Mind Pucked (Chicago Blue Jays #1)

21. Amelia

21

AMELIA

I never wanted any of this to happen. First off, I didn’t want to be in a relationship with Jackson to begin with, in fear he had something to do with my brother’s death. Now, knowing my brother is in fact alive, and I’ve severed any hope of ever being with Jackson again…I’m left empty. More than empty, if that’s even possible.

I feel so…aimless.

It’s all my fault. If I could have guarded my heart…or if I hadn’t let myself fall for this man and his beautiful daughter, then no one would have gotten hurt…and no one would be hurting now. Not even me. Of course, I have to remember that if it weren’t for Jackson and being with him, I wouldn’t have been in the city where my brother was hiding. I still wouldn’t even know he’s alive.

My heart is breaking and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. I don’t know if I deserve to feel anything but heartbreak. Somehow, I feel this is all my fault, though I know deep down it isn’t.

Out of everything that has transpired between Jackson and me since I revealed the truth to him, I’m just happy that he hasn’t fired me. If I have to cut Hayden out of my life, I think that would kill me just as much, maybe even more. That little girl means the world to me, and I know deep down that I mean something to her too.

Trying to shake all these thoughts from my mind, I pace back and forth in my living room. I’m trying to think of anything that might fix this, but there simply isn’t anything that comes to mind right now. Not that I think more time will help me come up with anything either.

I sit down and put my head in my hands, and attempt to not let the tears fall, but they do. They always do, no matter what I do to try to stop them.

I should have been honest from the beginning , I chastise myself silently with an exasperated sigh. If I would have just told him sooner…

“Grrr, come on, Amelia, get your shit together!” I yell at myself as I get up again and pace some more. “Oh, great, now I’m talking to myself.”

Part of me wants to tell Jackson I don’t want to stay employed under him after all this, and another part of me wants to run home to my parents, but that isn’t a good idea either. Not now that I know my father isn’t who I’ve thought him to be my whole life.

Oh, what a mess I’m in.

How can my father be so horrible? My father has been the cause of so many deaths. At least Lyla’s, and almost Preston’s, but who knows how many more? I suppose that’s not the kind of thing you can just ask a person.

Hey, Dad, I know you’re a psycho out for blood and vengeance and whatnot…and I know you killed Jackson’s wife Lyla, and kind of sort of almost killed Preston in the process, but how many others have you done the same thing to? Oh, and am I in danger of having the same thing happen to me because I now know information that I shouldn’t?

I roll my eyes at how ridiculous that sounds. Of course I could never bring myself to say anything like that to him, but it hasn’t stopped me from thinking about it a lot lately.

Ever since Preston told me the truth, my mind hasn’t stopped playing memories of my father on repeat. Every birthday party, every time he took me out on a daddy-daughter date, even the money spent on me…was it all laced in lies and the Mafia?

My phone rings and brings me out of that thought.

At first, I consider not even looking to see who it is, on the off chance it’s my dad and stepmother, but then I think about Hayden again. The possibility of Jackson needing help with her is what drives me to look. What if she’s fallen again or something?

I couldn’t be so lucky though…right? Not about Hayden getting hurt of course, but about Jackson needing me for anything. He’s angry at me, and I don’t think anything is going to change that anytime soon.

I finally check my phone and see that the caller ID says the call is coming out of Ohio. The only people I know there are my brother and Jackson’s parents, but I don’t see it being them. I think about not taking my chances, but my curiosity gets the better of me and I pick up the call on what has to be close to the last ring before rolling over to voicemail.

“Hello?” I say, holding my breath with anticipation. I’m shaking all over.

The prospect of this call having anything to do with what my father is, and does, frightens me to my core. There’s no way he knows that I know…is there?

“Hey, sis,” Preston’s voice calls out, and my heart lurches as I finally let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

I don’t know how to feel. All I’ve felt is numb, ever since finding out my brother was alive and then betraying Jackson in the worst way. I hate numbness, but it beats the other emotions that come when the numbness recedes.

Damn my emotions, which seem to want to both retreat and explode all at the same time.

“Hey,” I say softly, for a lack of anything better to say at the moment. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you,” I admit.

“Why’s that?” he asks me softly, as if he’s trying not to let others hear his voice.

“I mean, I know you gave me your number and all, but you seemed kind of set on keeping me out of it all,” I say, hoping I’m not being too hard on him.

“Sorry,” I say quietly when he doesn’t say anything in return for a long while. “I’m just in a bad headspace. I know you can’t be in a great place yourself, but…” I fall still, trying to think of something, anything else to say to finish my thought process, but nothing comes to mind.

