I can’t move, I can’t talk and he’s surrounded by a swarm of horny girls that have their hands all over him, blocking his view.
The last thing I see before I’m shoved into the back of a car is his smiling face as he puts his signature on a blonde girl’s thigh.
Panicked, hyperventilating, scared to even have thoughts, I’m driven away. Blood rushes to my head. Suddenly, I’m suffocating.
The car stops only a few blocks away, unless I’ve completely lost track of time, and my two captors take me down a dark alley to a sort of semi-covered playground.
There are no lights in the playground, so when a third figure approaches, I can’t really tell if it’s a man or a woman, old or young, human or alien.
“Uncuff her,” the figure commands and now at least I know the voice belongs to a man.
I’m shaking badly. I can hardly stand on my feet. My fear and uncertainty could threaten to make me pass out.
“Don’t be afraid, Ella,” the voice says. “I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to warn you.”
“Warn me?” I repeat, unable to understand, rubbing my wrists where the cuffs were.
“Forgive the theatrics,” the man says as he steps out of the shadows to get near me. “I’m afraid we’re both watched and have to be creative to avoid constant scrutiny.”
“Who are you?” I say as I get a bit bolder. “What do you want?”
“Somebody has to tell you and the fools you have around you won’t do it. Your life is in danger. Someone wants you dead.”
I rub my temples, totally confused. “I don’t understand. Who wants me dead? Why? Who are you?”
“The same people who killed Madison.”
I can almost hear the wheels in my brain turning. The Bronsons want me dead as well and this strange man wants to warn me? It makes no fucking sense.
“I don’t believe you,” I say, mostly so I can hear the words myself.
“Listen to me,” the man says, taking my hand. “You have to be careful. You won’t be safe in Paris.”
He brings his face next to mine, making my skin crawl. Yet, there’s something tender about the way he holds my hand.
“Get the hell away from her.”
Jaxson appears like a superhero with two long strides, pushing the man away. “Carter?” he says, as he takes a closer look at his face.
My blood goes cold and my cheeks burn up. My head starts buzzing and I reach out for Jax’s hand. He takes it, reassuring me he’s here.
I look into the strange man’s eyes. My own eyes have adjusted to the darkness and I can make out his face as it glimmers in the pale moonlight.
I let go of Jax’s hand to take a step closer.
My dry lips part and I study both sides of the man’s anxious face. I swallow hard and then say the word. “Father?”
SCANDAL
Part three
—one—
Ella
Dark clouds obscure the sinking moonlight, distorting reality even more. Spit gets stuck in my throat, causing me to cough.
This can’t be happening. No fucking way.
I shut my eyes to absorb the shock of the new revelation and avoid the look of guilt on my abductor’s face.
“It’s me,” he says now, which could mean a number of things. It’s me, the man who had you kidnapped while your boyfriend was getting busy with a bunch of frenzied co-eds. Or, it’s me, Carter Someone who happens to be acquainted with Jaxson Cole but not the Carter you think.
Or, it’s me, Carter Wade, the father that abandoned you years ago when you were still only a child.
The man snaps his fingers and just like that the lights in the playground turn back on. Our eyes meet, turning suspicion into certainty. It’s him. He’s barely changed in the fourteen missing years.
This can’t be true, I tell myself.
“Ella, I’m your father,” he says as coldly as Darth Vader. His black suit and dark hair add to the effect.
I suddenly remember his hazel eyes. He defies his age except for the barely there hint of salt in the pepper. He would be fifty-one now I calculate.
What is this specter that has returned to me from the shadows?
I linger in this painfully comic Darth Vader abstraction. Humor has always been my preferred place to hide.
Jax pulls me out of my daze, clutching my body into his strong arms.
“You don’t owe him anything,” Jax says. “You don’t have to listen to anything he says.”
I study Jax’s face. The protective concern in his expression makes it all the more painful for me to come to terms with the truth.
“I know,” I tell him, “but I want to hear this, even if it is bullshit.”
Jax turns to the man he called Carter only moments ago. It suddenly hits me that Jax has known my father was alive the whole time. Not only that, he also actually knows him. They know each other. I’m stunned.