Page 45 of Shattered Sinner
Anxiousness couldn’t quite describe the feeling that was growing deep in my stomach, but it was close. I’d been doing my best to avoid my parents for the most part, but if I was going to find out anything about my father, it didn’t hurt to go directly to the source.
Or look through his things.
I stepped out of my car and walked up to the front door. I pulled out my house key, fumbled with it for several seconds, throwing me off slightly, before I opened the door. Just as I did, I startled my mother who was walking through the hallway.
“Bianca! What a pleasant surprise. What are you doing here?” Her bright smile and friendly tone seemed fake or maybe that was my bias talking. My mother didn’t do well with surprises, but I didn’t care.
I’d come up with several ideas about why I would be coming home today and finally settled on one. “I wanted to talk to you about the party in a couple of days. Is everything ready to go?”
The fake smile and the tension fell from her face slightly, which was interesting. I wanted to attribute it all to me talking about something that she wanted to talk about, but I wasn’t sure.
“Yes, the only thing we need to do is find a dress for you to wear. I want you to be the belle of the ball essentially.”
“Bianca,” my father said as he walked into the room.
Mom flashed a smile at Dad that didn’t look genuine either and said, “She’s here to talk about the party.” She then turned to me and said, “Since you didn’t like anything when you were in New York City, I had some dresses delivered to your room and I was going to ask you to stop by to check them out, but since you’re here…”
I was still wondering what was going on between my parents, but I managed to say, “I’ll do it in a bit. Where are you guys off to?”
I took in the beautiful ivory dress that my mother was wearing and the suit that my father had chosen to wear tonight. They both were dressed impeccably, and I had to admit, that was one of the few things they always got right.
Dad cleared his throat before speaking. “We’re going to a dinner party hosted by the Williams’. We actually need to leave in a few minutes in order to arrive there on time.”
“That sounds like fun.” The lies were coming easier now.
This time, my mother chimed in. “It is. Your father has been having a rough week, so an evening out would be nice for him.”
Dad adjusted his tie and while his face remained expressionless, I could see the vein that appeared on the side of his head slightly bulging. He was stressed. “Did you see Diana Caldwell’s latest commercial?”
I adjusted my purse strap that had fallen off my shoulder and shook my head at my father’s question as I waited for him to continue.
“Essentially, she accused me of being corrupt, and there’s no way I’m going to take that without snapping back at her. We have a few hit pieces that we are putting together to strike back. They’ll be released over the next few days.”
I didn’t understand why all of this was happening when the election was just under a year away. The meetings, rallies, and speeches were picking up, but thankfully I wasn’t in the thick of things because I didn’t live at home anymore. What I couldn’t judge my father on was wanting to respond to attacks made against him before things got out of hand and the general public turned against him.
“Do you think she has a real chance against you?”
“I’m not underestimating her. She’s gotten this far by acting like she’s harmless, but she’s ruthless and I have to admit I admire that about her. But if I’m not careful, she could win the election.”
“I understand that,” I said. “I don’t want to hold you guys up and make you late.”
“Thanks, Bianca.” My mother gave me a small smile, probably grateful that I was giving them both an out. Her weary gaze looked at my father for a long moment as he walked to get her coat from the closet.
Dad helped Mom into her coat before putting his on and together they walked to the door.
I managed to smile and wave at them as they crossed the threshold. “Good night.”
It wasn’t until I watched the front door close behind them and the bolt lock snap into place that I moved. The time was now, and the stakes were high. I needed to do some digging because I knew that my father had secrets that he’d buried. I was going to find them, no matter the cost.
I turned on my heel and darted down the hall to my father’s office. Each step I took allowed the fear within me to creep up my spine. I was frightened about what I might find, but I had to know. My future depended on it.
If there was anything he was hiding, it had to be in there. It was his private sanctuary, where he could escape from the world and all the pressures that came with it. I didn’t think Mom, Nash, or me ever entered his office without him present, not because he told us not to but because it had been an unspoken rule of sorts. And now I was breaking it amongst other things.
As my shaky hand touched the cool brass doorknob, my nerves flipped out as my adrenaline reached another level. What I could potentially find was an endless rabbit hole that I was unearthing and what I found wouldn’t be able to be neatly put back inside of it. Part of me hoped that there wasn’t anything to be found because if I was putting my father’s dirty laundry out there, there could be some fallback on me. But if I didn’t, I could be getting married to someone I didn’t want to be married to.
Easton’s throwaway proposal to me entered my mind briefly before I shoved it out. Distractions would only be a waste of time, something I couldn’t afford to have right now. I suspected that my parents would be out of the home for several hours, so I needed to move as quickly as I could.
I opened the door and made a beeline to his large wooden desk. I turned on his lamp, illuminating most of the desk in light. Everything on the surface looked neat, not a paper out of place. As I searched through, I didn’t find anything that would point to any wrongdoing, but hell I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for anyway.
