Page 3

“V ivienne dear, what on earth are you talking about?”

Vivienne had been basking in Iron’s approval one moment and cast into a haze of fear the next. She didn’t need to turn around to know her mother had somehow bought or pleaded her way into Hannah’s hospital room. Both sound and air had evaporated from the space. She could already smell her mother’s expensive perfume that made her eyes water.

“Texas is where you’ll stay, Vivienne Aurora.” The hospital room door clicked shut.

Her stomach plummeted at her father’s voice. How foolish to feel like she’d escaped their grasp. They were well respected and influential. Their power cast a wide net that she’d always find herself drowning in. She was about to stand and face them when Iron’s warm hand gave her a reassuring squeeze.

“What you want holds no weight here.” The man she was quickly coming to hero worship turned and faced her parents. What she’d done to deserve a champion like Iron she had no clue, but she wasn’t going to let him fight this battle. She was done standing to the side and letting someone live her life for her. When she pushed out of the metal chair, the burning pain on the soles of her feet shocked her, nearly making her topple back onto Hannah’s bed. She breathed past the pain. Earlier she’d run through the forest barefoot, but she simply stuffed her feet back in the heels when they got to the roadway and didn’t think another thing about it. Maybe she’d gotten some scratches that were now deciding to activate the pain receptors in her brain. She stepped forward next to Iron. Silver closed in on her other side.

“I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to be a model. I certainly don’t want to marry Scott. I despise posting my entire life on Instagram to get more followers. I want to delete every social media page. I just want to be free. I want to know where you took Thalia. My only friend. Scott said she was deported!” Her breath was sawing in and out. At some point during her rant, Iron had grabbed her hand, and she was squeezing it hard. Continuing to anchor herself to this man who’d shown her more concern and encouragement in the past few hours than her parents had as long as she could remember.

“Dear, we did this for you.” She hated the fake concern that dripped from Agatha Day’s voice. “Instead of focusing on all the things you couldn’t do when we discovered your little problem, we helped you build an empire with the things you could do.”

“I could do something else. Be something besides a model or an influencer.”

“I know you believe that.” Her mother tilted her head and feigned pity.

“You need to get out of my room,” Hannah yelled from her hospital bed.

“Out,” Branch barked. “You heard her. You have exactly five seconds to willingly walk out of here. After that, you’ll need more than an ER.”

“Now, calm down,” her father spoke, sizing up the men surrounding her. “We’ll leave when Vivienne comes with us. Look at all the problems you’ve caused. Your sister in the hospital. Collin frightened to death. Scott nursing a broken heart. The entire community spreading more gossip about the family.”

“You’ll never leave me alone, will you?” Vivienne’s eyes burned, but she refused to let her parents see her tears. She’d always wanted their love, but they were incapable of giving her that. Although they were already rich, her slight notoriety was what they cared about. Not her.

“You can’t read. You can sign your name to an autograph but not much more than that. What is it you think you’ll do?”

Collin was making agitated noises in the back of his throat as he continued to pace. The men around her were vibrating with so much anger and testosterone she was sure they were going to snap at any moment. She squeezed Iron’s hand more tightly. “Can I borrow your phone?”

He didn’t take his eyes from her parents, but without questioning her, fished his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I’ve seen a lot of messed up shit, but the way you’re speaking to your daughter is unacceptable. The way you tried to get her to marry a man she didn’t want is abhorrent. You’re no mother and father.”

Vivienne drew in a quick breath, completely touched by Iron’s willingness to defend her. She navigated to her largest social media account and typed in her password.

“I’m nothing to you. You’ll leave me alone, but before you go, you’ll tell me where Thalia is, or I will delete every money-generating account I have. You will never earn another cent from me.”

“You wouldn’t,” her mother shrieked. “You’re not going to delete twenty million subscribers. You won’t disgrace this family like Hannah did.”

“What about Regina? Is attempted murder not a disgrace?” She’d never once yelled at her mother, but the pain burning through her now was too much. They’d never cared about her. She’d never be enough. Her dyslexia and learning disability were something they considered a dirty secret to be hidden.

Her words got a reaction. Her father’s eyes hardened. His face and jowls reddened. “She was protecting this family.” He reached out to grab her, but Iron was faster. He gripped her father’s arm and wrenched it back. There was a pop, and then the man who should’ve loved and protected all his daughter instead of using them for personal gain roared in pain.

“What’s going on in here?” A security guard and a police officer stepped in. Oh God, her time was running short. If she didn’t get her father to tell her where Thalia was right now, she never would.

“This man assaulted me.” She’d never seen Donald Day look more murderous. And she’d seen him plenty angry. His nostrils typically flared wide. Splotches would cover his face and neck. Spit would spray as he screamed. The energy surrounding him now though, was violent.

“Sir, ma’am, I need you to step outside the room. You don’t have permission to be in this wing.” The security guard and the officer were now between her parents and the rest of them, forcing them toward the door.

“I hope you’ve enjoyed being an officer of the law, because this is the last day you’ll serve in Southlake.” Her mother’s eyes were locked on the police officer who continued to urge them out.