“I figured you might want to know what’s going on,” he says. “But I can go if you don’t want to talk to me.” My heart breaks. “I didn’t mean to cause any problems for you.” He sounds dejected.

“No,” I snap, hoping to catch him before he hangs up. “Don’t you dare. I know you’re on a burner or something and I don’t want to take the chance of not being able to get back to you if I need to. I don’t know how these things work, Pres. I was just shocked is all.”

“You’re right.” He chuckles a little, but it seems rather forced. “I am, and it’s a limited-use type of thing until I can figure out how to deal with your dad.” It’s weird for him not to say our dad anymore.

“He’s not my dad either if he tried to kill the only brother I’ve ever had,” I snap dryly, trying to figure out how I’m going to go about dealing with that whole situation. “He murdered someone, Pres, and God only knows how many more someones.”

“I never wanted to take your father from you,” he says, his voice dripping in sadness. “He’s going to blame me, you know.”

“You didn’t take him away from me…he did that himself by trying to take my brother.” I sigh because that’s the only thing that feels right. “And he took himself out of the equation when he did that. It’s as simple as that.”

“How are things with Jackson?” he asks, obviously trying to change the subject. “Does he know about me?” It’s easy to tell he isn’t super comfortable with the whole situation.

“Yes, I told him…big mistake,” I breathe. “And he promptly broke up with me after, so you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Jackson is a thing of the past.”

“Why?” he asks with a tone of worry lacing his voice.

“Because, Pres,” I begin, trying to coerce the hostility from my body so I don’t displace it onto him. He doesn’t deserve it after all he’s been through. “I pretty much admitted to him that I only came into his life in the first place because I suspected he had maybe killed you.”

“You what?” I have to fight a laugh at how indignant he sounds. “Why on earth would you think that?” he barks out in disbelief.

“I thought that since your things were in that car, that you must have been sleeping with Lyla and Jackson found out or something,” I rant. “I mean, I know you two were rivals and didn’t get along all that much before you were on the Jays together. It was a possibility that he got rid of you and killed his wife in the meantime. The only problem is…” I pause for a moment, trying to think of the best way to explain what I have to say.

“The only problem is you fell for him, then realized that he wasn’t capable of hurting me at all and that he loved his wife more than any man has ever loved a woman before, and there was no way he harmed a hair on her head?” he spouts, and I know I don’t even have to say anything to let him know he’s right.

“Can I ask you something?” I change the subject, though I don’t know that he’s going to let me get by so easily.

“Don’t run from the subject, little sister, because I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Fine,” I say tersely. “Yes…now, did you ever figure out who your father was? As I hear it, Lyla wasn’t even one-hundred-percent sure who her dad was.”

“Yeah, we knew we were half brother and sister, on our dad’s side, because of the genealogy project. So we decided to look for our dad together—all we knew was it had to be someone who slept with both our moms. And then we found him—we had just discovered the truth right before she died. I wondered if finding out was the cause of the whole thing, but we hadn’t told a soul, so there was no way anyone knew to report back.” He pauses a moment as if thinking of the possibilities. “Unless your father bugged her car or something. Maybe our cells.”

“Sounds like he’s capable of it,” I admit, even though it doesn’t feel so good to do so.

“Either way, we had just found out our father is the coach of the Chicago Blue Jays…my coach,” Preston says. “I don’t know if Coach knows or not. Lyla and I hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to him, and since then I’ve sort of been dead, so I haven’t gone to him about it since.”

I fight a chuckle. No matter how crazy this all seems, my brother knows how to make me laugh. In the middle of the chaos, he finds moments to slip in something funny, and it feels so good to feel something other than numb for a moment.

In all honesty, I’m having a hard time grasping all the lies that have been told here.

“Do you plan on telling him now that you’re alive again?” I ask, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

“Not right now,” Preston says. “I don’t want to risk his life in all this.” He blows out a huff of air. “It’s just weird that our mother was apparently a bit more promiscuous in her younger days than what any of us knew.”

“So, you think she cheated frequently on our father?” I ask. “I mean…my father,” I correct myself though the whole thing still feels so ridiculous.

“Well…” He pauses a moment, and I can hear him shifting on the other end of the phone, trying to get comfortable. “There were two that I know of. Apparently, it happened a lot with those two guys though, but that was why I didn’t know right away who my father was.”

“And you’re sure it’s Coach, really?” I ask, trying to figure it all out. “How do you know for sure?” I ask, hoping he has some concrete evidence on the matter. I shift in my seat before getting to my feet again and resuming my pacing. Sitting still for long periods of time has not been possible these last few days, and it’s even less possible now that my gut is twisting with all this new information.

