Page 79 of Double Edged Hearts
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cora
We’re heading to LA.
That’s all I know. As to what will happen after we get there, I don’t know. I haven’t been told any more than that.
I’m sitting in the waiting lounge of the private airport I’ve been taken to.
I’m on the first floor. There are a few benches that look more like what you’d see in a sports arena. The area is wide with an open space that allows me to see the field surrounding the hangar, the landing strip, and the jet we’ll be boarding in a little while.Fifteen minutes.
I’m surrounded by men who are watching me. I don’t know where Richard is, and I no longer care.
I’m a shell. I sit here like an empty, hollow shell. Numb from the inside out, just moving around and doing what I’m told by default, but there are no thoughts there.
Then my mind stirs and moves to Alex and how I wanted that dream we spoke of. I wanted it so badly. I wanted to wear his ring and be hisMrs. Alex. I wanted him to be mine too, and I wanted that future of happiness and children.
I won’t have that now because he’s dead and I’m… whatever I am.
When we argued, I told him he was just like my father. I was right, but not in the context in which I said it.
He was exactly like my father,who’d loved me. I will call Peter Monroe my father until the day I die because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he truly, truly loved me and would have done anything for me. I will never accept Richard as my father. Blood means nothing. It’s shit when there are truth and facts.
He’s evil. Truly evil for all that he’s done, and I can’t believe he’s going to get away with it. The same way he got away with killing my parents.
Thinking of the truth still makes me sick. It still makes my head light. My mind still can’t process what I’ve been told and accept it. I still can’t believe Richard is the same person I grew up looking up to and trusting wholeheartedly.
I’m so ashamed of myself for spending the last four years trying to unravel the love from my heart for a father who was innocent. In my heart I know I should never have believed it. My love for both my father and mother should have been strong enough for me to know that something wasn’t right with Richard’s story.
It was my trust for Richard, and yes, my love for him too that both blinded me and blindsided me. He caught me off guard at a time when I was getting so serious about Alex and I was stuck in my own feelings. Scared by them and how much I loved him.
I look away from the jet when Richard approaches me with a cup of water.
He sits in the chair across from me and keeps his gaze steady like he’s willing me to say something.
When I came to this morning, I was in a room and he was sitting by the bed waiting for me to wake up. I haven’t spoken to him since last night, just crying by default. The tears automatically stream down the corners of my eyes as my soul weeps with loss.
He holds the water out to me to take and I look away.
“Drink it,” he orders.
I don’t like the tone of his voice. I look back at him, take the cup, and throw it down on the floor, watching the water splash out on his suit.
He growls his displeasure. “Is this how you’re going to be?” he snaps, drying off.
“I don’t want anything from you. Don’t give me anything else.”
“Just like your mother.”
“Don’t… don’t you dare do that. Don’t talk about her. You killed her. You did it. You did it and told me bullshit lies,” I throw back.
“Cora, sometimes accidents happen.”
“It wasn’t an accident. You said it yourself. You went there to kill my father.”
“He wasn’t your father.Iam.”
I shake my head at him. “You can believe whatever you want. I don’t have to. I don’t care who you are, or what you are. You aren’t my father.”
