Bad Boy - A Stepbrother Romance (17 page)

Chapter Twenty

Rory

I shut my car’s engine off in the hospital parking lot before getting out and retrieving a bag of shiny red, green and gold Christmas decorations from the backseat along with a bouquet of my grandmother’s favorite flowers—carnations. It was the morning of Christmas Eve, and seeing as Grandma wouldn’t be home in time for Christmas Day, I’d decided to decorate her room so that she’d have something festive to look at until the doctors released her from their care. Finn was coming to help too, after he’d finished his daily late-morning jog.

I was still shaken from yesterday’s harrowing encounter, but Finn had made me feel much better with all of his support, and I counted myself as lucky for having a guy like him in my life. When I’d received the call telling me that my Grandma was in hospital after possibly having a heart attack, I’d honestly felt like breaking down, but he’d been there to hold me as soon as I arrived.

Thank god it hadn’t really been a heart attack…and thank god Finn had rushed Grandma to the hospital just in case. Even though it hadn’t been a heart attack, she’d still been quite ill due to her neglecting her medication, so I was more grateful to Finn than ever before. This was the second time he’d helped her—first he’d ensured that she made it out of her room on the night of the fire, and now he’d ensured that she was getting the medical attention she needed.

Speaking of the fire—Finn called me a moment later as I walked towards the hospital entrance, and he had a lot to say about the ongoing insurance investigation.

“Hey,” he said. It sounded like he was panting slightly.

“Hey…are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, just got back from my jog. Anyway, I was calling to let you know that I might not get down to the hospital to help you put those decorations up. Sorry, there’s just a lot going on with the fire insurance claim. There’s been some new developments, so we’ll probably be here looking into it all day.”

“Oh, it’s okay, I can manage. Sucks that you’ll be busy all day, though. It’s Christmas Eve!” I said.

“I know. Don’t worry, I’ll still have time for some eggnog tonight.”

“Cool. So what’s going on with the insurance thing?” I asked.

“Well, it turns out there was more to the fire than the initial investigation turned up,” he replied.

“Oh?”

“It was definitely caused by a faulty hair straightener which had been left plugged in, which we already knew from the first report. But the couple who were staying in the room where the fire started have finally been tracked down, and they said they’ve never even owned a hair straightener.”

“Maybe they felt guilty and lied?”

“Nah. Insurance covers it, so they aren’t liable for any damages even if they did cause it. Anyway, to verify their story, we looked at the security tapes for that day to see if anyone else went into that room with a hair straightener after the couple checked out. Guess what?”

“What?” I asked.

“All the tapes for the third floor on that day have been erased. The room where the fire started was on the third floor, as you know. Suspicious, huh?”

“So someone might’ve put a faulty hair straightener in there to set the fire on purpose, and then they covered it up by erasing the tape which would’ve showed them going into the room?”

Jesus. Who would want to hurt James by starting a fire in his hotel?

“Most likely, yeah. A lot of people have access to the hotel security tapes, so we’ve got the police here now, and we’re interviewing everyone,” Finn replied. He sighed, and then his voice took on an even more serious tone. “This is gonna sound paranoid, but I have a sneaking suspicion about—“

I frowned as the line began to crackle. “Sorry, Finn, it’s breaking up. I never get decent service near the hospital. Hello? Still there?”

Beep.
The phone had completely cut out now. I sighed and figured I’d call him back later after visiting my Grandma. It sounded like he was busy with his Dad right now anyway, helping the police look into the fire incident.

Something about what he’d said didn’t sit right with me. Sure, someone could’ve intentionally put a faulty hair straightener in a room to start a fire, but why? Surely an enemy or crazy competitor of James would want to ensure that almost the whole hotel burned down. So what was the point of starting a small fire that only burned a maximum of four rooms and allowed the hotel to return to business as usual within a couple of days? Why not do something bigger or add some sort of fuel to the room to make sure the fire burned faster and more intensely?

A nasty feeling plagued me as I considered those questions, and I chewed on my lower lip. Perhaps James had set the whole thing up as part of some insurance fraud scheme, and he’d expected the fire to do more damage.

No…that couldn’t be it. James was a truly decent guy from what I’d seen, so it had to be someone else screwing with the hotel.

But who? Who would do that, and why?

The questions kept nagging at me as I finally arrived on the fourth hospital floor, and I headed to my Grandma’s room only to discover that she had been moved to a different one down the hall. The nurse who informed me kindly led me to the new room.

“I was actually just in here with your Mom a few minutes ago, when she came in to sign some forms for us,” she said. “I think your grandmother is still fast asleep, though.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” I said with a smile. “I’m just here to put some decorations up seeing as she can’t be home for Christmas tomorrow.”

“That’ll be a lovely surprise for her to wake up to,” she replied.

“Yeah, I hope so. Is my Mom still here?”

The nurse shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m fairly sure I saw her leave, though I may be mistaken. It’s so busy around here; I can barely keep anything straight.”

She grinned and then looked down at her clipboard. “Anyway, I have to go. Have fun putting up the decorations. I hope your grandmother appreciates them.”

With that, she turned and briskly strode off down the corridor. The sliding door to Grandma’s room was partially open already, and not wanting to wake her, I carefully opened it wider so I could slide in with my giant bag of decorations and flowers without making a peep.

It was a much bigger room than the last one, and at first, I couldn’t even see her because a blue curtain had been drawn around what I assumed was her bed, which sat on the other side of the room close to the window. There was another bed closer to the door, but it was empty.

As I set the bag down on the empty bed, I heard a familiar cellphone ringtone, and I turned my head to the side, raising an eyebrow. It was my Mom’s ringtone. The nurse had been mistaken; she was still here. She must’ve been behind the curtains near Grandma’s bed, so she hadn’t seen or heard me come in.

