Scandal:The Complete Series(63)

I slowly turn to Jax, my growing fury aimed at him as much as Carter. “You knew all this? How stupid of me to have trusted you again.”

He keeps his eyes on mine but I can tell his resolve is diminishing. “I did what I thought was best for you. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“He could say the same thing, you know. You’re no better than him. You people think you are above everyone, above morality.”

“You’re right, Ella. That’s why I quit,” Jax says.

“Really? You quit? Looks like some habits die hard.”

“I told you everything I could. This one thing, the thing that would hurt you the most, it was up to him to tell you.”

“That’s weak. You are so full of shit. This fucking thing here is the whole story. All the rest was just what you thought you could get away with.”

“Sounds weak to me,” Carter says.

I glare at him like I have never glared in my life. “Don’t get me started on you,” I warn my father. “Your version of all this is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard. You see yourself as a hero? A protector? All you ever did was abandon your family and now, my God, you have us on some kill list.”

Jaxson reaches out to take my hand.

“Don’t you touch me,” I say, not ready to forgive him—not even a little.

“Be mad at me all you want,” he says. “Hate me. Whatever. But right now we need to get you out of here.”

“Your pretty boy’s right,” Carter says. “Let’s move you to a secure location. You can think of all the ways I failed you once you get settled.”

My sense of self-preservation finally kicks in. If everything they have told me is true, my anger will have to wait.

These two arrogant liars may not be the best company to keep, but right now we all have the same goal—keeping me alive.

I nod reluctantly. Carter waves to his goons and almost instantly two cars approach. I let Jaxson put his hand on my back to guide me.

“You’re all a bunch of assholes,” I say quite sincerely.

No one seems to have an argument with that.





—two—


Jaxson




As soon as Ella falls asleep shortly after midnight in the guarded guest house, I head out to the main building looking for Carter. Fucking Carter Wade, the man who fathered the woman I love and then disappeared when she was only a child to lead a life of crime and illusions.

His ties to my uncle Lucius became apparent to me the day he showed up at the HQ with a battered face and a suitcase full of money and drugs. A situation, as he called it, had gone wrong and Lucius promised to help fix it. I must have been fourteen or fifteen at the most but quite familiar with the kind of bullshit Lucius liked to dip all his fingers and toes into.

Lucius made no attempt to hide the fact he was feared and revered in the underworld. That was the kind of thing that made his life worth living. He thought I was soft and weak and needed some basic schooling in the cruelty of the real world.

When Carter showed up that evening, Lucius invited him to have dinner with us. The two men openly discussed Carter’s failed dealings with some drug cartel right in front of me.

My mind was churning so fast it made me dizzy. The fact the man with the bruised face was Ella’s father added a special element of suspense to his story. I kept my ears open to hear everything that was being said to make sure Ella was not in trouble. Her image was still very clear in my mind and I would have done anything to protect her.

The days I spent with Ella as kids, running through sundrenched days until night fell, lingered in my imagination ever since my mother died and I had come to live with Lucius in his cold mausoleum. Only Ella’s easy smile penetrated the thick walls of my growing apathy.

I put it all together those three days that Carter stayed with us at HQ. He left his family when he became restless, when petty crime and small money stopped being enough to satisfy his hunger. Carter wanted power.

Lucius and Carter go back a long way. They met in middle school and quickly struck some kind of unholy alliance driven by their hate for their parents’ middle-class paralysis. If they could come up with something to upset their families’ status quo, they would attack it with vigor.

My mother, uncle Lucius’ older and only sister, tried to be a good influence on them but backed away when she realized young Carter was developing feelings for her.

Carter always had that soft spot for my mother and helped her start over when my father died. He also helped Lucius build his empire in the beginning before becoming unreliable. Lucius felt he owed Carter and that led to feelings of resentment brewing inside my uncle’s head who could not bear the thought of being in anyone’s debt. For all his faults, Lucius was not a man who walked away from his responsibilities. He supported Carter as much as he could.