The Parent Trap

Chapter 55

Chase Jacobs

POV

As I walked into the intensive care unit where Carly was, a shiver creeped up my spine. The place was eerily quiet.

I watched her through the glass door scared to go in and look at her closer, it already looked scary from where I was standing. She was covered almost head to toe in bandages. She was in this condition because she saved my daughter.

No our daughter.

Carly was in this condition because she used her own body to protect Stella. I know I would have done the same thing if I was in her position which made me feel even worse, because I was supposed to protect her, supposed to protect both of them. I should have had someone protecting them. We didn’t know what kind of threats were out there, I should have known better.

I walk into the room and sit on the chair by her bed.

I looked at her face half covered by the oxygen mask, she looked so small. Carly wasn’t tall to begin with but she looked so small, so lifeless, laying there. My eyes find the heart monitor, her heartbeat is at a steady rhythm, it brings me a sense of comfort like a nursery rhyme meant to comfort kids. The intensive care unit was almost silent, there weren’t nurses or doctors moving around constantly.

She looked nothing like the woman who threw me over her shoulder when I startled her, or the woman who had Amelia pinned down when she startled her. She looked so impossibly small and fragile. I barely recognized her.

She looked nothing like the woman who also laughed whole heartily when Stella told jokes or when we were eating dinner and Koah made a joke about some show they were watching.

I sigh trying to calm myself down, she was fine. She was still a live. She’d made it through the night, the doctors were now optimistic about her condition.

Things were looking up, I should be thinking about the positives.

Scared to touch her but needing her warmth I touch her hand they have an IV running through careful not to touch it. It was luckily not burnt.

Her hand is warm and relief washes over me.

I close my eyes. "Thank you. Thank you so much Carly. I know without you I might have lost my daughter. Might have lost you. Thank you for Fighting. For being who you are. Yesterday made me realize how much the two of you mean to me. That you mean more to me than just a friend or Stella’s mother." I let out a shaky laugh, my voice trembling.

"I’ve been lying to myself for so long, I didn’t want to admit my feelings for you, I didn’t want to fall for you and when things fall apart Stella’s the one that hurts the most. But after everything that’s happened I don’t think I can continue to lie to myself, to you. To everyone about my feelings for you. You’re more than just Stella’s mother. You’re so much more than you’ll ever know..." I think back on our late night kitchen conversations, the way her smile could brighten up my entire day, how coming home to her and Stella makes my house feel like a home. "I don’t know when it happened, or how it happened. But when I saw that house and they only brought Stella out I was torn. I wanted to see you come out of that house too. I wasn’t only terrified of losing my daughter I was terrified of losing you too. I didn’t want to lose the one person who knew me for me and not the actor Chase Jacobs, but the man Chase Jacobs."

I’m in love with you Carly...

I say to myself. Scared to say the words out loud.

I’ve spent weeks watching her become a mother to Stella, fall into our routine, become a part of our family.

I leaned forward kissing the back of her hand gently careful not to touch the IV line.

Tears run down my face. "Please don’t leave us, fight to stay with us. You’ve already sacrificed so much to have Stella, you don’t have to keep paying for leaving when you did. You did it to protect Stella. Stella already loves you so much. I know when she wakes up the first person she’ll ask for is you. So wake up please..." I beg.

There wasn’t a single change in her condition.

I didn’t know what I expected. But I’d hoped Carly would show a sign any sign that she felt the same about me, that she would show signs of waking up. Anything.

Carly’s been through hell and back. She didn’t deserve everything thrown at her. But she was still fighting, still crawling her way out of hell to survive, to fight to be by Stella’s side.

I believed she’d wake up and show me her brightest smile again.

Maybe just maybe everything will be the way it used to be, or maybe better...

====

Austin Reed

POV

"Please. Please let me go. Please I promise I’ll get your money please... It hurts... It hurts so much..." I beg again.

Angelo shakes his head at me like he’s looking at a little child throwing a tantrum.

