Chapter 11
Harper
“Harper! Family meeting!”
The door shook on its hinges as I peeled myself from the covers. What the fuck was happening now? There wasn’t a rally today, I didn’t have a doctor’s appointment, and my mother didn’t have anywhere to drag me to in order to keep a watchful eye on me.
What the hell could this family meeting be about?
I hated these things. Where the three of us sat around the table and pretended to give a shit. Usually, it was just my father telling my mother and me what we should and shouldn’t be doing. Where we should be going, where we should be seen, what we should say if someone from the press approached us. It was annoying, and I was over it. I was over being commanded, and I was over being instructed on what I was supposed to do because of how it would reflect on him.
But I didn’t have a choice, unless I wanted my father to take my door off its frame.
Throwing the covers off my head, I slipped my feet into some slippers. I threw my robe around my body, barely getting it tied before I headed downstairs. The staircase groaned underneath my feet, and I made a mental note of which ones were making noises.
They would be the ones I’d have to avoid when I finally left.
I came around the staircase and headed for the kitchen. I could smell the aroma of freshly-pressed orange juice. I made my way for the kitchen table to pour myself a glass, but when I looked up, I realized my mother had already been crying.
How long did it take me to get down here?
“Sit down, sweetheart,” my father said.
“Juice?” my mother asked.
“No, thank you. What’s going on?” I asked.
My parents looked at each other warily before my mother poured me a glass anyway.
“Honey, someone’s made a threat against me,” he said.
“Doesn’t that happen often?” I asked.
“Not to this extent,” he said.
“Is that why you had all the security at the rally yesterday?” I asked.
“More or less.”
“Well, what did the threat say?” I asked.
“A couple of weeks ago,” my father began, “a package arrived in the mail. It had a few things in it, but among them were photos. Pictures of the family. Of us. Of you.”
“Pictures,” I said.
“Yes, sweetie. Pictures of us out and about. Through the window of our home. Some were of you alone in town, which we’ll talk about later,” my mother said.
“There’s a reason I tell you not to go out into this city alone,” my father said.
“Did you come down here to scold me about it?” I asked. “Or scare me with a threat?”
“We brought you down here to inform you that whoever’s doing this isn’t playing around, Harper. This isn’t a game, and I would appreciate it if you tucked in your attitude and showed us a bit of respect. That protection detail at the rally yesterday was for you.”
“But I thought all of us were in the pictures,” I said.
“Yes, but in the note-”
My father held up his hand to my mother, signaling her to shut up. And in true, obedient form… she did.
“Among the photos was a note, and in it, the writer stated I needed to stop running for Mayor. If I didn’t, they said they would take matters into their own hands to ensure I didn’t win.”
“I still don’t know what that has to do with me,” I said.
“It’s going to scare her,” my mother said.
Nothing could scare me more than you, father dear.
“What?” I asked. “What’s going on? What’s happening, Dad?”
“One of your pictures, when you were in town alone, had your head circled in red. With an ‘X’ through it. I could only assume that when they meant ‘take matters into their own hands,’ they meant harming you in some way.”
I felt my stomach sink to my knees. My head became dizzy, and my knees grew weak. Someone wanted to kill me? Who the fuck would want to kill me? My father was the asshole. He was the one spewing bullshit day after day. Why did they want to harm me!?
“I told you it was too much,” my mother said as she scrambled for me. “She’s pregnant, Ryan. We can’t bring stuff like this down on her head.”
“It’s not my fault she’s pregnant. And if she wants to be an adult and raise this child right, she’s gotta learn the truths about this world. Especially if I win this election. She’ll always be a target if I do. You both will be. It’s what you signed up for when you said you’d help me with my campaign.”
“No one signed up to die for you, Ryan,” my mother hissed.
I felt my mom wrap her arms around me as my father huffed. Typical. He could even take a threat on my life and somehow make it about him. I sighed into her neck and drew in her comforting smell. The floral undertones of her bright perfume. For the longest time, I’d associated it with comfort. I would crawl into my mother’s lap as a child, bury myself into her bosom, and drink her in like a glass of fresh water.
But now, her perfume smelled stale. Tainted with the weakness, she had succumbed to and the actions she took to make me fall in her footsteps.
“Should we go to the police?” I asked.
“That won’t be necessary. I’ve decided to hire on The Black Angels.”
I felt my entire body stiffen as my mother pulled away from me.
“They’re going to be able to protect us better than the police can,” my mother said. “They’re quiet, and we’ll have their protection around the clock from now until the election. And this means that if you want to go out in public, you won’t need one of us. You can take one of them and spread your wings a bit.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Patrice,” my father said. “But yes. They’ll be much better all around than the police.”
I knew what was going on. My father liked the fact that he could keep The Black Angels from talking to the press. The police had loose jaws when it came to the local newspaper, but The Black Angels didn’t. They’d sign anything to get work, which meant signing away their ability to talk to the press if it meant securing work.
“You hired outlaws to protect me,” I said.
“To protect us,” my father said.
“And you’re okay with this,” I said as I looked at my mother.
“It… takes some getting used to. You know, digesting things,” she said.
“But what does that say about us? Won’t that mess up your campaign?” I asked.
“I’m touched that you’re still so concerned about my campaign,” my father said.
“I’m still hired by your campaign to care, so of course I care,” I said.
“It’s fine,” he said. “They are good at what they do. The man you pointed out to me earlier. The one backstage? He was the one coming after you to make sure you were all right. We had a breach backstage at the end of the rally. He was the one that chased them down.”
“We had a what?” my mother asked.
No, we didn’t. There was no fucking breach. That was Cade trying to talk his way closer to me. Fuck. Was he the one that organized this job in the first place?
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that one of the Black Angels took those hoodlums down and not the police. They’re so spread out with the other crimes that happen around this city, and my family deserves the best. I don’t want this story hitting the media because it’ll mess with the election, and I don’t want lazy ass police officers guarding the two of you,” he said.
“So… they’re just going to be here. Around the house,” I said.
“Around the house and around the clock,” my father said.
“Just like that.”
“Just like that,” he said.
I was speechless. As I sat back into the chair at the table, my father got up and walked away. Like his portion of the meeting was done. I’m sure he had more important things to do, like spew more bullshit online for his social media or whatever it was he did in his fucking office. But I was still processing that The Black Angels would be here.
At my house.
If Cade was the one that worked this deal with my father, then that meant he would be spending a lot more time around me. That meant I would see him more often. And seeing me more often with my stomach growing in size every single day, it would only be a matter of time before it led to the conversation.
The conversation where I would have to tell him this child was his.
Shit.
How the hell was I going to get out of this now?