Mom, Don't Cry! Here comes a new Daddy! novel Chapter 111

Chapter 102-7

I can’t speak. Can’t form words around the lump in my throat.

“He told me that because of your involvement with his daughter because you dragged Freya into your schemes he can’t get her out of jail. Ethan Hale is putting too much pressure on the DAs office. Too much media attention. Too many resources devoted to making sure you both go away for a long time

“But Freya’s his daughter-”

“And that’s why Devin is furious! With you! With me! He says it’s my fault for raising a daughter who would corrupt his child. That if I’d been a better father, none of this would have happened!”

The words keep coming. Relentless. Devastating.

“Everything I worked for-my reputation, my business connections, my standing in this community-you’ve destroyed it all. For what? Because you couldn’t accept that Dustin Reed chose his wife over you? Because you couldn’t let go of a failed relationship?”

“I loved him-”

“You loved yourself! You loved the idea of winning! You never cared about Dustin or anyone else except

your own ego!” His voice drops to something even more dangerous. “I wish I’d never had a daughter like

you. I wish-”

The line goes dead.

Just cuts off mid-sentence.

I stand there, the phone still pressed to my ear, listening to the busy signal drone on and on and on.

He hung up on me. My own father hung up on me.

And his last words-I wish I’d never had a daughter like you-echo in my head like a death sentence.

The guard touches my shoulder. “Time’s up. Back to your cell.”

r

I replace the receiver mechanically. Let her guide me back down the corridor. Back to the gray walls and

metal toilet and thin mattress.

But my mind is somewhere else. Somewhere dark and spiraling.

My father disowned me. The board kicked him out because of me. Devin Finley blames him for me

corrupting Freya.

Every bridge is burned. Every connection severed. Every hope extinguished.

I’m completely alone. Completely finished.

The cell door clangs shut behind me and something inside me breaks.

A sound rips from my throat-half scream, half sob-and I grab the metal tray from my lunch, hurling it

the wall with all my strength.

It clatters to the floor with a pathetic clang that doesn’t begin to express the rage coursing through me.

“It’s all their fault!” The words tear out of me, raw and desperate. “All of them! Sabrina Moore and her bastard son and that cheating piece of shit Dustin!”

I’m screaming now. Pacing the small celklike a caged animal. “If they’d just left me alone! If Dustin had just loved me the way he was supposed to! If Sabrina had just disappeared from our lives like she should have!”

But my voice cracks on the last word because I know-I know-that’s not true.

This isn’t their fault.

They didn’t make me kidnap Jake. Didn’t force me to attack Sabrina with a knife. Didn’t push me to destroy my own life piece by piece.

I did that. All of it. Through my own choices. My own actions. My own inability to let go and move on.

But admitting that-accepting that level of responsibility-is too much.

So I keep screaming. Keep cursing. Keep blaming everyone but myself.

“I hope they’re miserable! I hope Sabrina never finds happiness! I hope Jake grows up to hate her!! hope

Dustin realizes he threw his life away for nothing!”

The words pour out like poison. Bitter. Futile. Changing nothing.

Because the truth is, no matter what I say, it won’t change the fact that my life is over.

Dustin will recover from his injuries. Will probably use his heroic sacrifice to win sympathy. Maybe even

win back partial custody of Jake.

Sabrina will keep her job, her new relationship, her perfect little life that I tried so hard to destroy.

And Jake-that precocious, annoying, too-smart-for-his-own-good brat-will grow up safe and loved and completely unaffected by anything I did to him.

୮

While I’ll be stuck in prison. Serving years for crimes that accomplished nothing except ruining my own

future.

I sink onto the mattress, my rage finally spent, leaving behind only hollow despair.

My career is gone. My reputation destroyed. My father wants nothing to do with me.

And when I finally get out of prison-if I get out of prison-I’ll be middle-aged with a criminal record. No prospects. No connections. No future.

Everything I worked for, everything I sacrificed, everything I compromised-all of it for nothing.

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