That beeping sound was going to drive me crazy.

And Thea…well, she was going to break my heart. She cried silently, standing next to me as she stared through the glass.

She hadn’t made a sound since I’d arrived and she’d thrown herself at me. Arms wrapped around me, she’d whispered brokenly, “Thank you for being here… I’m so sorry.”

Sorry.

Yeah.

Me too. But she didn’t owe me an apology. She had just as much to grieve as I did, maybe more. Our worlds collided in a way neither of us ever expected. It wouldn’t change anything, and it wasn’t her fault.

Thea’s brother, Nicky, was so frustrated by his mother’s treatment of him that he ran out. And how could anyone possibly blame him for that? Who wouldn’t want to escape the life he was subjected to? Except this time, he didn’t hesitate to get behind the wheel of a car. Those four wheels were a means to an end, one that would put miles and miles of distance between him and that woman who called herself a parent. The problem was that Nicky didn’t have a driver’s license, but he didn’t let that stop him.

Too bad his escape was short-lived.

Too bad he didn’t know how to steer a car.

Too bad other people were on the road.

People like my brother and his friends.

My brother, Harry, had been parked on the side of the road with some friends he regularly spent time with. There was no real reason they were in that particular spot at that specific time. But it was the wrong place and the wrong time, because being there put them in Nicky’s path as he came careening out onto the main road from the long, elaborate driveway of the Kent estate.

Nicky crashed head-on into Harry’s parked car.

Two tenuous worlds violently collided.

Harry’s friend, Jeffrey, died instantly.

Brady, Harry’s other friend, wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. He was thrown from the car. According to the doctors, two of Brady’s pelvic vertebrae had snapped. He had compound fractures on his ribs too, and had to be put on a ventilator. There was little to no hope he’d ever come off it.

Nicky was flung from the car he stole. He wasn’t doing too well, but he was likely going to have a better outcome than Brady. And definitely better than the dead boy.

My brother was knocked unconscious during the collision, but when he came to, he had barely a scratch on him. Everyone was astounded about Harry. He’d been sitting in the driver seat when Nicky hit them, and of the four boys, he was the only one who walked away unscathed. The paramedics cleared him at the scene, and he rode along in the ambulance van with Brady. He refused to leave the ER even after the police took his statement and the doctors released him into my mother’s care.

There wasn’t much to be thankful for, given we were dealing with one fatality, possibly two, if Brady’s condition didn’t improve. I tried to be grateful that my brother was okay and that Nicky was alive. I was, but their being alive was overshadowed by the knowledge that two families would never be the same after today.

Of course, it could’ve been much, much worse.

There was a clatter behind me, rhythmic and sharp. The woman had the worst timing ever, daring to show up in the middle of my effort to be grateful. Disgust and rage ripped through me at the sight of her as she strode into the room. Every muscle in my body went rigid, but I still kept staring at the woman put on this earth only to make people suffer.

Thea’s mother.

She wore a pair of four-inch heels that made her appear much taller than normal. Even so, she was still shorter than Thea and I were, the loving young woman who I believed would always be at my side. I took a breath to prepare myself, and when that evil bitch stopped halfway across the room, I assumed it was so she wouldn’t have to look up at me, but I could’ve been wrong. It might’ve been because she couldn’t stand the thought of looking up at her daughter—one of only two good things she did with her life.

Thea and Nicky Kent.

Here was Melody Kent.

Evil bitch.

The worst parent ever.

Her dark, graying hair was swept back from a face that was starting to show its age no matter how much she spent on Botox, facelifts, and beauty creams. Her eyes raked over me, then flicked to Thea, lips pursed in disgust. I resisted the urge to sneer at her, but only because I knew it would add to Thea’s troubles. It was worth repeating that her mother was a bitch of the first order.

Melody Kent made a habit of taking out her problems on her closest, easiest targets—Thea and Nicky.

