Page 92 of Battle Scars

I figure Gabe and Manny are in the car listening too, even though it’s eerily silent. I need to say some things. They all need to know the truth. That I’m okay with how things ended and they should be too. That I absolve them of this—of all of it, really.

“I don’t think so, but that’s okay. Find August,” I push. I can’t die knowing that Eli gave up on the only girl he’s ever loved. “Promise me, Eli, that you’ll find her and you’ll make things right.”

“We’ll talk about this when I get there,” he says but I need to hear him say it before I die.

“Promise me.”

“I prom⁠—”

Candy ends the call. I guess it’s time to die.

“You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Candy asks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell her. “I’m not sure what I ever did to you.”

“You’re stealing Dark Horse from me,” she screams.

“The company?” I ask, surprised. “I didn’t think you even liked racing.”

“I don’t, you stupid bitch,” she spits. “I like the fucking money it brings in.”

“But you’re married to my dad,” I reply. “He’s loaded. Way richer than I am.”

“I know, but if you get the company, you get the bigger payout, and he gets a legacy payment like you do now from his father,” she explains. “I tried to get him to hold off this stupid competition for the baby. I was right. It’s a boy, you know.”

“Congratulations?” My head is still foggy from the hit, so I’m not really following her trip down memory lane.

“But he wants you to have the company,” she says making my head spin.

“I thought he wanted Bobby to have it,” I reply.

The competition makes no sense if I was always going to inherit DHR. I’m so fucking confused.

“No, that was just a red herring to throw us all off track, because he found out I’m having an affair with Bobby,” she says. “Can you blame me? He’s young and hot.”

“But you’re married.”

“To an old man.”

“Fifty is hardly old.”

“You try fucking an old man,” she snaps.

“I’m good,” I reply. She is talking about my dad after all.

“Because you’re fucking the hot bodyguard. Nice job, by the way.” She smirks and I think I throw up a little in my mouth.

“Thank you?” I’m still not keeping up. “So what about the baby?”

“What about it?” she asks. “It’s not your dad’s, and he knows it. He never told me that he had a vasectomy after your mom left him. He only wanted to father her kids, and when she left him, he cut everyone else off.”

Well, that explains why my only sibling is a golden retriever with a hankering for party food.

“Can you believe I got pregnant for no reason?” she shouts.

“So who is the daddy?” I ask as she waves around a large gun I just noticed is in her hand.

“Bobby, of course,” she says with a smile. “When you’re gone and Daddy has to keep his promise to retire and give Bobby the company, he’s going to go to sleep one night and never wake up.”