“Wait! Tell me where she is.” Her desperate cry rose above the noise, and when her parents looked over their shoulders as they passed through the threshold of the room, all she saw in their gaze was pure hatred. They wouldn’t tell her where Thalia was even if she begged and pleaded. Even if she returned home and agreed to marry Scott and never make a scene again. They’d do it to punish her, and they’d enjoy every moment of her anguish. And with that, she deleted her main account. Years of work disappeared with the touch of a button, and she felt nothing. If she had been stronger and stepped away years ago, if she hadn’t needed Hannah to come to her rescue, her sister wouldn’t be laying in a hospital bed in need of surgery. The whole room must think her so pitiful. She certainly did.

A hush fell over the room and Silver slammed the door behind them, put one of the metal chairs in front of the entrance, and sat there. It would take a lot of force to push past any of the men in the room.

Collin had his hands over his ears, but when Branch called his name, he dropped them to his sides.

“You okay, bud?” Branch asked.

“They’re bad people.” His typical melodic voice was low and angry.

“Yeah, Collin. They are. You don’t have to see them again.”

“And Mom doesn’t either.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“Nope. I’ll personally make sure of that.” Branch held his arms out and Collin ran toward him, burying his bright red hair against his shoulder. Now that the immediate danger had seemed to pass, she was all too aware of her hand tucked into Iron’s. How could she want to be brave, yet hold onto him like a life preserver? That thought had her uncurling her fingers and slipping out of his grasp. She instantly regretted it.

“You okay? That was a bold statement you just followed through with.” Iron dipped his chin toward his phone still in her hands.

She nodded, wishing she felt something for all the followers she just deleted. There was a time she kidded herself into believing that the people on her social media pages cared about her, something she always seemed to be searching for, but that was silly. They followed her because of the image she projected and nothing more.

“Vivi, you were asking about the maid, weren’t you?” Hannah’s question pulled her from her hollow thoughts. “The one that brought down my dress?”

“Yes.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “She’s been my personal attendant for years. My closest…no, my only friend. She wrote that note for me to give you. Risked everything to help me. Scott said she’d been deported.”

“I doubt they could’ve acted that fast,” Iron murmured.

“I’ll make some calls.” Silver stretched back in the chair and took his phone out of his pocket. “Does she have a social media profile I can get a picture from?”

“No, none. I don’t even think she has a phone. I have a picture I can send to you though, as soon as we get back to the car. I left my purse with my phone there.”

Silver nodded. “That would be helpful.”

She let out a shaky breath. “Thalia’s twenty-two, two years younger than me.” Thalia was wise to the world in ways she wasn’t, though. “She’s worked for the family for six years, which meant they hired Thalia when she was only sixteen.”

A few curses were muttered around the room.

“Did you ask her about it?” Hannah tried to shift in bed, and Branch was instantly at her side, repositioning the pillow behind her head. The moment was filled with so much tenderness, a pang of loneliness struck her.

“I love him for you,” she said to her sister, not caring that the room was full. Branch represented all the love and security Hannah deserved and never had growing up. Her sister’s eyes went glassy, and Vivienne continued. “I questioned Father once about why Thalia didn’t go to school with me. He told me to drop it.” She glanced away and swallowed the lump in her throat. “But I pushed too hard.”

“Vivi, what are you saying?” Hannah’s words were whisper soft, but her eyes were narrowed. The men around her stiffened. The air shifted and suddenly became charged.

“It was the only time he put hands on me.” Her mother never allowed her to cancel her modeling engagements, even if she had a one-hundred-three-degree fever and was coughing up a lung, her parents forced her to walk the runway, attend the photo shoot, or film for her subscribers. This had been different. The beating was visible on her skin. The handprints on her arms and around her neck, purple. Her mother was furious Vivienne had to stay home and out of the public eye for two weeks while the bruises faded, and even then, makeup was needed to cover them. Instead of blaming her husband though, she directed her anger at her for baiting him. Thalia made Vivienne swear she’d never mention her age or how she came to be in Texas ever again. Said that her life depended on it. She’d questioned her about that statement many times in the years following, but Thalia refused to tell her anything else.

She hated the silence that followed her statement. Hated that when she snuck a glance at Iron his muscles were bunched so tight he looked like he might snap. His jaw ticked. “We need to get her out of here.” His voice was raw and angry. She was twenty-four years old. An adult and every person in this room was probably wondering why she just didn’t get up and leave. She clenched her teeth and breathed through her nose, trying to hold back the tears. She asked herself the exact same thing time and time again. It was hard to accept the reason, but it was there staring her in the face every time she looked in the mirror. She was weak. Iron moved to the door, pushed the chair out of the way, and looked out.

“Hallway’s clear.” He shut the door again and moved to her side. “Collin’s welcome to come with us,” Iron was saying to Branch, but she was barely listening. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about what was going on around her, but her feet were throbbing, and she was concentrating her efforts on not breaking down until she was alone.

“Thanks, man. We talked about it. He wants to stay with us.” Branch ran his hand over Hannah’s tousled hair.

Iron nodded and they said their goodbyes. As they were walking out the door, Hannah called to her.

“Vivi, I’m so proud of you. This is the start of the life you choose. You can do anything you want. Be whoever you want. We’ll be right here cheering you on.” It was like her sister had read her self-depreciating thoughts. For some reason, standing tall, not shattering in front of all of them was ten times harder when she was offered kind words over negativity. She’d taken the first step, so why did she now feel more afraid than ever?