Sins of My Father (Black Brothers #1) (18 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Archer

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, not bothering to acknowledge Knox. I thought he was going to be out of town this weekend. Apparently, I was mistaken.

“Still no word from Langley?” Knox flopped down on the couch next to me. I wished he’d turn around and walk right out my door. Better yet, he should take that vacation he mentioned at the office yesterday.

“Nope.” I stared at the television as though I was watching a riveting program. Truthfully, I didn’t even know what was on the TV. Two weeks had passed since Senator Wharton tried to kill Langley, and I still hadn’t heard a single word from her. Her absence left a gaping hole in my heart. I didn’t know what to do. For the first time since I was a kid, I felt completely powerless.

“She still hasn’t answered your calls or your texts?”

I took a drink of my beer before answering. Two more beers and I could kiss my sobriety goodbye. I planned to remedy that problem in the next half hour. Drunk and lonely seemed infinitely more appealing than being sober and lonely. “Nope, but her number was disconnected as of this morning.”

Knox plopped his feet on the top of my coffee table. On any other day, I would have objected, but today I didn’t give a shit.

“Did you call her at work?”

“She took a leave of absence, or at least that’s what they told me.” Pain and depression from a breakup were new to me. I never cared when a woman walked out of my life permanently. When Langley told me to go away that night, I never considered for one second that she wanted me out of her life forever. I guess I was wrong. I should’ve listened to the underlying finality in her voice.

“Well, that’s that.” Knox stood up and started picking up the miscellaneous cartons of take-out that littered my counter from last night.

I waved my hand at the mess. “Don’t worry about it, my cleaning lady is coming on Monday.”

“Monday?” Knox glared at me. “You do realize that it’s only Saturday.”

“So what?” I shrugged. “The mess doesn’t bother me.”

“It sure as hell bothers me. It stinks like shit in here.”

“Then leave. Get the fuck out of here. I don’t want your company. I want to be alone,” I yelled. Knox knew me better than anyone in the world, yet he didn’t understand why I couldn’t move on. He stopped by every day, trying to draw me out of this funk. It wouldn’t work. Regrets ate at my soul every hour until I felt like I was dying inch by painfully slow inch.

“You don’t have a choice. This has to end today. You’ve ripped everyone’s head off at work the past few weeks, and the entire office is avoiding you like the plague.”

“So what? Once they get their year-end bonus, they’ll forget about it.”

Knox ripped the beer bottle out of my hand. “Don’t you think you’ve been drinking too much?”

“Fuck you,” I responded without any heat, because he was right. Drinking was the last thing someone with an alcoholic parent should do in excess.

“This is ridiculous. You’re a mess, Archer. You need to move on with your life and pull yourself together. Langley isn’t the only woman in the world. Call Leah. I’m sure she’d be happy to take your mind off of Langley.”

I ran a shaky hand over my face. “No, dammit. I don’t want to move on. Langley is the only woman I want.” I’d spent my entire life shutting everyone except Knox out of my life, but somehow Langley slipped through the cracks in my armor, healing me from the inside out. I refused to let her go. I needed to make her understand what she meant to me. I wanted to marry her, build a life with her, and have children with her. It’d destroy me if I didn’t find a way to make it work. I’d never get enough of her.

Her smile.

Her laugh.

The arc of her neck.

The subtle curve of her waist.

Her kindness.

I felt like I was missing part of myself.

“Fine, then let’s go through your options. Have you called Langley’s mom?”

I scowled at him, and my jaw muscles automatically tightened. “You know that’s not an option. I’m not sure she knows where Langley is either. From what little Langley told me of her, she wasn’t much of a parent.” For the most part, Langley’s mom had maintained a low profile since Senator Wharton was arrested. I had no idea what Langley’s mom knew about my connection to her husband. So far, none of the details had leaked to the media, and I hoped it remained that way. I never wanted to acknowledge my connection to him publicly. Thank God his name wasn’t on my birth certificate.

“What about her friends? Have you contacted any of them?”

“I’ve only met one. Winnie. My background information on her didn’t extend beyond her name, Winifred Watters. I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to get to know her, and her home address isn’t readily obtainable.”

Knox rolled his eyes. “Let me guess. You were too focused on Langley to make conversation with her friend.”

“Something like that,” I mumbled, remembering the night I found her at The Nine Bar. She’d looked so beautiful; I hardly glanced at Winnie.

“Here,” he said. Knox reached into his pocket, pulled out a scrap of paper, and tossed it into my lap.

“What this?” I said, scanning the address, handwritten in block letters.