I was about to walk over and quietly let her know that I’d arrived when I heard her answer her phone.

Her words made me shrink back instead.

“Hey, baby. Yeah, I did,” she said in a hushed voice before pausing for a few seconds. “No, silly, it’s fine! James doesn’t suspect a thing, and everything’s still set. It’s all happening today, just like you wanted! It’s perfect, because who would ever suspect something like this on Christmas Eve?”

She giggled, and my eyebrows shot up as my mind whirled. She clearly wasn’t talking to James, but who else would she refer to as ‘baby’? And what plan was she referring to?

“Yeah, I’m just here in the hospital,” she continued. “They made me come and sign some forms as next of kin, so I figured I’d come visit the old bag in her room for a while so they think I care. Uh-huh, she’s still asleep. God, the whole thing is her own fault, anyway. She forgot to take her meds, so now she’s laid up here, and somehow it’s
my
problem. Total bullshit.”

She scoffed at something the person on the other end of the line said a second later, and my heart began to hammer in my chest as the full weight of her words washed over me.

My Mom was obviously having an affair with the person she was speaking to, and not only that, she seemingly didn’t give a crap about her own mother, my beloved
Abuela.
My heart felt like it would snap in two at the revelation…but it was only the beginning.

“I know, I know, but don’t worry—this doesn’t change anything. The tickets are still booked for Reykjavik for this afternoon.”

Reykjavik…as in the capital of Iceland? Huh? I stayed stock-still, covering my mouth with my hands. I was scared that if I even breathed loudly, my Mom would realize I’d come into the room and heard her conversation.

She paused for a second to listen to whoever was on the other end of the line and then laughed drily. “Yes, I already told you a hundred times. Stop stressing, sweetie, I’ve done my research! Iceland will never extradite. They have a treaty with the States, but they never enforce it. It’s a nice place as well, believe it or not.”

What?
Why the hell did my Mom even need to think about the possibility of being extradited back to the U.S. from Iceland? She must have been involved in something beyond seedy if she was worrying about that, but I had no idea what it could be.

She paused for another moment before continuing on. “I know! I can’t believe how fast it’s all happening. I’m so excited! Seriously, baby, it’ll only take an hour once I’ve started draining the main account into the Bitcoin thing you made. You know, he won’t even realize for hours after I’ve emptied it, because he’s been so caught up with the insurance investigation after the fire. You were right—it was such a good idea to set that up as a distraction. He’ll never even see this coming.”

Holy
shit
.

It was obvious now. My Mom had helped set the recent fire in the hotel in order to distract her husband from what was really going on—the fact that his main bank account was about to be drained by her and her lover. She’d mentioned something about a Bitcoin account, and as far as I knew, those accounts could be used to make money untraceable, so James would probably never see a dime of his fortune again.

Another pause. “Of course I don’t care about leaving her behind, Elijah,” Mom said. “I only care about you.”

Jesus. It was
Elijah.

“She’s been nothing but a drain on me since she was born. You remember me telling you how it was her fault her father went to prison when she was younger?” she continued. “Yes. She’s damn well old enough to take care of herself now. Besides, my mother will be here for her. Uh-huh, yeah. Love you too. See you soon.”

My heart sank and then seemingly shattered into a million pieces as my mother’s words sank in. I knew exactly who she’d been talking about in those last few sentences.
Me.
We’d never been amazingly close, but I’d at least thought she cared about me somewhat.

Apparently not.

The quickie wedding to James, the new family, the whole damn thing…it had all been a giant freaking
scam
. She’d obviously been working with Elijah this whole time, manipulating and scamming her way into James’ life so they could get their hands on his money, and now they were leaving me and my grandmother behind, casting us aside like we’d never meant a thing so they could run off to a non-extradition country with their ill-gotten gains. I guess Grandma and I had just been collateral damage in their scheme, much like James, and my stomach lurched as I thought of how he would feel once he found out about this. He was such a nice man, and he really seemed to have fallen for my Mom. Poor guy.

I knew what needed to be done.

As much as it pained me to have to turn my own flesh and blood in, I couldn’t live with myself if I let my mother treat someone like this and get away with it. Besides, she’d made it very clear just now that I meant very little to her, anyway...or nothing at all.

Maybe I’d never meant anything to her.

I quietly slipped back out of the hospital room like a mouse, making sure she didn’t see or hear me. Unfortunately for Grandma, the Christmas decorations would have to wait.

***

“Are you fucking serious? She’s actually trying to take his money and flee the fucking country?”

I’d just pulled Finn aside and told him everything after arriving back at the hotel, and I’d never seen him look this angry before; not even when he’d been beating up that douchebag guy outside Helvetica.

His hands curled into fists by his side, and his face darkened as he stood up and began to pace the room. I was too choked up to say anything else for a moment, so I let him rage.

“It’s like a bad movie,” he said. “Fuck!”

I watched with wide eyes as he kept going.

“I should’ve known,” he said. “When I called you earlier and the phone cut out, I was about to tell you that I had a sneaking suspicion about that slimy cunt Elijah. I had no idea he’d go this far, though.”

I stared up at him with a questioning look in my eyes, still unable to say another word without bursting into uncontrollable tears, and he began to explain.

“I’ve never liked him. And the other day, when you said he told you about the fire being caused by the hair straightener on the actual night of the fire…that set off some alarm bells for me, seeing as he couldn’t possibly have known that so early unless he did it. I thought maybe he did, and he slipped up and mentioned it to you by accident that night. But then you said you were probably mistaken, and he must’ve only told you a couple of days
after
that night, so I thought there was a chance I was overreacting. After all, just because I don’t like someone doesn’t make them a criminal who sets hotels on fire.”