I stood and listened and suppressed the need to slam my fist to the wall. Her little brother was going home soon. Sometime next week. I didn’t even know if my son was going to be alive sometime next week.
When the elevator stopped on the next floor, I left it and walked the short distance to the stairwell door, yanking it open. I was still on the eighth floor. Eight floors of stairs to run down.
Run.
I needed to run.
Now.
I took the stairs two at a time. My heart pounded. My pulse did the same. A deafening cacophony of pumping blood in my head that didn’t come close to drowning out the fear and anger and terror in there. I ran, not gripping the rail, the sound of my feet on the concrete stairs like a canon blasting over and over, echoing up and down the musty well, bouncing off the walls to slam back into me.
And still, I couldn’t drown out the roaring in my head.
I ran down to the ground floor, fighting to ignore the voices in my head, Charles’s snide contempt, the constant unsuccessful blood tests, Parker stating we were at a critical stage . . . Death laughing at my hopes, my optimism . . .
I slammed into the door leading out into the main foyer, stumbling into the white marble-tiled space. Clean, disinfected air replaced the musty air in my lungs, wrapping around me, cooling the beads of sweat on my forehead, the back of my neck. I staggered to a stop, not really seeing the foyer. My brain, wired on adrenaline and futile rage, demanded I keep running. To not stop.
Instead, I bent over, pressed my palms to my knees and stared at the white marble under my feet. I wasn’t physically drained. I wasn’t even close to physically exhausted. An eight-story stair run is the equivalent of a warm-up for me, especially a descending stair run. But for whatever reason, I couldn’t find my breath properly. It was as if all the crap of the last twenty-four hours had been rammed into my chest, my lungs, and all I could do was stare at the floor between my feet and suffocate.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to go. For the first time in my life, I was crippled. Shut down. There was nothing in front of me except a bleak future I couldn’t grin or joke my way out of. It didn’t matter how many bench presses I did, Tanner still had leukemia. I could perform a hundred burpees, a thousand bicep curls, a million lat pull-downs, and my son would still have cancer, and his grandfather would still try and take him away from us.
Dark swirls of nothingness formed in my vision. My head began to swim. I closed my eyes, digging my fingers into my knees and gritting my teeth. Everything I’d achieved in my life, and I still couldn’t—
“Brendon?” a familiar female voice called. “Is that you?”
I raised my head, and wished to fucking hell I hadn’t. Amanda’s mother was at the reception desk, curiosity on her face as she watched me across the distance.
Dropping my head again, I dug my fingers harder into my knees for a second, drew in the deepest breath I could, and then straightened to find Jacqueline now directly in front of me.
“Jacqui,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm.
If Jacqueline was here, Charles wouldn’t be far away. Did she know what he was doing? Did he have her blessing? Was she a part of it? The attempt to tear my family apart?
My family – me, Amanda and Tanner. My family.
A wave of fury crashed over me, so thick it was palpable. This woman’s husband was trying to destroy my family. Was trying to—
“Oh Brendon,” she murmured. And then she took that final step between us and wrapped her arms around me. “Brendon, I’m sorry.”
I fought with myself, with the desire to surrender to the hug and the urge to shove her away. Jacqueline had always been a fan of mine. She’d welcomed me into her home the first time I came to the States with Amanda. She’d engaged me in conversation when Charles refused to acknowledge my existence. She’d asked about my degrees, my studies, my future plans, scolding her husband for his passive-aggressive reaction to them.
But that was before Amanda fell pregnant. Before I disappeared from her life. Before Tanner. Before his diagnosis. Who was she now, this woman hugging me? I didn’t know.
And still, despite the war raging inside me, I slid my hands over her back and hugged her in return. It’s funny how screwed up we can get, isn’t it?
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again against my shoulder. “I tried to tell him he’s being . . .”
I didn’t hear what she said next. My brain, my every molecule had shifted focus.
Charles Sinclair had walked through the main doors into the foyer. Was walking toward us. Was staring at me.
Curling my fingers gently around Jacqueline’s upper arms, I straightened from the embrace and moved her aside. I meet his eyes. I didn’t look away.
Charles’s nostrils flared. He wore his go-to English Lit. professor uniform – tweed jacket and chinos – and a smug expression. Condescending. I wanted to smash it off his face.
“Charles,” Jacqueline dragged out his name in a warning.
He sneered, taking in my appearance from head to toe. There was no attempt to hide his contempt for me now. Open hostility etched his face.
“And this is why I’m doing what I’m doing, Jacqui,” he said, holding out a hand toward me, his eyes still locked on mine. “Do I need to reiterate the situation?”
I ground my teeth. Balled my fist. “Good morning to you, too, Charles.”
He flicked a glance at my clenched hand and snorted.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’m here to see my grandson. I’m here to save him.”
He went to walk past me but I stopped him, stepping into his path, flattening my palm to his chest. “No.”
He dropped his head to look at it, then lifted his eyes again to glare at my face. “Excuse me. Take your hand off me this second.”
I stood taller. I didn’t remove my hand. “I know what you’re here to do, Chuck. You’re here to prove you’re better than a jock. You’re here to prove you have the power to completely make my place in my son’s life, in your daughter’s life, null and void. Redundant.”
“Redundant?” Disdain flared in his eyes. “That’s a big word for you. I’m impressed.”
“Be impressed by this. I am going to spend the rest of my life with your daughter. I am going to spend the rest of my life making her happy. And I am going to spend the rest of Tanner’s life, my son’s life, doing the same. And it doesn’t matter how many pieces of paper you throw at me, how much money you waste trying to prove me an unfit father, I will prove you wrong. Because I am an incredible father, and I will be an incredible husband.” I curled my lips into a wide smile and drew my head a little closer to his. “And whether you like it or not, I will be an incredible son-in-law.”
I could hear Jacqueline saying his name, trying to placate him maybe? Trying to end this lunacy? I could see her in my peripheral vision, standing beside him, plucking at his sleeve.
“You spent two weeks drunk after Amanda ended your relationship last time,” Charles declared. “You failed two assignments and one exam during that period.”
My pulse thumped into my ears. A vice clamped my chest. He’d dug up information about me. How, I don’t know. Maybe through his university contacts? It didn’t matter though. What mattered was he had ammunition and was obviously prepared to use it against me.