Chapter 14: Scorched Earth.

ISADORA’S POV

 The cameras went off like a flash of lightning the second the glass doors opened, and for a second I genuinely thought I was going to throw up right there on the red carpet. 

Reporters were screaming my name and shoving black microphones toward my chin, and trying to trip me up just to get a good photo. 

Rafael reached out to grab my wrist to pull me back, but I yanked my arm away so hard my shoulder popped. 

I did not care about anyone anymore. My parents were yelling somewhere behind me in the crowd, their voices  full of panic, but I did not stop.

I did not look back or answer a single question, and I did not give them the scene they wanted. 

I just ran straight into the back of the car, pulled the door shut, and locked it.

I sat there in the dark while the driver pulled away, staring down at my hands. 

They were shaking so badly I could barely keep them still.

The truth about what my family had done was sitting right in my throat, dry and bitter. Everything I thought was real about my life, was completely fake. 

My parents were not good people who just made mistakes. They were cold, selfish, and cruel.

Then, sitting in that dark car and listening to the rain hit the roof, I made up my mind, that I was done letting them lie to me. I was done being the good girl who kept her mouth shut to protect their names.

The car dropped me off near the emergency room doors twenty minutes later as the air outside was damp and cold, and it bit right through my thin evening dress. 

The hallway inside smelled like cheap bleaches and old floor wax and a low, annoying buzz came from the long lights overhead.

My mother was sitting on a yellow plastic chair outside room 402. Her hair was a mess, and her expensive dress was wrinkled, and she looked fifty years older than she was three hours ago. When she heard my heels clicking on the floor, she raised her head. Her makeup was smeared all over her cheeks.

"Isadora," she said, her voice dry as dust as she tried to stand up, but her knees gave out and she sat back down. 

"Your father had a heart attack right after you walked out."

I stood five feet away from her and crossed my arms over my chest. 

Honestly, I did not feel bad for her or I feel bad for my father either but I have to maintain my composure. "Is he dead?" I asked.

"No," Beatrice said, wiping her nose with crushed tissue. "He is in surgery and the doctor said his heart just gave out from the stress."

I looked at the cheap plastic clock ticking on the wall. "Good. Maybe now he knows how it feels."

"How can you say that?" Beatrice sobbed, looking up at me like I had just slapped her across the face. "We are losing everything, Isadora. The press is going to ruin us and the family name is gone."

"You ruined us," I said, keeping my voice as low and quiet as I could. "Not the press, all of these what because of you. I want to know about Rosalind, Mom. And if you lie to me right now, I swear I will walk out that door and you will never see my face again."

My mother squeezed her eyes shut and started rocking back and forth on the plastic chair. "It was Everett," she choked out, with her shoulders shaking. 

"Your grandfather. He owed money to people you do not ever want to meet. Millions of dollars, and he lost it all on bad investments and gambling."

"And what did that have to do with a newborn baby?" I asked, taking one slow step toward her.

"They came to the house the night she was born," Beatrice said, staring down at her own shoes like she could not bear to look at me anymore. 

"They said they would kill all of us if Everett did not pay them back that night and your father made a deal with them. He told them they could take the baby and sell her through an illegal adoption ring overseas to clear his blood debt."

The room felt like it lost all its air at once as my stomach turned completely upside down, and for a few seconds, I could not breathe through my nose. 

I had to grab the back of a chair just to keep my feet under me. 

They did not just give her up because they were young or scared. They traded my little sister away like a sack of garbage to pay off an old man's gambling debt.

"And you let him?" I asked, as my voice did not even sound like mine anymore, but sounded small and broken. 

"You sat in that room and let him hand your baby over to criminals?"

"I had no choice Isa!" My mother cried out, reaching her hands up toward me. 

"Everett said he would leave us with nothing! He said we would be on the street!"

"You had a choice mother," I said, stepping back so her hands could not touch my skin. "You chose your big house and your expensive clothes over your own child. You are disgusting."

"Isadora, please," she begged, with tears spilling over her chin and falling onto her dress. "I am your mother and you cannot leave me here by myself."

"I am not your daughter anymore mother. And don't you bother coming to look for me, because you have ruined my life completely." I said as I turned around and walked down the long, bright hallway without looking back once. 

The automatic doors slid open, and the night air hit my face again and my felt cold, but my head felt clear for the first time in my life. 

I was going to find my sister, no matter how long it took or how much it cost me. 

I pulled my phone out of my purse and switched it back on as the screen lit up instantly with a new message from a number I did not recognize and it read, ‘If you want to see Rosalind alive, come to the old docks alone right now.’