“Winnie’s address. Langley’s been living there for the past two weeks. During the week, Winnie leaves for work at eight thirty, and she doesn’t come home until after six, except on Fridays. She goes to happy hour with her co-workers or friends. Langley hasn’t joined her since the Senator Wharton scandal. Winnie’s weekend schedule varies.”

“What about Langley? What has she been doing?”

“She doesn’t leave Winnie’s house often.”

A spasm of pain ripped through my chest. “How did you get all of that information?”

Knox smirked. “I have connections.”

I stuffed the handwritten address into my pocket. “Why didn’t you give this to me earlier?”

“Because I thought you’d be over her by now, but instead of snapping out of this, you’re getting more and more pathetic with every passing day,” he said with amusement.

I shoved him in the shoulder. “It’s not funny. This whole thing isn’t funny.”

Knox chuckled. “That’s where you’re wrong. This whole scenario is insanely funny. You’ve only cared about making money for as long as I can remember. Now, you’ve spent the last two weeks moping over a woman.”

I grabbed my keys and wallet off the coffee table. “Can you lock up when you leave?”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to find Langley and make her talk to me.”

“Like that?” he said, eyeing my wrinkled clothes.

I opened my front door. “I don’t want to waste any more time.” And I didn’t. I refused to believe I’d lost my chance to be with Langley.

“At least drink some coffee before you go.”

“I’ll stop on my way.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Langley

“Thanks for meeting me. I think it’s time we talk about how we’re going to handle this incident. We need to make a plan to move forward,” my mom said as I walked into the intimate dining room.

For the first time in two weeks, she called me last night and asked me to join her for lunch. Initially, I was surprised she had picked such a popular restaurant, but she quickly explained that she arranged for us to meet in a private room.

“I agree,” I said as I slipped into the chair across from my mom. She looked as immaculately groomed as ever. She wore an emerald green pantsuit with gold buttons. Her hair was coiffed into an elegant bun and her makeup was expertly applied.

“Did you come in through the back door?” she asked.

“Yes.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. “The calls from the press have died down the last few days.”

“That’s good. It’s been a couple of weeks, and we’ve both refused to comment on what happened, so that’s expected.”

“Right. I think they have most of the relevant details from the police and FBI.” My mom’s lips pressed into a narrow line and she jerked her head to the side. I grabbed her hand from her lap and squeezed it. It was cold to the touch. “How are you holding up? Are you okay?”

She slipped her hand from mine and picked up the white linen napkin on her plate and placed it in her lap. “I’m fine, Langley. Better than I have been over the last two weeks.”

Guilt speared through my chest. Too caught up in my turmoil, I’d been avoiding her, but in my defense, this was the first time she asked to see me since I was discharged from the hospital. Even in the hospital she only peeked her head into my room for a few minutes before she excused herself.

“That’s good,” I muttered.

She took a sip of her ice water, but her eyes never left mine. “I met with Senator Wharton’s legal team today. We decided how to shape his defense.”

The edges of my vision blurred and my blood froze in my veins. “You’re helping his attorneys?”

She tilted her head to the side. “Of course I am. You didn’t leave me with much of a choice.”

“He tried to kill me,” I hissed as I clutched the folds of my dress, twisting the material between my fingers.

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Stand by me. Support me. Your daughter. Not him.”

Her lips twisted into something resembling a sneer. “Why should I do that? You ruined my life. You have never given a second thought about how your actions affect me. Not once.”

“My actions?” Baffled, I shook my head. “What did I do to you?”

“You stole your dad from me. Now you’ve successfully ruined my marriage with Senator Wharton. So here I am, alone again.”

There were so many things wrong with that statement. I could hardly form a response. “I didn’t steal dad. He died of a drug overdose.”

She snorted. “You’re wrong. He abandoned me long before he died. From the moment you took your first breath, you were the only thing he cared about. He loved you so much he didn’t have anything left for me. He didn’t care what I wanted or needed. His whole life revolved around you. I went from being his everything to an afterthought in the blink of an eye.”

My eyes flared. Her words were senseless…unhinged. A normal person wouldn’t interpret a father-daughter relationship that way. “Mom, he loved you,” I said, because words escaped me.

“No. You’re wrong. He wanted a divorce. He planned to leave me. He didn’t want me anymore. He only wanted you, and now you’ve managed to ruin my second marriage too. I shouldn’t have taken you with me after your father died. I should’ve left you with your father’s sister. She wanted you. She loved you.”