Thea had told me once that she and Nicky were connected to Melody Kent by blood and nothing else. The woman had no love for her kids and even less respect. It was something I could never understand until I actually had my first run-in with the woman years ago. She was the living personification of a true-to-life ice queen, perpetually dressed in silk, powdered up and perfumed. She breathed, moved, and thought like a human, but emotions were foreign to her.

“Are you proud of yourself, Dorothea?”

Thea Kent’s shoulders stiffened. Turning slowly, her eyes went cold.

Melody Kent’s eyes drifted my way, and she waved a self-important hand at me dismissively. “You may go.”

“With all due respect, I’m not here for you, Mrs. Kent,” I drawled. I took pleasure in emphasizing the title of ‘Mrs.’ because of what I knew, despite my promise to try and never antagonize the woman on the other side of the room.

“You will leave now…or I shall call the authorities.”

I slid an arm around Thea’s shoulders and her body relaxed. “I’m not going anywhere,” I reiterated.

All the air got sucked out of the room, as though the universe itself was bracing for our showdown.

“Try having his dad escort him out, Mother,” Thea said through the tense silence.

“Don’t you dare speak to me that way,” she said through clenched teeth, then turned slightly to me. “Perhaps I should send the authorities to look more closely at your brother instead.”

“Sure. You might want to ask for my Uncle Daniel…the police chief. He’ll point out that Harry’s car was parked when the accident happened. But go ahead. Knock yourself out.” Saying that gave me no satisfaction. Nicky may have been at the wheel, but the whole thing was a tragic accident. With a muted smile, I stroked a hand down Thea’s back, then back up, trying to draw some of the tension away.

“You think your connection to the chief of police will save your brother?”

“No,” Thea spoke before I could reply, taking a small step forward to attract her mother’s attention. “It’s the witnesses and the surveillance video the police recovered, and the off-duty cop who also saw the accident. Those are the things that’ll save Harry. Now just…stop, okay, Mother? Stop it. And as you’re not here to show an iota of concern for Nicky…your own son…can you just leave?”

Melody Kent cocked her head, her eyes questioning and cold, almost snake-like. She still didn’t look through the glass to her son—to the boy doctors said might not survive the injuries he sustained after being ejected from the car. Maybe she’d never look, because if she did, she’d have to come to terms with the fact that he only jumped into that car—her car—to make his umpteenth attempt at running away after she’d laid into him yet again.

Next to me, I felt Thea shudder. I wanted to take her away from all of this. Two more years, I thought. Two more years and I’d be done with my bachelor’s degree. I promised my father I’d go to college, give it a shot. After that, I could do what I wanted. My post-graduation plan was to marry Thea and get the hell out of this town. In two more years. But that time seemed longer than ever now.

I gently squeezed her shoulders to comfort her. It was all I could do for now, since we’d never leave Nicky alone here.

“I’m here to be with my children,” Melody Kent said to Thea, her voice sharp. “Both you and Nicholas.”

“You’ve never been there for us in my life,” Thea replied. “Why start now?”

“You rude, selfish little--”

“That’s enough, Melody.”

The calm yet commanding voice echoed deep with authority, yet was brimming over with compassion. It didn’t come from me. Compassion wasn’t something I could spare when Melody Kent was near.

It was my father.

Dr. Braxton Vanderbilt had an imposing figure. At the age of forty-eight, he was the youngest physician to head the large trauma hospital on the outskirts of Baton Rouge. He was the heir to one of the largest family fortunes in the country. At one time, I’d been told that Dad could’ve become the wealthiest man in Louisiana, but did not jump at the chance he’d seen as an empty, loveless arrangement.

My father wanted a marriage, not a merger.

That merger would’ve been with one Melody Kent, who would’ve been perfectly fine with such an arrangement.

