Horrific images of the last twenty-four hours tormented my thoughts. Raw, unrestrained fear, beating through her chest as I held her, witnessing the light leave her eyes as they rolled back into her her head. Bee was lucky to even be alive, and that alone felt like an impending dagger in my chest.
Despite all this pain inflicted on her, what she feared most was the possibility that she had taken a life regardless of whose it was. That is her sparkling purity. She is good. My treacherous past and present continued to chip away at her polished perfection as long as I allowed.
As I drove up to my destination, Kora stood leaning against the trunk of a tree, looking impatient. I left my jacket on the seat as I close the door behind me. Countless shadows of leaves and branches lurked above us, the only witnesses to the sins I was about to commit.
"Took you long enough. He's awake and he is pissed." She complained.
"Of course he is. Why are you waiting out here?" I asked as I rolled up my sleeves.
"I got bored of listening to all the ways he plans to kill me when we let him out." She shrugged.
"You don't have to worry about that."
"Wait, why? Aiden, you aren't going to kill him. You can't." She stepped in front of me, setting her hands on my shoulders to stop me from going inside.
"Bridget nearly died yesterday. The doctor just told her she cannot speak for two weeks because of what he did to her. I'm getting answers, then, he is dead. If he doesn't talk, he is also dead." I growled. After how much pain she was in this morning, the doctor discovered the source of her pain was a laryngeal injury from the trauma.
"Do you even know what answers you're looking for? You said it yourself, Bridget hasn't been able to even tell you what happened that night." She reasoned.
"It doesn't matter. He's a time bomb." I snapped.
"He is the only family I have, and he was yours too until recently. A year ago, you wouldn't have given a fuck what he did to her. You sure as hell would not dreamed of killing him over it. This is you acting on emotion, not strategy. Whether you like it or not, we need him."
I walked passed her to go inside, dismissive of her objections. A level of anger that hadn't peaked like this in years heated my blood to a new high of a boiling point. Enough is enough. I rolled up my sleeves as I entered the room. The fury I felt when I saw Kai's smug face was volcanic, and the lava was the colour of her suffering.
"Good morning, Aiden."
* * *
A stolen taste of her sweet, heart shaped lips.
The discreet journey of my fingertips along the golden coast of her legs.
Sandy blonde waves brushing against my nose as I whispered forbidden thoughts in her ear.
Rose tinted cheeks when we wrote those thoughts into text messages.
That is all we get, since she was discharged from hospital to her family's house two weeks ago.
Bee had been a little too okay after what happened. Since the concussion kept her from work, she found every excuse possible to stay preoccupied, from shopping with Cara to taking care of her siblings instead of their nanny. She insisted on working out everyday despite her injuries and my objections. The one thing I agreed on with her parents was that she needed rest.
Alec's suspicions towards me faded, but we were still cautious. And for good reason. As I helped her unpack her clothes, I had discovered a fibre optic camera in her room, most likely because Alec hasn't entirely restored his trust in her or me. As a precaution, we 'accidentally' knocked the camera into the trash bin. Parental surveillance plus the doctor's order of a two week vocal rest limited the majority of our communication to text message or Siri dictation.
"How did the car accident take Bridget's voice away?" Megan asked while a handing me a silver whisk. I had somehow gotten roped into helping her make cupcakes for her class's Christmas party. For an eight year old, she was quite persuasive.
Alec and Bridget decided that a car accident to explain her absence was better for optics. A targeted attack suggested that Gallagher Investments had enemies, which unsettled investors.
"I don't know. Maybe the seatbelt hurt her neck or something? Or the way the other car hit hers? Her voice isn't gone. It is just healing." I explained, cracking a couple eggs into the mixture.
"You should really wear an apron." She said for the third time since we started.
"I don't wear aprons." I grumbled. I also hate children and I don't fucking bake, but here I am.
"You are going to get batter on your clothes. Just wear the one Bridget uses." Megan shrugged.
In the interest of not fighting a child, I reluctantly looped my head through the apron and tied it behind my back while she whisked her bowl. Megan had similar mannerisms to Bridget. They creased their eyebrows the same while they were deep in concentration and they attended to every little detail. By the time I finished helping her pour the mixture into the cupcake pan, I realised Bridget said she would be downstairs ten minutes ago.
"I'm going to go check on your sister. Do not touch the oven while I'm gone. If the timer goes off before I'm back, come get me." I instructed as I finished cleaning up. She nodded and ran off to find Dylan and Connor.
I jogged up the stairs to Bridget's room, knocking before I reminded myself she couldn't verbally tell me to come in. She closed her laptop almost immediately as she heard me behind her.