“Two games before the accident, I accidentally threw an elbow that clipped Coach in the nose,” he admits with a wry chuckle. “I helped to stop the flow of blood…” He pauses for a moment, but I think I understand where he’s going with this.

“And you kept the tissues, and had it tested?” I ask.

“Yep,” he says with a sigh. “Then both Lyla and I gave our blood to be tested. A couple days before the accident, the tests came back as a match, meaning he was our father, and I had another half sister. The only reason we knew to check with Coach was that Lyla’s mother kept a journal that named him as a fling she had around the time she got pregnant with Lyla.”

“And you just hoped he was one of our mother’s flings too? That was kind of a long shot, wasn’t it?” I ask with a bit of irritation I just can’t shake.

“Well, no,” he sighs. “As it turns out, our mother kept a journal as well. I took it from the house the last time I went home before the accident…about a week before, I think. I’d seen the book among some of Mom’s things that your father kept in the closet. It didn’t even look like it had been touched in years, but I found it while looking for evidence, and after looking through it, it was clear it was a good thing your dad never saw it. Or if he did, he played dumb for having the evidence right before his eyes that there was a possibility I wasn’t his son.”

“My guess is he knew and hoped you were his,” I admit. “He always wanted a son to carry on the family business…though little did I know what that family business really was.” I snort as I finally sit back down. “I’m still kind of trying to process that one.” I chuckle, but it feels odd to do so.

“Yeah.” Preston laughs a little too, but it’s weak and forced. “Well, our mother talked about three men…your father, a salesman from Indiana that she was with a time or two, and then Coach. The only person who matched Lyla’s mother’s journal was Coach of course. We put two and two together, and bam…we became brother and sister essentially overnight. I guess Coach gets around.”

“I wish you could have trusted me with more of this information when it first came to light,” I snap at him, though I don’t mean it.

I don’t think I do anyway.

I feel like if I had known, I could have helped figure all these things out for them. It doesn’t matter to me that my father is the villain in all this…well, it matters to me. But more than anything, I would have died for Preston to be safe and protected.

“And what, Ami? Risk your life too?” he asks, with heat in his own tone. “Because I would have never been okay with that. Hell…” He pauses for a moment—out of irritation, I’m sure. “I’m not even okay with you knowing now, for those same reasons.”

“I could have handled it, you know. I’m a grown woman and can take care of myself,” I snarl, sounding more like an animal than a human, but then I come to my senses. “Sorry,” I mumble. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself.” Tears begin to spill despite my resistance to them.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Preston says, but I don’t agree with him. “And you don’t need to beat yourself up either.”

“We’ll see,” I say. “But I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to live without you, and now Jackson and Hayden. At least for now he’s still letting me work for him, so I’m still Hayden’s nanny. I would die if he took that from me too.”

“You aren’t living without me,” he says. “I’m right here.” His voice is full of conviction. “I just have to stay dead a little longer until I figure out how to deal with all this. It’s not going to last forever, and if you just talk to Jackson, maybe you can work things out with him in the end…but until then, there’s only one thing I need you to do.”

“What’s that?” I ask, not sure I have the strength to do much else.

“Just live every day as normal as you can,” he says, and I nearly snort a laugh of disbelief. Normal? I’m not sure I know what that is anymore. “Be the best you you can be, and live life happy and normal.”

“How?” I ask. “It’s going to be so hard. Damn near impossible even.”

“I know, but you have to do this…for me,” he adds. “Do you hear me? I give you no other choice than to be as brilliant and amazing as I know you to be. This will all work out in the end…promise me,” he says.

“Pres—” I begin to protest, but he stops me before I can say anything else.

“Promise me,” he demands, and I can hear the need in his voice for me to say that I do.

“I promise,” I say, and even though I don’t know how I can really promise something like this, I do it anyway, just for my big brother to feel peace.

“I have to go, Amelia,” he says. “I won’t have this phone after the call is over, but I will call you every third day around the same time. It’ll be a different number each time. I won’t leave a message or anything if you don’t answer, so just know I’ll call again in three more days’ time.”

“Okay,” I say with more tears tracking down my cheeks. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Amelia,” he says, and then he’s gone.

The call goes dead, and I delete it from my phone log for good measure. I don’t know how much control my father has over things on my end, but I don’t want to take any chances.

Not where my brother’s involved, but I do plan on one thing—I will get revenge for the pain that man has caused Preston, Jackson, Hayden, me, and everyone else he has ever wronged with his higher-than-mighty mindset.

It’s time for the reign of the Mafia boss I didn’t even know was my father to come to an end.