Melody Kent had as many dollar signs behind her name as my family did, possibly more, but loved the idea of marriage to my father. Of course, that idea didn’t take root, and now, the woman had accumulated a fair number of ended marriages and failed relationships. She also had three other children from previous marriages, but those children’s fathers had had the presence of mind to take them away from Melody Kent. If only Thea and Nicky had been so lucky. They were the ones who got screwed over.

Because their mother was a miserable bitch.

I couldn’t stand that she was so miserable that she made her kids’ lives a living hell, but I didn’t hate her.

Couldn’t.

She made Thea, and Thea was my world.

Melody Kent was akin to all the pollution that cluttered up a world. But if I had to put up with her to be with the only girl in the world I ever wanted, then fine.

And I had my father backing me up.

That had to sting.

“It’s best if you drop the idea of asking either of my sons to leave,” Dad said calmly, not looking away from Melody. “And the suggestion…your threat to have the police deal with Harry…well, it’s an empty threat.”

Harry was in a private waiting room with my mom. He was crying, the last I’d seen him.

“I need to see my boy,” Melody said tightly.

I stiffened when Dad looked my way. “Thea needs me.”

“I know.” Dad nodded. “But perhaps the two of you could go get some food…or some coffee. Use the doctors’ lounge. They know you. It’s more private.”

Thea hesitated, her eyes still locked on her mother’s face. “You can call the cops all you want. It was an accident. Not Harry’s fault, and not Nicky’s. If anyone’s to blame, Mother, it’s you. So please, don’t try to make anyone believe anything different.”

Melody Kent barely glanced at her. “You know nothing about what happened. You weren’t there. God knows where you were actually hiding out. Where were you, anyway? We tried to call.”

“I may not have been at home at the time, but Nicky phoned me hours before it happened,” she replied, avoiding the pointed question about her whereabouts because she was with me. “Nicky was frantic, Mother. He was crying. Again. You called him all those horrible names. Stupid, an idiot, a moron.” Thea’s voice rose with each word. “How can you stand here acting righteous when you said those things to him? And because he has to stay in high school for a bit longer than other kids?”

“Thea, that’s enough,” her mother hurled across the room. “It’s a lie and you know it.”

But Thea didn’t care that my father was around. She paused only when she saw her mother slowly turning to look at her. “I have a voicemail message that says otherwise, Mother.” She lifted her phone out from her pocket and held it at arm’s length, screen facing toward her mother. “It’s a message from Nicky with you yelling at him in the background.”

Melody Kent’s jaw tightened and her lips pressed together in a thin line. Her disdain was so obvious it all but hung in the air. She had nothing to add.

“The message is saved now, Mother. Would you like to hear it? Shall I play it for LeVan? For Dr. Vanderbilt? Nicky was so determined to get away from you, he locked himself in his room—and you and I know how he feels about locks.”

“He called you.” Melody’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe if you’d answered, this wouldn’t have happened. This is your—”

“Don’t…it’s your own daughter…your own kids,” I shouted, not even bothering to control my voice. It echoed and boomed, filling the room and causing Melody to flinch. For a brief moment, she even shrank away. Something vicious and satisfied twisted inside me. “Don’t say it.”

She took three quick steps toward me, palm ready to strike, but then she stopped.

Or was stopped.

When she went to slap me, the slim, dark brown fingers belonging to Toya Vanderbilt, my mother, wrapped around Melody’s pale wrist and jerked her backward, sending her half spinning. Melody’s designer heels wobbled under her, but she steadied herself in time and remained upright.

“Don’t mistake my being nice for being a pushover, Melody. The day you lay a hand on either of my boys is the day you’ll find out who you’re dealing with.”

Harry stood behind her and at first, he seemed ready to jump into the melee in my defense too, but caught sight of Nicky on the other side of the glass and froze. Thea sidestepped her mother and walked over to him, pulling him into a tight hug. He stood nearly a head taller, but clung to her, shaking.

“I’m sorry, Thea,” he said, sounding as though he was working hard to fight back tears. “I’m sorry. If I weren’t parked in that spot… I’m so sorry…”