"You cannot be on a computer until the doctor clears you. The screen is bad for the concussion." I scolded. Her irritated expression cracked into a silent laugh when she turned to face me. I was confused until I looked down. I hadn't taken the apron off.
She stood up from the desk. Her dress brushed along the middle of her thigh. Playfulness curved smirk on her face as she used her uninjured hand to pull me against her by my apron straps. Without her voice, she has been communicating through touch a lot.
"This is funny to you?" I said, throwing it on the ground. She shook her head and kissed me, still laughing as she pushed me backwards to sit on the bed.
She swung a knee across my lap to straddle me. Her legs quivered as my fingertips slid up the backs of her thighs under the grey curtain covering her ass. She did her best to look unfazed while I brushed and teased her nipple through the fabric, but I was the one caught off guard by the absence of a bra. My other hand glided up her inner thigh to pull down her underwear. Only, they weren't there as my thumb hit the naked apex of her legs.
"You have been sat here with nothing on under your dress while I was downstairs making fucking cupcakes?" I said, properly irritated over it.
A shit-eating grin creeped to her lips as she rocked her hips against my hand to answer the question before pushing me flat onto the bed. I let her have her fun, holding my arms down as she kissed my neck. Her bare sex grazed the erection tenting in my trousers as my heart pounded in my ears.
"Let you touch you, darling." I exhaled. She shook her head no.
I sat up, surprised, as she stood from the bed. The nerve endings below my ear chilled in her sudden absence. She walked into her closet, presumably to put on a bra and underwear to go downstairs. I followed her, watching her carefully place the bra straps to avoid pressure on the healing bruises. The blue and yellow tinted patches from neck down to her ribcage were almost gone. They would have faded a bit more by now if she didn't overwork herself. She seemed more self-conscious than usual, rushing to put her dress back on to cover herself.
The devilish smile on her face drove me insane. She handed me the black lace material since her injuries left her too sore to bend over. I dropped to my knees to slip her feet through, being extra careful with her casted, sprained ankle. Instead of pulling them up, to her irritation, I let them fall. Her hands gripped my shoulders as I kissed her knee and up her thigh.
"Do you know how badly I want you to ride my mouth under this dress?" She blushed and pointed to her watch to remind me that we were short on time. "I will make you come in under five minutes."
As she shook her head, I dragged her underwear up her legs until she could reach them. When I stood, her mouth latched onto mine, pushing me against the hanging clothes. Her lips teased down my neck like smoke when you need a fire. I trapped a whine in my throat as she discovered a sensitive spot. My muscles twitched at the feeling of her centre brushing the tension in my groin. Just when I lost control and a moan rolled out my lips, she stopped.
"The longer you keep this up, the more you will regret it once I'm finished with you." I warned. She held up her index finger and started typing something.
"You can touch me all you want when you stop lying about what you are doing with you know who." The automated voice said, referring to Kai.
"You cannot be serious. Bridget, I'm not lying, but you cannot be involved. It's safer this way." I disagreed. She shook her head as she typed her response.
"Safer for who? Hiding things is the same as lying. I deserve to be involved."
"It isn't—" A knock on the door cut us off.
"The cupcakes are beeping!" Megan called. Bridget opened the door, erasing frustration from her eyes and forcing smile.
I hooked an arm around her waist to help her go down the stairs. Megan urgently ran to the oven, peaking through the class to see. The sweet aroma of vanilla cupcakes and tension from our unresolved argument thickened the air in the kitchen. Megan bounced around the kitchen, waiting to frost them. I helped for a little bit until Nick texted that I was needed at his house. Bridget glanced at the lit up phone screen hoping for answers.
"I'm sorry, I have to go." I kissed her temple and was met with hurt in her eyes.
The inability to verbally object or demand answers was killing her, but she didn't need her voice for me to see she was pleading that I at least tell her where I was running off to.
She walked with me to the front door, waiting for an explanation. Arms crossed and forehead creased with suspicion, her glare burned into my back.
"You know I hate lying to you. But, I can't tell you about him. I will see you tomorrow when I can hear your voice again, and we will fight about it to your heart's desire." I assured her in a whisper. "Right now, I need to get to Nick's house."
Once I specified, she nodded in understanding that this may have involved Abby, not necessarily Kai. She was discharged the day before Bee, but I had barely seen her since she woke up. It was too unsettling for her to face someone she was supposed to know but didn't.
