Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
Yet, as I looked past his anger, I noticed the same thing about him as I had Allegra.
“Let her go now, and I will spare your life, Sergei,” Neal snapped as he stepped closer to us. There was something different about him that I hadn’t noticed before. Something more dangerous.
“You two look very familiar,” Sergei muttered. “Do I know you?”
The moment that his guard was taken down, a blur distracted me, causing me to fall to the floor as Sergei went toppling over the gun firing and the sound of James screaming.
It was Tally, she had saved my life, and in the process… her body lay on the floor blood seeping from her chest as she coughed.
Yet, she wasn’t the only one dead. Sergei laid dead next to her with a bullet wound to his face and was almost unrecognizable. Neal had taken that shot, and as my eyes filled with tears, I crawled over to Tally.
“Oh, no no no… please, no.” I whimpered as I placed my hands on her chest in an attempt to stop the bleeding. “Tally, hold on, you’re going to be okay.”
James screamed for someone to call help, and at the moment he did, men in uniforms came through the broken doors. Men who were there to help us.
“Becca–” Tally gasped as she raised her hand to touch the side of my face. “It’s going to be okay.”
“You’re right. It will be okay.” I smiled at her. “Help is coming… you’re going to be okay.”
“I’m not going—to make it,” she gasped as she started to cough, blood seeping from her mouth.
“You are going to make it. You have a little boy upstairs who needs his mommy.”
A small smile crested her lips as she shook her head slowly. “No, he is going to need you. I’m sorry for everything that I did, Becca. I hope—I hope this makes us even.”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. I couldn’t believe that she was so easily giving up on life when she had so much life to live. “Of course, I forgive you. I can’t do this without you, Tally.”
She smiled at me for a moment before she seemed to slip. The last breath of her body left her as I cried out. I wasn’t sure what was happening as time seemed to stand still, but arms pulled me away, and slowly I was removed from the home.
The view of James hovering over his dead daughter would be forever imprinted into my memory.
Ambulances and police swarmed the area. Emergency responders were shouting directions and asking Neal and Allegra what was going on. I was deaf to most of it, though. Unable to focus, unable to process what had happened.
None of this should have happened.
Yet, it did, and because it did, lives were lost, and families were torn apart.
I didn’t understand why it was that all this pain and sorrow came to the people I loved, but knowing that the problem was gone and that Sergei couldn’t hurt anyone else made me feel slightly better.
Even if my friend was gone… I would find a way to fulfill my promise.
James.
Throughout my entire life, I thought I had known pain. However, when I saw my daughter die before my eyes, I realized I didn’t even know what pain was. The pain of losing a child isn’t something that I wish any parent to ever have to go through.
The burning ache of losing my daughter was a feeling that would never be able to go away, a void in my chest that would forever remain empty. She was my pride and joy, my only child, my everything, and even though Becca was pregnant with my child, it was an idea that I still couldn’t wrap my head around.
How could I process anything when my sweet Taliana was gone?
“James, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Greg, the federal agent who had been working with me, said as he stood at the back of the open ambulance doors.
I was angry with him. He was supposed to have been here. He was supposed to have been my back up, and had he shown up, perhaps my daughter wouldn’t be dead. “You promised that you would protect her. Where the f8ck were you?”
He was at a loss for words, lips parted, and a blank expression upon his face. “We did, but there were things that had happened. I’m so sorry, James. I didn’t think that this would be the end result.”
“You didn’t think that he would kill my daughter? Are you kidding me? He would have killed us all, and you were nowhere around. How would you feel if that was your child that you just lost in there?” I screamed in anger, furious about how he could stand there, acting as if he had no fault in any of this.
“Let’s get you to the hospital and get you fixed up,” he mumbled as the two ambulance drivers came back and finished what they were doing.
I didn’t want to go to the hospital, though. I didn’t want to live.
“No, wait!” I cried out, trying to break free of the man who attempted to stick me with a needle. “My grandson–where’s my grandson?”
My panicked tone caught Greg’s attention, and as he glanced over his shoulder, I followed his gaze to see the nanny walking towards Becca, who stood in shock with Neal’s arm around her shoulders. “According to the female over there, Taliana had written a will. The woman gave her that will, which clearly states that the child must be placed in Becca’s custody.”
Hearing this news broke my heart. My own daughter had decided that my grandson would be in the better care of her friend Becca than with me. Not that I really could blame her. I was more than likely still going to jail after everything that had happened.
I didn’t even know if I could make it to my daughter’s funeral.
As the tears poured down my face and my heart shattered into a million pieces. I watched the doors to the ambulance close, leaving me to the dim lighting of the truck and a million thoughts that swirled through my mind.
Sergei was dead and no longer a threat to my family.
But my life was completely destroyed.
****
Neal.
The moment that I had walked into the house and had seen Becca in the position she was in, I didn’t hesitate to fire the gun and kill the man who held her hostage. I knew who he was.
Sergei was a very well-known criminal back in my home country, and through everything that I had been through growing up, there was no way I’d let him take her from me.
The problem was, I didn’t expect for James’s daughter to knock the man out of the way and in return take the first bullet I had meant for him.
The shock of killing her haunted me. I hadn’t meant for her to get caught in the crossfire, but the stupid girl thought herself heroic ,and in the end, lost her life.
Allegra had told me to keep my mouth closed. To not say anything and leave the news for Becca to another day. She was right as usual, because seeing the pain in Becca’s eyes was more than I could handle. She was broken, and she needed someone to be strong for her.
Considering she had lost not only Tally, but James as well… I couldn’t let her lose me, too. I just hoped she would forgive me one day for what I had done.
“She’s gone,” Becca said softly, her whispered tone catching my attention as I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close to me.
“Are you Rebecca?” Both Becca and I gazed at the woman, who came walking forward with a baby in her arms and a grim expression on her face.
“Oh, my goodness, is this him?” Becca choked back a sob as she held her arms out to the woman, wanting to take the baby from her.
“Yes,” the woman said softly, handing over the child. “I’m Sara, and this is Tally’s son. She left this document for you as well. It’s her will that gives you the legal rights to care for the child.”
I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on or what she meant, and as Becca gazed down at the baby, I knew that whatever it was, those questions would have to wait until later.
“Becca, I know that you’re hurting right now, but we really need to move you away from the crime scene,” I explained to her, watching as she hesitated for a moment before slowly nodding her head.
Glancing over my shoulder at my sister standing by a black sedan, I nodded. I slowly turned Becca towards the car as Allegra opened the door for Becca to climb in.