my mother to give me a phone and then I called Carl. He was waiting to come and take me away with him. Take us away with him. But I couldn’t face him. It was my fault you had died.” The pain in her soul is like it had just happened and not twenty-five years ago. “I blamed myself, it was my fault you died.” She shakes her head. “I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t face anyone. I told my mother to take me away and I never looked back. My body healed, my heart—” She shakes her head. “Every single year on your birthday, I would spend in bed. Reliving the nightmare of never holding you. Never being able to tell you how much you were loved.” The sound of her wailing now fills the room.
“Those motherfuckers,” Carl growls from beside her, his body shaking with the same emotions she has.
My head is spinning as I listen to her story. Shock fills me, and I’m about to say something when the doorbell rings. “It’s like Grand Central Station in here,” I mumble, going to the door. It happens so fast I don’t even know it’s happening. One minute, I’m pulling open the door, and the next minute, my name is being roared out by Caleb, and then everything goes black.
Chapter 36
Caleb
“It’s like Grand Central Station in here,” Sierra mumbles from beside me and moves away from me, heading to the door. I turn back to see her birth parents on the couch, her father now sitting beside her mother as she sobs in his arms. The whole story has been mind-blowing to say the least.
The next couple of seconds happen so fast, I don’t even think I know what’s going on. Sierra opens the door, and she has one hand on the doorknob while she looks up at the guy who is there.
Something pushes me toward the door. I don’t know what it is, and I can’t explain it, but the minute I get close enough, I see his hand straighten up. It takes me half a second to register that he’s aiming a gun at her. The look on his face is filled with rage. “I told you to stop looking.” It’s the only thing he gets to say before I roar out her name.
“Sierra!” I rush to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pushing her to the side when the gun goes off. There is chaos all around me as I cover her body with my own.
“Fuck,” the man swears, looking down at us, his gun aimed at us.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Carl shouts, and the man turns to look toward them.
“Are you crazy?” Fiona shouts, coming to stand next to them, and I look down at Sierra, whose eyes are closed.
“Sierra, baby,” I say as wetness fills my chest, and I look down to see she’s bleeding. “She’s been shot.” I get off her, looking down at her to see that she’s been shot in the shoulder.
“Don’t think you’ll get away with this, Peter!” Fiona yells her brother’s name, as I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial 911, leaving it to the side.
“We need some towels!” I shout to them, and Peter aims his gun at all of us.
“Move and I’ll shoot you all.” His brownish-blond hair that was perfectly coiffed when he was standing outside the door is now becoming disheveled, just like he is. He waves the gun around, and Carl now looks like he’s about to charge him, but he steps half in front of Fiona.
“You had to go and fuck everything up!” he screams at Sierra. “We took care of this shit twenty-five years ago.”
“What are you talking about?” Fiona asks.
“You think we were going to give you the inheritance with that no-good piece of shit, who was just with you because all he saw when he looked at you was dollar signs?” He points the gun at Carl. “You went and got knocked up like a stupid slut instead of listening to us when we told you to walk away from him.”
“You think I gave two shits about the money?” Carl retorts, trying to push Fiona behind him.
“She’s bleeding!” I yell, taking off my shirt and pushing it on her shoulder to stop the bleeding. “For fuck’s sake, we need help.” I look over at my phone to see that I’m connected to 911 and hoping like fuck they get here fucking fast. “She’s been shot. We need to get her help. If anything happens to her—” I stare at Peter, who just puts his head back and laughs.
“Good. Hopefully, now she really fucking dies, and we don’t have to deal with this shit anymore.” He shakes his head. “The minute the kid was born, we had to get rid of her. I told them we should have just dumped her in the garbage like she was, but fucking Sonia didn’t listen to me. No, she took her and dumped her off at a fire station, for fuck’s sake.” The more he talks, the more rage fills me, my eyes going to Sierra’s beautiful face as I plead with her silently to open her eyes. “The number of people we had to pay off to keep your fucking secret was insane. Doctors, nurses, journalists, police chiefs, the list went on and on, all because you couldn’t keep your fucking legs closed.”
“I loved him,” Fiona declares. “He was the only thing that mattered. I didn’t want any of the money. I wanted nothing but him and my daughter, and you guys just took that away from me.”
“So irrational.” Peter shakes his head, the hand holding the gun starting to get really fucking shaky. “I was supposed to get it all…me.” He points the gun at himself. “I was the oldest, but you”—he points at Fiona—“you with your feminist bullshit and how it’s not fair, so our grandfather then changed his fucking will to include you and your kids. Your bastard of a child would get it all because she was first in line. There was no fucking way I was going to allow that to happen.” He shakes his head, and we can hear the sirens now, far off in the distance. “It ends today!” he roars. “It should have ended twenty-five fucking years ago.” He points the gun at Fiona. “You ruined this family”—there is a frightening look in his eyes as he sneers at her—“for nothing.”
The sound of the sirens getting closer makes me close my eyes for a second before I open them back up and look down at Sierra. “Hang on, baby,” I whisper before I see movement in my peripheral vision. Carl charges at him like a bull, leaving Fiona open, but it takes him less than a second to knock Peter off his feet. His shoulder going straight to his stomach, his arm moving high, and the sound of the gun going off. I see Fiona’s eyes go big as she looks down and puts her hand to the side of her stomach.
Blood oozes through her fingers. She takes her eyes away from her hand to Sierra, and the tears flow down her face. “I love you, baby girl,” she says before her legs give out on her, and she falls to her knees.
The sound of sirens now fills the whole house. The red lights flash through the windows and the open door. “In here!” I yell. “They’re here, baby,” I murmur, wanting to shake her to make her wake up. I look over to the side and see Carl on top of Peter, his fists flying one after another on Peter’s face.
The police come in first, guns drawn and I see it’s Deputy Burke. “Drop your weapons,” he orders, and I look at him.
“One weapon,” I inform him, and he looks over at me. “On the floor over there.” I motion with my chin toward the gun that fell from Peter’s hand when he was tackled. One of the officers behind him comes in and kicks it aside while the firemen come in with the first responders.
“She was shot,” I tell them as they come over to me, “and so was she.” I motion toward Fiona, who is lying by herself. “Carl!” I shout his name, but he’s in another world.
