All Chapters of Daddy's Little Secret : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Melissa's POVThe voice was hushed... so hushed that i believed it had to be in my head."Melissa…"It drifted through the smoke and silence like a thread of air, near nothing, yet close enough to stop my heart. My body went cold and all my nerves screams at once."Mom?" The sound burst from my lips before i could stop it.Nothing, simply the creak of wood, the splat of wet something and the faint crackle of dying fire from the broken lamp as i looked into the fog, expecting the voice to return and my heart was thudding in my throat, so hard it drowned out thinking."Mom, is that you?" she askedNothing again, my voice shook "This isn't a joke, speak to me."Silence stretched out behind me too long and too deep as i called out into the last direction i had seen Jamal lying. Gun smoke and gunpowder scalded my eyes and i couldn't locate him, only the vague outline of his form on the ground that was close to the wreckage."Jamal?"Nothing.Fear tore through me like lightning and my finge

Melissa's POVThe echo of that voice clung to the walls long after the last syllable "Jamal… it's not over" It was near-human, too steady, too knowing and too tranquil to be possessed by a person who was not meant to be alive and my heart pounded so hard it hurt and the pungent smell of smoke and gunpowder lingered in the air, mixed with something else like burnt paper, guilt and a lie that had been incinerated.Jamal didn't move, he was just standing there immobile and staring at the spot where Lucien had come crashing down and his fist was still pressed around the gun, whitened and his eyes wandering off to some distant memory i couldn't reach "Jamal" My voice was hoarse and raw.He was still not speaking."Jamal!That burst through. His eyes flashed to mine but what i saw there made me shiver harder than his voice. with guilt and fear of a man unravelling at the seams."Who is she?" I gritted out around the lump in my throat "And what did Lucien tell you that you did to someone fo

Jamal's POVThe gunshot still echoed in my mind long after the smoke had cleared, it wasn't sound, it was memory, nightmare and it was every one of my mistakes compounded into one deafening moment as Melissa was sprawled on the floor motionless, her hair spread in a dark aura on the chill marble and for a half-second, my brain would not accept it. I'd seen so many bodies fall already—too many—but never hers."Melissa…"Her name wrenched from me as a rasp, broken, strangled and i fell to my knees beside her, pressing my trembling fingers to her neck.A pulse was weak but present.I made a sound midway between a sob and a growl.Layla stood facing us, gun still trained and her expression was unreadable "She's not dead" she said quietly like that excused everything "It's just a warning."I stared up at her, my vision narrowing "A warning?""You wouldn't have listened otherwise" she said, her tone maddeningly even "You never do.""You shot her" My voice cracked with rage as i got to my fe

Jamal's POVThe blast came before thought—white light, a roar that swallowed everything, then silence that wasn't silence at all. My ears rang, my head throbbed and when i opened my eyes, the world had turned into a haze of dust and ash.For a moment, i didn't know if i was alive. My lungs were burning as i dragged in the first breath, thick with the metallic tang of smoke. Then instinct took over, pushing through the fog of pain.“Melissa!”I choked on her name, coughing, my voice barely scraping through the debris-filled air. The blast had thrown me against a half-collapsed wall; jagged rebar pressed into my back. I pushed off it, blinking against the swirl of gray that filled what was left of the service floor.Shapes moved-or maybe shadows. My head rang too loud to tell.“Melissa!” I shouted again, this time louder.A faint sound answered with a cough, a gasp, then her voice was weak but there. “Jamal”Relief hit so hard, my knees nearly buckled. I followed the sound, scrambling o

Melissa's POVThe first thing i heard when i woke up was the soft rhythmic beeping of a machine, the kind that didn't belong in any home or hotel suite, only in places where survival was measured in numbers....Hospitals.The scent of antiseptic burned my nose and my eyes fluttered open to blind white light, my body was carved from lead, every muscle screams in pain, my shoulder was bandaged and throbbed beneath layers of gauze and for a moment, i thought maybe I'd dreamed everything, the fall, the gunfire and the explosion, Arden's voice but then the memories came flooding back like a tide that refused to recede.Jamal screams my name with the hiss of gas and then nothing.I sat up too fast, wincing as pain lanced through my arm and my breath hitched when i realized i wasn't alone.Jamal sat in the corner of the room, his head bowed, elbows to his knees and his left arm was in a sling, his shirt torn and soot stained and there was a shadow of exhaustion in the lines of his face as he