Deadly Seduction (20 page)

“Well then what is it?”

“Listen, my parents want me to go to Stanford and then Harvard Law School. My life has been mapped out since I was five. I don’t have a say in it. It was always his wish for us to have an attorney in the family and I’m it. My mother agrees.”

“What about the baby?”

“I don’t know. I guess I will have to approach them and find out.”

Cillian sat beside me on a blanket that covered up the forest ground. “I’ll go with you, all right? I don’t want them to think this was some one night stand and I’m not man enough to face my responsibilities because I am.”

I nodded and tried to hide my anxiety as he helped me up and grabbed the blanket.

It didn’t take us long to get to his Harley and I hopped up on behind him.

What I wouldn’t give for a razor blade and a soft white towel.

The last few months had been torture because all the sudden my parents were concerned about what I did after school. Even with all my extra-curricular activities and Kyra covering for me, they’d started watching me like a hawk.

Cillian and I were lucky to see each other once or twice a week and those were usual brief interludes filled with an abundance of teenage hormones. We’d stopped being so careful and just had sex because it took the pain away.

Other times, I felt like I was stuck in a bad remake of
Romeo and Juliet
. Kyra had told me about cutting and how it could ease the pain. All I needed was a straight razorblade and a white face towel. I started in places where no one could see like my inner thighs and my upper arms. Small surface cuts that barely broke the skin and could heal fairly quickly.

The more my parents cracked down, the worse I got until I was cutting almost every day. The same areas, re-opening old wounds and then putting a Band-Aid over the area.

My mother thought I’d become Ms. Klutz all the sudden and my dad didn’t care because he never saw me enough to see the bruises.

We arrived at my house and I jumped off the back of the Harley, typed in the code and hopped back on. In the process, my calf hit the exhaust pipe quickly and a brand new kind of pain registered.

I breathed through my teeth and held on to Cillian’s waist. We drove inside the gated community and came to a stop in front of my house. I got off the bike and looked down at my leg. A scarlet bruise appeared and although it wasn’t a bad enough burn to scar, it would hurt for days.

Cillian looked down at my leg before his eyes met mine. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said and refused to look him in the eyes.

He grabbed my arm and rolled up my long sleeved blouse. “
This
is what I’m talkin’ about, Sela! You don’t think I know a cutter when I see one? Why do you think I got this tattoo?”

He pulled up his left shirt and showed me toxic skull crossbones tattoo.

“What am I looking for?”

“Stop playing stupid. You see the raised skin? I went too fucking deep one day when I was cutting. My dad didn’t want my mom to find out and he said if I fucking liked pain so much, I should start gettin’ inked up. You know how painful it is to have someone tattoo scar tissue? It hurts like a bitch anyway but that’s a special kind of pain.”

He slid his sleeve down. “Anyway, whenever I feel the urge to cut, I usually talk to my dad and he lets me get a tattoo instead.”

I knew the jig was up.

I had to come clean.

“Fine, I’ve been cutting myself but only because my parents are assholes and they won’t let us see each other. Hell, they won’t even let me drive my Land Rover unless I’m going to school and I have to bring it right back home. I don’t know…it’s like they know I’m seeing someone and the harder they clamp down on me, the harder for me it is to live this way.” I pulled down my sleeve and involuntarily shivered.

Cillian clasped my hand in mine. “C’mon, let’s go and get this over with.”

The next twenty minutes seemed like a dream with Helga opening the door and my mother striding toward me before she stopped in her tracks.

If I was good looking then my mother was beautiful and sexy with her perfect figure, creamy alabaster skin, long flaxen blonde hair and arctic blue-gray eyes. She had classic German features; she was only thirty-five yet her regimen was such that she looked like a young woman in her twenties.

She wore a black fitted Chanel dress and high-heeled Yves Saint Laurent shoes. “Gisela, what are you doing and
who
is this
boy
?” Her accent slight yet her tone was beyond condescending.

“This is Cillian Cox—”

“—listen, there is no easy way to break this to you because Gisela won’t work up the nerve to tell you but she’s pregnant and we’re going to have a baby.”

Both my mother and I looked at Cillian with mouths agape.

“
Nein, das ist nicht passiert!
” Mom exclaimed before she began to back away from the both of us. “Raymond!”

