17 Chapter 17

None of it had worked, and the “accident” that followed resulted not only in my car being totaled, but in Mother being hospitalized, in a coma.

Thanks to Mark, Wexler had eventually paid for it—was still paying for it, confined to a hospital bed, tethered to machines that had to breathe for him, feed him, remove the waste from his body. I’d never struck myself as being particularly vindictive, and perhaps I should have been shocked by what Mark had done to him, but Mother had suffered for what Wexler had planned for me. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the results.

I shook those thoughts away when Mark griped, “Next time we’re doing things my way.”

I always got a tight sensation in my chest when I realized he expected us to have a future.

Damn any observers! I caressed my lover’s cheek a final time before leaving to drive to Charmaine.