The look in her eyes kept my feet glued to the marble. I wrapped my arms around her waist, so I could whisper in her ear, "I promise we will talk tomorrow, but I have to get to Nick's house. It might be Abigail. I don't know." She pulled away, examining my face with her chin tilted up on my chest.
"Are we good?" I asked. She nodded again, more sure this time. "Good, kiss me, please."
She held back a small grin, then fitting our lips together perfectly. Quick, but full of intention she couldn't verbally convey.
"Spend the night tomorrow. Your family has gotten you for two weeks. It's only fair." I earned another smile in agreement as I left.
The unknown of what to expect when I got to Nick's condensed in my palms, white knuckling the steering wheel. The drive was too short. I needed more time to know what to say to the sister who took a bullet me and forgot. Did she get her memory back and now regrets finding me? Will she be disappointed that I failed her? I willed my hands to shut off the car to go inside, ignoring the guilt contaminated questions swirling all around me.
To my shock, Abigail answered the door with an excited, "Aiden!"
Two weeks ago, she didn't know I was even alive. No one had even said my name to her. As my name left her lips, I knew her memory had returned. As soon as I stepped inside, she threw her arms around me in a tight embrace, healing the necrotic ache my chest. She looked like herself again. Not a drop of pain on her face. It was the last piece I needed to believe she was okay. I could breathe again.
"I remember, I had this nagging feeling that you were someone important, but Nate was afraid I couldn't handle it if he told me everything. The memories started coming back in pieces last night. This morning I woke up and... I'm so sorry. I can't believe I couldn't remember you..." she trailed off, overwhelmed by her own mind.
"Abby, memory loss is not something you can control or feel guilty about. Trauma, both physical and psychological, does some pretty powerful shit to the mind." I chuckled, wiping her tears away as we sat on the couch. She smiled and handed me a cup of tea before a sip of hers.
"How much do you remember?" I wondered.
"I think everything, but I'm confused about some of it." She began. I nodded for her to continue. "How much does Bridget know?"
"After what happened to you, I had to tell her. It was clear we knew each other. She knows everything." I explained.
"You told Bridget, Alec's daughter, what you've been up to?" She furrowed her eyebrows, "and you don't think she will tell him?"
"No, she would never do that." I answered. She shook her head in disagreement.
"From what I remember, Bridget is a good person. I don't know her as well as you do, but I spent some time with her through Cara. Just like you, she will do anything for family, even if she recognises the faults in her own, because she believes in loyalty."
"How do you know all of this?"
"Like you said, we still have have a lot to learn about each other. I'm quite observant. Bridget values honesty and she doesn't trust freely. She is very reserved. Once she trusted you, you infiltrated her family. You've sabotaged her career and relationships on multiple occasions. You helped your mentor as he held her hostage for a week. You violated her trust by manipulating the most sacred aspects of her life." She said, reminding me of every knife I've used to stab her trust in me.
"What is your point, Ab?" I shifted in my seat, twisting my rings.
"I'm sorry, I know I'm being harsh, but I listened you talk to me about this with no way to respond for hours on end. You did ask for my input." She reminded me in the kindest way she could.
"Did I?" I laughed, suddenly uneasy that she remembered everything I said in moments of peak hopelessness at her bedside.
"The point I am trying to make is that you are a good person that did unimaginable things to someone you care very deeply for. What makes you think she wouldn't do the same to defend her family? Why wouldn't she tell Alec? Or wreck the plan?"
"She wouldn't." I said, taken back and unsure what to say.
"I'm not asking if she would. I am asking why not. I don't think she intends on hurting you. However, it isn't that easy to completely turn on your family. I believed Dad was guilty until I found you, but I still loved him and missed our family. If she can forgive you, why wouldn't she forgive her father?" She asked.
She didn't sound angry, just concerned. Needles of doubt pricked at the bubble of moral high ground I kept Bridget in. I hadn't even entertained the idea that she couldn't be trusted.
"What I've done is entirely different. I am nothing like her father." I defended.
"I agree, but Alec never did anything to harm her directly. You targeted her to get to him."
"You've lost me. What are you trying to say by pointing all of this out?" I asked.
"I'm just afraid of Alec. If he finds out, even by accident, what if Nate is next? What if he hurts you or worse? He clearly isn't afraid to shed blood." She admitted.
"That isn't going to to happen. I won't allow it." I assured her.
"It already happened, Aiden. I don't want you to feel guilty, but you don't know that it won't happen again. It's beyond your control."
"Are you asking me to end it?" I asked.
"No, just be careful with Bridget. I am not convinced she has or will turn on her parents." She warned. "I am telling you to stay focused and finish it. I got shot for this. You have to make it worth taking a bullet for."