My father had told me he didn’t know what else to do. He was a lot of things, but a quitter wasn’t usually one. I should have known then that something was up with him. He’d been withdrawn, tired, easily worn out and unwilling to put in the effort it took to handle what I was going through, and I hadn’t made it easy for him to understand.
He’d already been in too deep at that point, which made sense. It was only a month or so later when the feds came knocking on our front door. A door that I had answered in confusion, which morphed into more when they explained why they were there. And my father? He let them read him his rights without assuring me anything. Maybe he couldn’t.
The day they had an intervention had to have been Theo’s idea. My father wasn’t the same man who promised my mother to be better. He was a shell. Lost. Scared. Waiting for the inevitable. It was Theo who had been there, who had demanded I admit what I wouldn’t.
“All I’m saying,” he continued without me even trying to cut in, “is that you should reach out to Ripley and try making another appointment sometime soon. It’ll be good for you, Della.”
To that, he got a muffled scoff. “Good?” It was a win for him, I wasn’t telling him no right away. Realistically, he was right. Part of me was crying for help, for something. Someone. Not an escape. A cure. But I knew even after talking to Ripley, it would always be the same because there was no cure for self-hate that the anorexia and body dysmorphia had left me with.
“What did I tell you before, Della?” he repeated, voice firmer and giving me no other choice but to answer.
With a shaky breath, I looked up at him and whispered, “You told me I’d fall and fail and break but that I wouldn’t give up…”
“But you will also rise, succeed, and put yourself back together because only you can.”
I remembered every word he said to me over the years, but those especially. I knew there’d be a day I needed to hear them again because what I battled wasn’t a one-time thing. It was lifelong and that meant there would be fights to face when the time came. I saw my skin, my eyes, the way I held myself right now, and knew, just knew, I was falling. Theo knew too.
This was his second intervention.
It was the one thing he told me that day that stuck with me most. Right next to what my mother had told my father on her deathbed. I murmured, “Only I can put myself back together.” I spoke it so softly, I wondered if he heard. But it hadn’t been for him to hear. It was for me. Like when I said the two little words be better under my breath in no more than a broken whisper, like I’d been summoning the determination to honor that.
Theo didn’t ask about it though because those words gave me the strength I needed. It was probably easy to see in the way I straightened my shoulders and glanced up at him like I was going to agree. I didn’t though. Not verbally.
Before I could, Abigail knocked on the door again, before hesitantly calling out, “Mr. West?” There was an awkward pause, a moment where Theo and I stared at each other. “I’m sorry, Mr. West, but there’s a gentleman here to see you who insists it’s important. I’ve never seen him before or…”
Theo nodded once, his eyes not leaving mine. “Thank you, Abigail.”
When she left, all I did was look up to him and say, “She prefers being called Abbie.”
Chapter Seventeen
Theo
I dropped the file onto the glass desk that was too flashy for me but perfect for the egotistical asshole sitting behind it. He looked down at the manila folder in front of him for a microsecond then moved his eyes upward with an arched brow that held amusement more than confusion. For someone in his early fifties, the fucker’s speckled gray hair was faker than he was, like he thought it made him look more distinguished.
“I was wondering when you’d pay me a visit,” The Dick said all too casually. I didn’t sit in the seat he gestured to or reply when he’d offered me a drink. I didn’t want to stay longer than I needed to, and I certainly didn’t want to drink whatever he handed me.
“Anthony Saint James,” were the only words out of my mouth.
The other eyebrow raised to join the first as he leaned back in his chair. I didn’t like the way he draped his arms on his lap or how he cocked his head to the side for me to continue without so much as a question as to why I was bringing up a dead man. We both knew the reason. He just didn’t think he’d have to hear about him again. Plain and simple.
I pointed toward the document. “I don’t know who’s cock you had to suck to try getting those documents destroyed, but clearly you’re shit at a decent blowjob since it didn’t take much to collect information on what you’ve been up to over the years.”
The moment his face turned red, I smiled. Tendons in his neck tightened and my anger grew for the bastard