Over the last week Angelo’s men have tortured me relentlessly. First he took my kidneys, then they took out my liver, next week my lungs are set to go.

I was going to die if they take anymore of me. I can’t take this anymore. The constant beatings, the pain that doesn’t even fade when I’m sleeping. The fact that I have gotten used to sleeping while my entire body was in pain. It was like I was living in hell. I hated and loathed every part of it.

I just wanted to go home. I wanted to go back to how things were before my dad left before my mother started to go crazy after he left. She blamed me for him leaving, for him leaving with all our money.

If I could go back I would stop my father from leaving us, we’d be a happy family I never would have started gambling, my mother would still be alive.

None of this would have happened. I would be free from everything.

Maybe dying would be the right thing. Maybe I’d be free from all of it. When I meet my mother on the other side, I’ll pay back her back for every resentment buried in my heart. She would pay for everything she did to me. Every pain inflicted on me during my childhood. The bullying I went through because my clothes were old and smelly.

Everything.

If I have a next life I promise to make her pay even more than she did when she died. I’ll make sure of it. You know what my father needs to pay too. He was the reason the bitch went crazy.

This was all of his fault. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t at fault, my parents were, if they had provided for me like normal parents did for their child none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t be in this situation.

"Oh I like the look in your eyes. You look like you want to kill me. You can try. But I promise you. You won’t succeed. You’ll have fun trying though. Oh no I’ll have fun kicking you when you’re down." Angelo winks at me.

I was strapped to a hospital bed with monitors attached to me. I could move even if I wanted to. Attacking him would be a fever dream. I don’t even think I could get to him even if I wanted to. His men would have me on the floor in seconds.

I just looked at him all the anger and resentment bubbling through, I couldn’t hide it even if I tried.

"I warned you didn’t I? I told you what would happen if you didn’t pay me? Are you angry I followed through? Or are you angry you pissed off my cousin enough for him to want you dead?" He asks.

I don’t answer. I grit my teeth.

There was nothing I could say. No words would get me out of this hellhole I was going to die here. I knew that now. My earlier begging fell on deaf ears. They wouldn’t let me go. No matter how much I begged.

Koah was going to make sure I died here.

I was never going to get my revenge on Koah, or Melissa the two women I once treated like gold now was waiting for my downfall. They plotted against me and blindsided me. It pissed me the hell off.

But there was nothing I could do. There was no way I was getting out of here alive. If I get a second chance at life I’d stay the hell away from those two. I’d walk away. They were trying to drag me into the pits of hell with them.

I was going to die with resentment for my parents and the two women who once told me I was their worlds.

Melissa was once carrying my child, Koah was once the woman I was going to marry but now it’s all gone. All of this happened because I gave Koah too much freedom. I never should have given in to Melissa and gone at that trip. If I’d just stayed home, none of this would have happened.

"I wonder if I video called Enzo if he’d be happy to see you..." Angelo murmurs more to himself than to me.

"Do you need to do this to me?" I ask.

He smiles. "Of course, my cousin paid premium for your VIP treatment. Can’t you see we gave you the VIP suite. You even got a damn catheter. So you could piss and poop to your heart’s content. Normally the assholes we have down here shit and piss themselves..." he speaks as though being locked in a basement without any food or water is VIP treatment.

I didn’t have any say in what time they’d wake me for my morning beating, what time the doctors came in with a demand for my organs. I was awake for most of the organ retrievals.

This was hell, I was beginning to wish for my own death. I wanted nothing for than for this nightmare to end.

"What? Don’t like the treatment you’ve received?" he asks.

I bite my lips to stop myself from saying anything.

"You know your kidney saved a little girls life, she’d been on the waiting list for five years even with all her parents money, they couldn’t find a match who would have thought a worthless piece of shit like you could bring in five mil for a single kidney." He marvels.

I didn’t feel like people who give up organs to save people’s lives. If anything I feel like that girl should have died. She didn’t deserve to live. If I was going to die. Everyone who got a piece of me should too.