Chapter 30

BRIGGS

“The plane just landed,” Vlad said, glancing at his phone.

“And Charles is able to cover for you?”

“Yes. He will take Layla back to the house and remain there until we return.”

“Good. Hopefully, we can take care of this quickly. I’d like to be back home by tonight.”

I hated putting Layla on the private jet alone. It was only her second time flying. But I had no other option. I had to get to New Orleans as quickly as possible.

My daughter needed me. It was the first time in eighteen years she’d ever asked me for help.

I stared out the window as we taxied down the runway, the Connecticut coastline sparkling in the mid-morning sun. I should’ve been enjoying a late breakfast on the deck with my beautiful girl, sailing back to New York. Instead, I was on a plane to Louisiana.

~Julie Allison.~ The mother of my child. A woman I barely knew. I fucked her in a bar bathroom while I was pissed and stoned. I’d only met her a few times over the past eighteen years.

And now she was dead from a drug overdose. Was I supposed to feel some sort of grief? I was sad for my daughter. Nobody should lose their mother like that, and at such a young age.

My memories of that night are pretty hazy. She had a condom in her purse. And I let her put it on.

I don’t know to this day if she’d already poked a hole in it, or she didn’t put the condom on properly, or we had done everything right and the pregnancy was just one of those flukes.

Considering I was a hot-shot NHL rookie with a contract worth millions, I’m inclined to believe my daughter was not an accident.

I supported Julie and Kyla, sending money every month. Kyla came to visit for two weeks each summer. The only other time I saw her was when I played in New Orleans. ~If her mother brought her to the game.

Kyla didn’t come to visit last summer, and she never attended any of my games last season. I hadn’t seen my daughter in almost two years.

“Are you planning to bring her home?” Vlad asked.

Vlad had been my bodyguard for years. He was more like a friend and confidante than an employee. I trusted him implicitly, and he usually kept his opinions about my lifestyle to himself unless I asked for them.

“I’m not sure. She’s eighteen. Her life is in New Orleans. She may not want to move to Canada with a father she barely knows.”

“What if she does?”

“Then I guess we take her home.”

He glanced up from his Kindle. Vlad was an avid reader. The man had more books in his apartment than the Huntsville Public Library. And he only ever read nonfiction!

He read anything he could get his hands on—history, autobiographies, science. Growing up in Russia, he never attended school, and I figured his reading choices had something to do with a thirst for learning rather than entertainment.

“That’ll certainly complicate things,” Vlad said.

“How?”

He peered at me over the top of his reading glasses. “I’m not sure you can juggle a lover and a daughter who are the same age, Briggs.”

“If Kyla decides she wants to live with me, she’ll have to learn to accept my relationship with Layla.”

He chuckled, muttering something in Russian before returning to his book.

***

“Where the fuck is he taking us?” I grumbled, staring out the window in horror at the shacks dotting the muddy river.

“Lafitte,” the driver supplied. “The address you gave me is deep in the bayou, Mr. Westinghouse.”

“I had no idea my daughter was living in a place like this.”

“Lafitte is a nice little town. Good fishin’. Lotsa redfish out in these here waters, son. Y’all stayin’ for a few days?”

“No.”

“That’s too bad. N’Awlins is a great city.”

“I know. I used to live here.”

“That’s right. I forgot ya played for N’Awlins.”

“Yep. It was a long time ago.”

“Oh, okay,” he chuckled. “That’s how ya have a kid here.”

“How much further?” Vlad barked.

“Oh, I reckon ‘bout fifteen minutes or so.”

“Aren’t you using GPS?”

“Yeah, but it’s not all too accurate once we turn off the main road.”

I cursed under my breath when he turned down a gravel path. We drove for several miles before he stopped in front of a rundown shack surrounded by brooding trees covered in some kind of gray moss.

“Are you sure this is the right address?” I asked.

“Yeah. You want me to wait, or come back and get y’all later?”

“Definitely wait. We won’t be staying here any longer than necessary.”

“Are there alligators around here?” Vlad asked, peering nervously out the window.

