Biker's Claim The Broken Angel is Mine (Cora and Jake) novel Chapter 55

Chapter 55

Cora POV

Paul looked like he didn’t suffer

You never really know, to be honest.

Science says that your brain keeps going, and you’re hearing, after death, but how can you really prove it? Like God and faith, it’s not tactile, so it’s all hearsay. Some patients come out of long comas and say they heard the people around them, others say they heard nothing. I want to think that, in this instance, he didn’t suffer only a brief moment of panic when he knew he couldn’t avoid the collision, but that it lasted only microseconds.

The other two are still in surgery and will be for a while.

I don’t remember the ride home. I do remember Gunner helping me zip up my jacket because my hands were all thumbs, and putting the lunch box in the pannier bag. The bags he put on when I started to be his passenger, somewhere to put my personal items if need be, he was always kind and considerate like that, thinking of ways to make things easier for me. Even when they might be uncomfortable for him, no one had ever done that to me or for me before. It was nice to be seen in my private life for a change.

Now I was sitting out on our balcony, coffee in hand, looking out over the property, watching a bird in the nearby tree. I think there are two birds building a nest. Watching nature and life continue, while I felt my life had just come to a standstill.

Paul’s gone, Dad’s going to be devastated, his son, the only child he recognised as his, was gone, the dragon lady will be crying on his shoulder, and he would support her. Sometimes I wondered if Paul was not a stepbrother, and how far back he went with Danica. We only knew of her existence for a few months, but he could have been with her before he met my mother, so many things don’t add up, and only now are they starting to surface and make me think. But now was not the time to think about that; now was the time to put what happened into some context, deal with it and move on.

Gunner was right, I shouldn’t take their deaths, or the last time we met, as guilt for saying something wrong. I know I did nothing wrong, but that doesn’t stop what–ifs. But then, they should have been long gone, yet they stayed close by.

Why?

Did they think they could come near me and sway me to move back?

No chance.

I signed a contract, even though I am in a three–month trial period; they wouldn’t be able to sway me to return, return to what? There was nothing to return to. They ruined that place for me. I would see every place we visited as a betrayal.

My broken trust and betrayal overshadowed any feeling of guilt that tried to surface.

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That will never happen. I refuse to take on the guilt trip.

But the what–ifs will.

Are the what–ifs worth going through?

That’s the part I am fighting now. What if I hadn’t come home early? What if I had just pretended I didn’t see it? But I knew I couldn’t and wouldn’thave been able to pretend I had not seen it.

No, I did the right thing, leaving.

It’s not my fault that they came here or got in an accident.

But Dad won’t see it that way.

He would twist in ways that made him feel better, and blaming me for everything was one of them. Believing all the lies his wife tells was another.

I sipped my coffee; it had gone cold, but I drank it anyway. People drink iced coffee. What’s the difference, other than I don’t like iced coffee?

“Do you want to talk?” Gunner asked as he set a plate of sandwiches on the table, reached down, took my cup from me, set it on the table, lifted me, sat down, and placed me on his lap.

“Not a lot to talk about. I am just numb and a little lost, like, what am I supposed to do? The police will

contact the families. Should I call them and offer my sympathy? Or wait till they come here and speak with them? Because they will come.” My voice sounded void of emotion, like me, empty.

“We will face them together,” Gunner reassured, squeezing me.

“Unless you are going to stay by my side at work, I can’t see that happening. They will come to the hospital, Dad, to claim the body, and make the arrangements to take Paul home, and the other families to sit with their loved ones, hoping they will pull through. But from what Scrubs said, they would be better off if they didn’t. This is one huge mess, and I am not even going to try to fix any of it.” I replied, my thoughts were clearing, my grief short, because if I start to feel sorry for myself, I need to think of the video I have on my phone to remind me, they betrayed me, and I owe them nothing.

Easy, right?

Nope.

୮

Not so easy, because deep down I still wanted to help, to comfort those who would be hurting, like Jake’s mum. She welcomed me warmly into her home and had always been kind and polite, making my favourite foods whenever we stopped by for dinner. She was the one I felt most for, the kind, lovely woman; her eldest was in a bad way, and his Dad should be there too. He was a strong, proud man. I liked him more than I liked my Dad. He will come because Jake was to take over his business one day, but now he will have to look at his other son and start training him.

This accident will affect many people. I couldn’t help them all, and I refused to get dragged into it; they

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CChapter

wouldn’t know Jake, and I had broken up. It’s noNike I advertised it. The parents are going to be shocked tu see I have a new boyfriend, and I don’t want to get into it in their hour of grief. It would hurt them more. But then, it had been going on for a long while. Maybe others knew about their tryst as a trio.

“Something’s going on in that mind of yours,” Gunner said light heartedly,

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