I breathed loudly. “That went well. My mother is now ranting in German how I’ve lost my mind. Cillian, go home. You don’t want to be here when my dad comes down the hall.”

He grabbed my hand and held it tightly. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve gotta be here for you.”

“No, you don’t. He’s not violent…at least not with women. He’s never touched my mother or I indecently. You can say a lot of things about my dad but he won’t hurt me—”

“Yeah? You’re lucky because when I get home, I’m gonna get my ass beat so forgive me if I’m not exactly in a gung-ho mood to get back to the Clubhouse.”

My heart thundered in my chest for what seemed like an eternity before my father presented himself, my mother still by his side.

“Let go of my daughter’s hand before I break yours,” my father said in a deep, commanding voice.

Cillian let go of my hand albeit reluctantly. “Sir, I want to marry your daughter. I love her—”

“You…don’t know the first thing about love.” My father lit a Cuban cigar and dragged on it before he let the smoke billow out of his mouth. “This is what’s gonna happen, young man. Your father and I are going to have a long talk. Then, I’m going to find a place to put my daughter so she can see out this shameful pregnancy and the baby will be put up for adoption.”

“Mr. Jackson, please don’t do this to us…”

“Then, Gisela will finish high school, graduate from Stanford University before she goes to Harvard and she will receive her law degree. You understand that?” My father’s amber eyes never wavered from Cillian’s. “Say good bye to your friend, Gisela. You’ll never see him again. Not as long as I’m alive and breathing.”

My father, so handsome with his dark caramel skin, amber eyes, masculine pug nose and full lips was the ugliest human being on earth to me right now. Everything about him was hideous. From his close-shaven dark hair to the gray silk suit and shiny Prada loafers he wore, he was perfect on the outside and rotten on the inside. He represented every disgusting and inhumane thing with the world and I wanted to spit in his face and show him my scars.

The goodbye never happened. My mother was beside me, and before I knew it, she hurriedly marched me to my room. I just wanted to be alone and cry but she sat behind me and began to brush my hair like she’d done when I was a little girl.

“Don’t worry,
liebling
. This will all be like a bad dream. Just a few awful months and then you will be back here, all right? You couldn’t handle a child and go to university—it isn’t possible.” She paused and began to sing to me in German.

I tuned her out and just wished for this whole fucking day to be over.

“Let’s face it. No daughter of mine will ever marry
biker
trash, especially those
Cox
men. After how your father has treated you like a princess your whole life, do you want to be reduced to being treated like
scheiße
—”

“Herr Jackson…he’s fallen out!” Helga exclaimed as she threw open my bedroom door.

My mother stood. “You silly fool—have you called nine-one-one?”

“Yes!”

I hoped my dad would be okay but as I laid down on my bed, the only running mantra in my head was a wish for death.

The Present

I paced up and down the hallway at Sierra Surgery Hospital.

Most of the LS members were outside smoking while it was up to us old ladies to hold down the forte inside.

Dr. Carlson approached us reluctantly but once he saw me, he smiled. I’d managed to get his son out of a major drunk driving incident when they lived in Lake Tahoe. Once he was promoted and landed his job at Sierra, the family had moved to Carson City because it was easier for everyone and he wouldn’t have to commute.

“Gisela, how are you?” he greeted with warm green eyes.

“I’m fine, Dr. Carlson—”

“—shite on how Gisela is doin’,” Bronaugh interrupted in a cold voice. “How the fook is me husband?”

Dr. Carlson turned toward Bronaugh. “Not good. The man has undergone a triple bypass. He’s going to be held in the hospital for a while so we can monitor his progress—”

“How long’s a while?”

Cillian had snuck up behind me and his hands clutched my shoulders softly.

“We’re going to keep him in the hospital for about a week. He can go home but full recovery usually takes about twelve weeks. He’s going to have to change his diet, start exercising and he’s definitely going to have to give up smoking. This is a very serious surgery he’s been through and if he wants to be around to see old age, he’s going to have to be proactive in his own recovery.”

Bronaugh merely nodded before she turned and walked toward the hospital exit.

I turned to face Cillian and his crystal blue eyes were bright with unshed tears. “What brought it on?”