I had the private table, my girls, and the best dress. Every suit looked at my legs like they were starving. I was the grand prize of that room, and every red-blooded man wanted a piece of me.
I'd been talking to one of them all night—TJ or EJ or something like that. I didn't really care. He was the kind of man my mother would have told me to target. Ivy League, family money, a handsome face, and from what I could feel through his Tom Ford suit, a good-sized dick. He said the magic words—that he had more coke back at his place—and off we went.
It was fine, I was in control.
Until I wasn't.
That night grows a little hazy the harder I try to remember it, but I can clearly remember the highlights like some horror movie. I remember my foot pressing harder on the gas, the city a blur of lights around me. I didn't realize I was drifting until—
Impact.
My memories are mostly sensory after that—the jolting impact, the sound of shattering glass, the crunch of metal. A scream—hers, or maybe it was mine. The screeching was loud, but the silence afterward was louder, too still.
I heard some people yelling to call 911. EJ, or TJ, or whatever the fuck was in my ear, cursing at me. He stumbled out of the car, vomiting on the side of the road. Sirens. Police. Trouble.
I panicked.
Idrove.
I pressed the pedal down and didn't lift it until I was blocks away, the taste of blood and the coke nasal drip making me sick as my hands shook on the wheel.
"It's not real," I whispered, slapping myself and trying to wake myself up. "It wasn't real. You're okay. It's not real. You're okay."
The police banging on my door two hours later was real, aswas the fingerprinting and mugshot. And my father storming into the police station with our trusted family lawyer to find me in a private holding cell was incredibly real.
My father was angry, reminding me of that moment he saw my mother destroy Claire's pictures, and he looked at me with the same level of disgust he reserved for my mother.
"Do you have any idea what this will do to my campaign?"
His voice was a low, dangerous growl. "You fled the scene, Elise! If you'd stayed, we could've called it an accident—some tragic mistake. But you ran!"
I was cold in my dress, I was coming down from the coke, and I was feeling sick from the liquor, so my patience snapped in half at his words.
"God, dad, you don't think I fucking know th—"
"Shut the fuck up!"
My father's sudden roar cut me off, so loud it reverberated off the walls. Cold shock flooded me. He never raised his voice like that at me before.
"For once in your goddamn life,shut the fuck up!"
He stormed closer to me, pointing a finger directly in my face. "You're twenty-seven years old, and you're still the samespoiled little brat.You almost killed that girl—a child!Seventeen years old, Elise! She's in a coma! The doctors areprayingthat she pulls through!"
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I was usually quick with answers or retorts, but now, shock left me mute, my mind suddenly blank.
I just sat there, staring at my father as his expression shifted—from anger to irritation to disappointment to purecontempt. The officer who had brought him and the lawyer in must have sensed it because they stepped out of the room without a word, leaving me alone with the man who helped create me.
He was breathing like he'd run a marathon, his handsclenching and unclenching at his sides. Finally, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, loosening the tie at his neck like it was choking him.
"God... your motherruinedyou," Ellis said, his voice quiet and his tone arctic.
That statement hung in the air for a few long seconds before he laughed, the sound bitter and hollow.
"Not that I'm not to blame too," he added, slowly shaking his head. "I'm probablymoreto blame than anyone. My weakness, mysilence... it just allowed you to become what you are."
"Dad..." My voice cracked. "Please—"
"You are my greatest failure, Elise."
