Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 120475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Since then, it’s been strictly a course of filling my time with work and avoiding being alone. Except for the endless nights that I can’t escape. When I’m lucky, I manage a few hours of restless sleep, tossing and turning as my subconscious tortures me with memories of her in my arms—her happy laughter, her kinky quirks, her fingers in my hair, nails digging into my scalp—
I slam my pen down on the desk, about to go for a punishing jog, the other activity I’ve taken up to fill any hours not consumed by work. But my phone buzzes again—another text from an unknown number. I pick it up, ready to stab the block button.
My eyes dance across the quick four-word message.
Unknown: Your father is dying.
That stops me in my tracks and has me sitting back down heavily in my chair.
Dying? Mad Blackwood?
A strange sensation bites at my ribs, something tangled and messy I can’t name. The old man was always larger than life, a force of nature in a bespoke suit. He can’t just die. He wouldn’t.
I glare down at the phone. Is this just a ploy? I wouldn’t put it past my father to demand my attention with a lie.
After a sharp exhale, I punch my finger against the number to call it.
Rotterdam immediately picks up.
“Bane! Thank God you finally picked up.”
“Is it true?” I bark. “Is the old bastard actually dying?”
“Yes,” comes the immediate response. “That’s why we’ve been trying to reach you. He wants to see you. He doesn’t have much time left.” He’s speaking rapidly as if to get the main points across quickly in case I hang up on him.
I’m still trying to process the concept of my father, a bull of a man his entire life, being sick, much less dying.
“What the fuck happened? He’s only sixty-three, and God knows he can afford the best doctors money can provide.”
“It’s a hell of a thing,” Rotterdam sighs, sounding exhausted. Considering how much my father leans on him, I can only imagine. My father is notoriously cruel to anyone he considers an underling, but Rotterdam has stayed longer than any of the others. I know it’s only for the money, not out of any love for my father.
He gives me the name of the disease, and I only register that it’s something other than cancer. I scribble it down haphazardly. “The doctor only gave him a few months to live.”
My hand clenches on the phone. A few months?
I swallow hard, my jaw tightening. I hate the man, but hating him has given me structure and defined a large portion of my life. And now he’s just going to die? Just slip away, without giving me a proper target to throw my rage at?
My breathing gets shorter.
“Where is he? What hospital?”
I open my laptop and start pulling up airlines to get a ticket back to London.
“He’s there. In America.”
I pause, frozen. “Here?”
“They were trying some experimental treatments. He participated in a clinical trial at a research hospital in London, and now he’s in San Francisco. But between you and me, he’s desperate, and nothing is working to stop or slow the progression of the disease.”
I pause. “Is it hereditary?”
“No. Their best guess is that he got it either from something he ate or from a contaminated implement during one of the experimental cosmetic surgeries he’s gotten during one of his trips abroad during the last six months.”
I shake my head. The old man was always so goddamn vain.
Fuck. This is so much information all at once.
“I’ll get on a plane to San Francisco.”
Rotterdam sighs in relief. “That would be great. The disease affects his cognitive function. You’re all he can talk about. But he’s starting to lose it.”
I swallow hard and nod—not that Rotterdam can see it.
“Got it.”
I get the rest of the details and hang up. Then sit there long after the phone call, even though I know I need to be making arrangements. At least I’ve been practicing grief lately, though I don’t know if grief is exactly what I’ll be feeling after my father passes.
Maybe it will feel more like relief.
Maybe I’ll feel sad.
Maybe I’ll feel nothing at all.
I can’t name the emotions I’m feeling right now. There’s just a lead weight in my chest and a clench in my belly, wishing Moira was here, wishing I could hold her and bury my head against her stomach—her fingers in my hair, her whisper in my ear, telling me that everything was going to be okay.
By nightfall, I’m landing in SFO and catching an Uber to the hospital. I’m exhausted after two weeks of barely getting any sleep. My body is running on fumes. This feels like a dream. Or a nightmare.
I’m still not sure this isn’t all just a hoax—another manipulation to get me where he wants me.