My vision spun like I had vertigo, and I thought I’d be sick. There was always an invisible wall between my mom and me. Now I knew why. She hated me. She viewed me as her competition, not her child. “Thomas would’ve killed me. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? He held a gun to my head. I closed my eyes, believing my life was over. If it weren’t for Archer and his brother—”

“Archer Black?” The name rolled off her lips like poison. “I warned you to stay away from him, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“You warned me?” I shook my head in disbelief. “No. You never said anything about him.”

“Who do you think left those notes on your car?”

I shuddered as the confession left her lips. “I assumed they were from Thomas. I never dreamed you would do something like that,” I said, but the words were barely audible.

“Well, I did. I put them on your car. I couldn’t have you around that man. Thomas said he’d take care of it. He wanted me to stay out of it, but I couldn’t.” She shook her head from side to side. “I knew why he wanted you.”

“What do you mean?” I said, sliding my phone out of my pocket and dialing Winnie’s home number while keeping the phone concealed in my lap. She was meeting her sister for lunch, so the call would go to voicemail, which was perfect. I’d have a recording of the entire conversation.

“He was bitter because Thomas didn’t want anything to do with him.”

My stomach dropped. “You know Archer is his son?” I whispered.

She rearranged the silverware next to her plate, avoiding my eyes. “Of course I did. Thomas and I don’t have secrets. We’re a team.”

The blood rushed out of my face as the implications of her words knifed through my heart. “You know about those women and you don’t care?”

She shrugged. “Grow up, Langley. Men have needs. They have affairs. It doesn’t mean anything. Even your saintly dad had affairs. Those women knew the score.”

“Those women?” I questioned. “What’s wrong with those women? They didn’t do anything to you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Those women were escorts. They were well paid for their services. They made a deal. They can’t change their mind after the fact and blackmail their clients for more money later.”

“They weren’t even eighteen years old. Did you know that?”

“Who cares? They’re trash,” she snapped.

“He had three of them killed.” I couldn’t mask the revulsion in my voice.

“He did what he had to do. I support his decisions. We have the same end goal.”

“And what’s that?”

“He’s going to be the next president, and I’m going to be the next first lady.” She smiled serenely like she actually believed it could still happen.

“I think it’s a little late for that. Don’t you?”

She rested her elbows on the edge of the table and leaned forward. “No, because you’re going to help us clear up this little misunderstanding.”

“There wasn’t a misunderstanding. Thomas intended to kill me. He held a gun to my head. He threatened to throw me down the stairs and then break my neck.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. He was just trying to scare you. He wouldn’t have killed you.”

“You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened.” I folded the napkin in my lap and set it on top of my plate. “I don’t think we have anything more to talk about.” My heart was battered, bruised, and bloody. I didn’t know the woman sitting across from me. I was obviously in denial when I thought she cared about me.

She grabbed my wrist, and her nails dug into my flesh. “No. I’m not done talking to you. You’re going to sit down and sign a sworn affidavit claiming Senator Wharton was at your home per your request. Archer and his brother mistakenly believed he was an intruder and shot him.”

“No,” I yelled, shaking my head back and forth. “I won’t lie to save Thomas. He’s a murderer and a liar. Besides, I already talked to the police and the FBI. I can’t change my testimony now. They won’t believe me.”

“You can and you will.”

“No.”

“I can make your life uncomfortable if you don’t agree.”

Laughing at the irony of her words, I twisted my arm out her grasp. “You don’t have any power. Nobody wants anything to do with Thomas, and you’re tainted by association. Your friends won’t talk to you. The members of his party can’t distance themselves from the Wharton name fast enough,” I snarled through clenched teeth, venom dripping from every syllable of every word. “It’s over. You don’t even control my trust fund anymore.”

She lurched forward, struggling to grab my arm again. “You can’t leave.”

“Don’t touch me,” I said, carefully articulating each word as I slid out of my chair. “I have nothing to say to you. You’re dead to me.” My voice cracked on the last word, because it was the absolute truth. I never wanted to see her again. I lost my dad over ten years ago. Now, I didn’t have a mother either. Maybe I never did.

The realization lay heavy on my heart. I had to get out of there before I shattered into a million unrecognizable pieces. Rushing across the room, I pushed open the heavy wooden doors separating us from the rest of the customers in the restaurant.

“Langley, wait. I didn’t excuse you.”

I ignored her, moving as fast as possible without breaking into a full run. I had entered the restaurant through the back door as my mom instructed. She wanted us to avoid any prying eyes. Unfortunately, I didn’t go unnoticed as I raced to the front door.

Even through the tears blurring my vision, I saw dozens of eyes following me as I wove through the tables. I recognized a few faces. Thankfully, they were all too stunned to comment on my behavior. When I reached the door, I wiped the tears from my face and opened the door with as much dignity as I could muster under the circumstances.