The driver threw his head back, his loud roar vibrating through the car. “Did ya really just ask me if there’s gators in the bayou?”

“I meant, are we likely to encounter one,” Vlad snapped.

“Naw,” he scoffed. “Y’all be fine.”

The front door opened, and my daughter emerged from the hovel that was apparently her home.

She’d grown in the two years since I saw her last. Kyla had inherited my height. She had to duck to avoid smacking her head against the sagging porch roof.

“I guess there’s no doubt she’s yours,” Vlad said. “She looks just like you.”

My daughter was a female version of me. Tall and big-boned with a dark complexion.

It’s probably wrong to notice your daughter’s breasts, but there’s no way not to when they’re fucking enormous. She obviously inherited them from her busty mother. I remembered ~that~ about Julie.

~Yes, yes. I’m an asshole. The only thing I remember about the bunny I knocked up nineteen years ago is her tits.~

My daughter needed a breast reduction. Yep. That was the first thought that popped into my head when I saw her, but it was out of concern for her health.

She’d have back problems down the road. And where the fuck did they come from? I had seen her when she was sixteen, and she definitely wasn’t that big.

I picked my way across the yard with Vlad on my heels.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Hello, Kyla.”

“Kyla,” Vlad nodded. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks, Vlad.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were living like this?” I barked, my words coming out harsher than I intended. But c’mon! I’m a billionaire.

There was no fucking reason for my daughter to live in a shack in the swamp. I sent enough money so they could live comfortably.

“My mom is dead, and that’s what you’re worried about?”

“I’m sorry, Kyla. You’re absolutely right. That was very insensitive of me.”

“Are you coming in?” she asked.

~I’d rather not.~

I followed her through the door, hoping for a reprieve from the stifling heat and humidity. But it was even worse inside the dark house. “Don’t you have air conditioning?”

She rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Dad?”

“Do you have any bottled water?”

She shook her head, her eyes downcast. “We ran out two days ago. Got no way to get to town.”

“How do you normally get around?”

“Al.”

“Al?”

“Grandma’s boyfriend. But he died the day before yesterday.”

“His ticker exploded. Best way ta go, if ya ask me.” I spun around. An old woman stood in a corner of the shack staring back at me, her beady little eyes shooting daggers, a cigarette hanging limp from her withered lips.

“Briggs Westinghouse,” she spat. “In the flesh. Only took ya eighteen years to show yer sorry face around here. And ya waited till my granddaughter was dead.”

The old woman was Julie’s grandmother?

“I’m very sorry for your loss, ma’am.”

“Like fuck y’are. Ya knocked up my grandkid and left her to raise a baby alone. And she wasn’t fit to be a mother. Neither was her mother. So guess who raised her? Me! That’s right.

“I was only fifty when Kyla came along—in the prime of my life. Julie lasted all uh six months on her own with a baby ‘fore she moved in with me.”

I nodded, mutely.

Julie’s grandmother continued, “My daughter didn’t wanna look after a baby neither. She never even looked after her own kid.”

“That’s enough, Granny!” Kyla snapped. “Leave my dad alone.”

“I will not,” she snapped.

“Granny, you’re gonna get yourself all worked up.”

“Good. Maybe I’ll get a heart attack just like Al.”

“Don’t say that, Granny.”

“Maybe we should just go,” I suggested. “I don’t want to upset your grandmother.”

Grandma took a drag from her cigarette, cackling as she tapped it on the edge of her ashtray. “Why’d ya come down here in the first place, rich boy?”

“To pick up my daughter.”

“That’s not why I called you, Dad.”

“You can’t stay here, Kyla.”

“I know that. That’s why I called you. All I need is some cash to tide me over till I find a job.”

“Where are you planning to go? What about your grandma?”

“She’s going to a nursing home tomorrow,” Kyla whispered.

“Like fuck I am!”

I closed my eyes, rubbing my temples as the mother of all headaches loomed. Whatever Grandma was smoking, it definitely wasn’t tobacco.

“I need some air,” I said. “Pack your bags. You’re coming with me to Canada.”