Unconditional
Page 19

“Then we’ll be here forever,” I finally find the courage to lift my eyes to his. “Because I’m not leaving, not for Alexander. And not for you.”
I stare at him defiantly, trying to remember the last time I disobeyed him. I don’t think I ever have. But this time.…This time there’s no getting around it. I won’t buckle.
He knows it. As I watch, my father’s face gets mottled and red with fury. “You’re coming home with me right now!” he demands. He strides across the room and grabs my arm, yanking hard.
I let out a cry. “Let me go!”
I try to pull away, but he wrenches me towards the door. “I’m warning you, Carina—”
“Stop it,” I beg. His fingers dig painfully into my arm. “Dad, please, just calm down.”
“You think I wanted this?” he hisses, eyes flashing with fury. “Begging for scraps, like some common scrounger? I was meant to be better than this, meant for greatness. If it wasn’t for you girls—”
His next words never come.
The door flies open, and I see a flash of motion ahead of us. Garrett, an expression of such anger on his face it could stop an army in its tracks.
“Get your hands off her!”
I don’t have time to think, or even breathe, before he comes charging in, dragging my father away from me and hurling him back across the room. Dad goes spinning into the desk with a clatter, knocking papers and objects to the floor, but Garrett is on him again in an instant, all fists and sheer fury, bringing his fist smashing down with a mean right hook that sends my father flying.
“Garrett!” I scream, gasping for air. “Stop!”
Garrett stands over his crumpled body, his breath coming fast. His feet are braced, his hands flexed into fists at his sides. “Get up,” he orders. “Get up, and get the f**k out of my bar, or I swear to God I’ll break every bone in your f**king body.”
My father lets out a groan, rolling onto his hands and knees. His nose is bloodied, the glass in his spectacles shattered and askew. He looks weak, pathetic, scrabbling on the floor. All the charm stripped away, nothing but the ugliness of his desperation left, clear to see.
“I said, get up!” Garrett yells.
I back away from them, sobbing. He turns.
“Carina.” Garrett’s face changes. He reaches for me, but I can’t take it. I can’t bear that he’s seen this, that my whole wretched, rotten life has been pulled wide open, my darkest secrets thrust into the light of day.
I stumble back, reaching blindly for the door.
“Carina!” Garrett calls again, but I run, my eyes filled with tears, racing madly down the hall until I find the back exit and fling it open.
I burst into the dark parking lot, gasping for air, but it’s not far enough. Nowhere will be far enough to outrun the terrible truth, so I keep running, stumbling down the street until my lungs burn and I reach the harbor, a string of lights bobbing on the water. I scramble over the low chain-link fence and across the parking lot, heading down the steps and along the jetty until finally the wooden beams underfoot come to a stop, and there’s nothing but darkness ahead of me, the black ocean disappearing to meet the inky sky.
I’m all alone.
My legs give way beneath me. I crumple to the cold jetty, clinging to a docking post as I weep. My sobs come in great hiccuping gasps, the pain rolling through me in a tidal wave. There’s nothing but grief, an empty, aching misery that closes over my head, so thick I could drown.
Everything has crumbled now, I have nothing left. Alexander, my family, my life back home. It’s all in ruins, I have nothing left to hold on to.
And now, my father’s betrayal. I can’t believe he would do that to me. I struggle for air, the pain too much to take. It feels like my chest has been cleaved wide open, an ache I feel all the way to my soul. All this time, I tried to make him happy. All this time, I did my best to make him proud.
All for nothing. All for nothing.
What did you really expect? a cruel voice taunts me. You’ve known all along what kind of man he is. How he treated your mom, and Juliet too. Why would you be any different?
You deserve this, every moment of pain.
You know it’s all your fault.
7
I want to kill him.
Anger surges through me, a rage so strong I can barely breathe. I clench my hands into fists to keep from closing them around his neck, squeezing the life from his body until he’s broken and empty and there’s nothing left that can hurt her anymore.
It takes everything I have not to end him for good.
“Out!” I roar, grabbing Carina’s father by the arm instead and dragging him to his feet. I shove him from the office, pushing his stumbling body down the hallway to the exit. “Get the hell out of here, and don’t you ever dare come back!”
I sense the bar fall silent, watching us, but I couldn’t care less. I throw the doors open and hurl him onto the sidewalk outside. He stumbles, his face bloody and his shirt torn, gasping for air.
“You listen to me,” I say as I follow him out, my blood pounding in my veins, every nerve in my body tensed and ready for battle. “You don’t come back here, you understand?”
He flinches back, but I grab his jaw and force him to look at me. “You don’t call Carina, you don’t talk to her, you don’t ever come near her again,” I threaten, spitting the words. “Because if you do…I will end you. You understand?” I say it again, meeting his gaze dead-on: “I. Will. End. You.”