Someone To Watch Over You

Chapter 21

"A stripper?!" Mr. Fischer says as he gets behind the wheel of his car to drive home. This is going to be the longest ride of my life.

"A pole dancer," I correct.

"And the difference is when you're dancing at a strip club?" he asks.

"Clothing," I put bluntly. "I danced. I didn't strip. And I quit that job back around Cat's birthday." It was actually on Cat's birthday and I was not about to mention what came next, but I needed him to understand I put that life behind me.

"You understand Cat's in real trouble now because of you? Do you know what would happen if they took that baby from her?"

No. But I could imagine. "She the child's rightful mother. Liam never wanted this baby, he just wants revenge for losing Cat," I tell him. 

"Because she chose you! All of this is happening because of you."

His words hit me like a sucker punch to the gut. "No! I won't let that happen."

"How do you plan to stop it? I threatened Marcus but if he pursues this he has the resources to make it happen. He can afford the sort of litigation that wouldn't rest until that baby was in his hands."

I taste the bile that rose in my throat. Jesus, what have I done?

"I took that job to find my brother's killers. He worked there as a dancer and was brutally beaten one night on his way home. I never found the bastards. I started working there shortly after his burial in the hopes they'd try again. That maybe I could flush them out. Make them believe I was him, but I got nowhere. When Cat came into my life, I gave all that up, because she became my new priority. I wanted nothing more than to protect her."

"Well then, it looks like you failed your brother and Cat," Mr. Fischer says, pulling out his verbal samurai sword and striking me down with it.

Devastated I can only ask, "How do I fix this?"

"How do you think?" Mr. Fischer states blatantly, "She either loses you or the baby. You tell me which YOU think she can stand to lose."

This is the question he left me with as we pulled into the driveway and he gets out of the car. I don't follow. I couldn't move. My body had gone numb.

In my head, Liam's voice haunts me... in a blink of an eye it's all going to disappear.

There's a knock on the window and it startles me. Dillion is standing on the other side. I open the car door, forcing him to move aside.

"What the hell happened today?" Dillion asks.

"I... I can't talk about it. Where's Cat?"

"She's at the hospital with Olivia. She didn't expect you back for another couple of hours. So what went down at the club? It's been a long time since I've seen my father that angry, and I'm usually the cause."

I trudge slowly towards the house. 'Which do you think she can stand to lose?' The answer was obvious. It would hurt Cat to lose me, but it would destroy her to lose that baby. I don't answer Dillon's questions. I just go to my room and start to pack.

Dillion, however, not done with me yet follows. "Alex, what the hell are you doing?"

"I'm going home?"

"Home? As in back to your apartment?"

"Until I can make other arrangements to either move in with someone else or find someplace else to live, yeah. That's the plan, anyway."

Dillion grabs my shoulders and shakes me. "You are talking nonsense. Why would you leave now? You're leaving without Cat? What is she going to think? Oh my God... he's gotten to you, hasn't he?!"