up and down my body. “But Lana’s call came first.”
“I don’t understand. Why would she call you? How would she even know?”
“Arie!”
“Arella!”
At the unmistakable sound of my parents calling my name, I turned my head to find them both being led into the garage by one of Braxton’s men, Barrick right behind them. Both of them looked just as stressed as Jordan, and that was the last thing I’d wanted.
“Oh no,” I whimpered, and I felt the world begin to spin. “Brax must have told them.”
“Arella.” Jordan’s arms tightened around me just as my legs gave out. “Baby!” he roared. Lifting me into his arms, he carried me back to the ambulance that was thankfully a good distance away from my rapidly approaching parents. “Are you sure she’s okay? She’s pregnant.”
“She mentioned that,” the sweet paramedic said with a reassuring smile. “Other than needing a few stitches, she’s fine. But I think the adrenaline might finally be leaving her, so she’s quite possibly going to crash at any moment.”
My head rolled against Jordan’s chest, and then I felt my mother’s soft fingers touching my cheek. “Arella,” she murmured. “Honey, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”
I blinked my eyes and almost flinched when I met her gaze before remembering these honey-gold eyes belonged to the woman I loved most in the world. “Mommy,” I sobbed. “He…he was crazy.”
“I know, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. We had no clue it was Garon.” She pushed my hair back from my face but quickly pulled back her hand and stared down at her palm in a mixture of fascination and horror. “Is that…? Oh God.”
She began to sway, but my dad was there to steady her. Lifting her into his arms, he barked at the paramedic to get out of his way. The woman quickly did as he commanded, and he carried my mom into the back of the ambulance to lay her on the gurney. “Take it easy, Angel. It’s okay,” he soothed, stroking her hair back from her face. “Braxton took care of it. Garon isn’t a threat to her any longer. She’s safe, Angel. She’s safe.”
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to ease Mom’s fear or his own, but listening to them broke my heart. Putting them through something like this was what I’d wanted to avoid, yet there they were, trying to stay calm even though the danger was now gone.
“Dray, his brains are in her hair!” Mom cried. “We have to get her cleaned up. Let me up. I’ll take her to their apartment and help her shower. She can’t go around with his brains in her hair.”
Jordan carried me into the already cramped interior of the ambulance and sat me on the end of the gurney with Mom. Crouching down in front of me, he silently took the towel Samuel offered him and began to finish cleaning the gore out of my hair that the paramedic had missed.
It took every ounce of strength I still had just to sit upright, but I did it because I didn’t want to freak out my parents any more than they already were. “I-I’m sorry,” I whispered in an unsteady voice. “I didn’t want you two to have to worry about me. There hadn’t been any issues since the dressing room incident, so I thought maybe he’d stopped.”
“What dressing room incident?” my dad demanded.
Jordan’s eyes met mine, and I gave a nod at the unasked question in his. “Someone destroyed her dressing room on the last day of filming. I’m assuming it was Garon. The detective found part of a device that suggested there had been a camera hidden in there, and I guess he’d been spying on her for a while.”
I was thankful he didn’t mention what Garon had done with the footage from that camera.
“There’ve also been packages delivered,” I told them after a small hesitation, wanting to tell them everything so they had the full story. “Murdered little birds, messages…” My stomach turned. “Pictures of him doing…things to himself.”
“He sent you shit too?” Mom yelled.
I blinked a few times before her question finally registered. “I’m sorry, what do you mean ‘too’?”
She pressed her lips together and quickly looked away, but not before I saw the guilt on her beautiful face.
“Mom?” I breathed, but she wouldn’t look at me, so I focused on my dad. “Daddy?”
Running his hands through his long hair, he crouched down beside Jordan and took one of my hands. “I know we should have told you, and