Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
“Actually,” I shook my head. “I don’t give a flying fuck if she’s yours or not. You need to leave.”
Just then, Tyler rounded the corner, looking pissed.
His eyes narrowed on Beatrice, and he reached for his handcuffs.
“Beatrice Solomon, you’re under arrest for…” Tyler never got to finish his sentence.
He went to name off a list of laws she’d broken, such as conspiracy to commit murder with a goddamn bomb being at the top of said list.
The moment that Beatrice saw Tyler, she reached into her monstrosity of a purse.
She came back up with something in her hand. A flip phone.
What the fuck?
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” She shook her head. “You’ll get me out of here over my cold, dead body.”
Amadea breathed in a full breath of air, then moved closer to her daughter. “What is he talking about, Beatrice? Bombs? What’s he talking about?”
She sounded like a broken record.
But she also looked almost a little terrified.
Then Beatrice flipped the phone open and started to laugh maniacally.
By this time, we had everyone in the entire building staring at the spectacle.
Frankie was still in her wheelchair, with her nurse standing right behind her. Cora and Luca were farther down the hall, trying to stay out of everyone’s way while also still close enough that they could intervene if something happened.
Then there was Gabe, who was standing behind Tyler, fists clenched.
Tyler, for his part, didn’t look like he cared about the cell phone that Beatrice was aiming at him.
“Step away, or I’ll blow us up.”
Tyler froze at Beatrice’s words.
Along with everyone else in the vicinity.
I stared blankly, trying not to let my growing terror show on my face. Did she really have a bomb?
I studied her face, saw the seriousness there, and the utter lack of caring, and realized that she most likely did. She had a fuckin’ bomb. In her purse. In the middle of a hospital. With our daughter only a foot away.
“Beatrice,” I tried. “Maybe we should go outside and discuss what’s wrong with Frankie? She had a bad fall today, and they still need to sew her lip up.”
Beatrice didn’t seem to comprehend what I was saying to her.
But, what did happen was that I brought her attention back to me, and she let her anger loose.
“All I ever wanted was to be a family. I wanted you to go to work for Daddy. I wanted our baby to grow up doing exactly what I did!” Beatrice paced. “But no. Not the proud Coke Solomon. I had everything planned! You had no choice but to marry me. Daddy offered you that job…and you turned it down!”
I had. Her father had offered me a job. A good one at that. One where I’d be making a good chunk of money to basically be a peon at his company.
But, I’d never once wanted that.
I wanted to forge my own path in life. Make the money to support my family on my own. I didn’t want a handout, and honestly, I’d been quite offended to have one offered to me because I’d knocked up the man’s daughter.
And I’d made a life and name for myself, despite Beatrice’s every attempt to hold me back.
“Beatrice,” I said carefully. “I didn’t want to work for your father.”
“I know!” she screamed, shaking the phone at my face. “Don’t you think I know that?”
I carefully moved myself forward, trying surreptitiously to place myself in front of Frankie.
Frankie was huddled on the floor next to the nurses’ station. The wheelchair was in front of both the nurse and Frankie.
But should Beatrice well and truly snap, a wheelchair wouldn’t be enough to stop an explosion.
“I had to make my own money. That’s why I never followed you.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, likely sounding just as confused as I felt.
“I’m talking about working for my father,” she hissed. “He made me actually work! I don’t like working!”
Who liked working?
Nobody.
Yet, it was a necessary evil. Something everyone had to do—or at least almost everyone.
“And he didn’t pay me enough. So, then I had to get a second job to be able to afford to live,” Beatrice continued. “Mom helped, of course, but Daddy hated it when Mom gave me money. He said I was spoiled, and I needed to learn to control myself.”
The woman wasn’t making any goddamn sense. None.
She was rambling on and on and on.
Beatrice suddenly scrambled up to me. “You made me do things that I didn’t want to do!”
It was then, with her close enough that I could see into her eyes, that I realized that Beatrice was high as a fucking kite. Her pupils were so dilated that I could barely see any of her irises.
What the fuck was she thinking?
She’d obviously already imbibed today. How had I not seen that on her before?