Fractured Hope (Undone Series Book 4) Read online

  Fractured Hope

  A Novel by Kristy Love

  Fractured Hope

  Copyright © 2016 by Kristy Love

  ISBN-13: 978-1537792286

  ISBN-10: 1537792288

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only This ebook may not be sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Edited by:

  Brenda Letendre at Write Girl Editing Service

  Proofreading by:

  Mitzi Pummer Carrol

  Cover Design by:

  Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations

  Formatting by:

  Christine Borgford at Perfectly Publishable

  Table of Contents

  Fractured Hope

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Kristy Love

  Acknowledgements

  DEDICATION

  To anyone who has ever felt loss. You are not alone. Never, ever give up hope.

  The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

  ~Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

  CHAPTER 1

  I SAT IN THE BATHROOM, my back pressed against a wall with the toilet on my left and the bathtub on my right. Tears stained my cheeks as I gazed down at a picture of Gia, her eyes so full of life and a huge smile on her face. My heart kept tearing into smaller and smaller shreds as I looked at her and memories washed over me . . . my little girl awake and talking to me. It had been months since I last saw her brown eyes. My hands shook slightly and the pill bottle in my other hand drew my attention. My fingers were curled around a bottle of sleeping pills as I debated whether I could handle this.

  Would I ever see Gia’s eyes again? Would I ever get to smooth my hand over her ringlet curls or her chubby cheeks? Would my last memory of her be her cries as Brock bellowed at me? Memories of that night flooded my mind. The night that changed the course of my life forever.

  Brock, my husband, yelled at me. He was angry at me, as always. If he wasn’t mad at me, he was blackout drunk, which usually happened every night.

  “I can’t believe you are ruining this, Mia. It’s fucking ridiculous that you can’t keep yourself under control long enough for me to enjoy a visit with my parents,” he sneered. I flinched. When had he turned so mean? He wasn’t always this way, but as I thought back, I couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t angry toward me. Maybe our wedding day.

  “I’m sorry, Brock. I just don’t feel well.” I was pregnant and the nausea wasn’t dying down. When I was pregnant with Gia, I was rarely sick during the first trimester, and once I hit the second trimester, I was never sick. The fact that I was so sick this time around pissed Brock off. He hated that I wasn’t able to do what he wanted. I opened my car door and slid inside. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and closed my eyes. He continued raging as he put Gia in the car. We had been visiting his parents and I couldn’t stop throwing up. I was getting so weak that even sitting up was hard. I was light-headed and dizzy, but my empty stomach kept swirling and causing me to dry heave. My head hurt and my body ached. I just wanted to get home and crawl under the blankets.

  Brock slammed the car door so hard the car shook. A tear slid down my cheek. It wouldn’t be pleasant when we got home. I hated that this was my life, but I felt trapped. Brock wouldn’t let me go, and David, my stepbrother, would kill Brock if he knew how bad it was at home. I couldn’t tell David how bad it was. He had finally started living. I couldn’t take that away from him.

  He slid into the driver’s seat, never missing a beat in berating me. “I can’t fucking believe you, Mia. Not everything has to be about you. Sometimes you have to care about someone other than yourself.” His voice was full of hatred and I flinched, curling into myself as if I could protect myself from his words. Gia burst into tears in the backseat. “See what you fucking did, Mia? See that? You upset Gia. God, you’re so fucking worthless.” He reached across and backhanded me. My head slammed against the window and sharp pain sliced through my head, causing the old ache to flare to new levels. I rubbed my head as tears fell down my cheeks. I closed my eyes as he continued his tirade. The car accelerated. Gia continued sobbing. Was this my life? Did I have to put up with Brock and how he treated me? How was I supposed to protect my children? I laid my hand against my stomach, rubbing my thumb over the fabric stretched across it. I wasn’t good enough for Gia or the baby in my womb. Pain lanced my heart.

  I’d never be good enough.

  The car jerked to the side, but Brock didn’t miss a beat in his verbal assault. I opened my eyes and saw a tree rapidly getting closer. A warning stayed trapped in my throat. I couldn’t tell him to slow down, to try and avoid the tree, to be careful.

  Brock was going too fast and not paying attention to the road; he was looking at me and gesturing with one hand, explaining all the ways I was a horrible bitch. I opened my mouth to scream, but was silenced by the impact of the car slamming into the tree.

  The next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital, my baby gone from my womb, my precious Gia unconscious. Brock had been so drunk that he hadn’t strapped Gia in her car seat correctly. She’d been flung around the inside of the car, hitting her head and causing serious damage.

  Since he was driving drunk, Brock got into trouble. Unfortunately, his parents hired a good lawyer and his case was almost thrown out. He was slapped on the wrist with a fine and a suspended license. Before the case was even decided, Brock divorced me, completely abandoning me and his child. As soon as he paid his fine, his parents paid for him to move out of state so he could start over with a clean slate. Shortly after he left, they followed behind them. They were all across the country. He left behind the daughter he almost
killed and never looked back. Her grandparents had ditched her, too. She was the only one I had left in the world. I was all she had left.

  I’d lost everything in the blink of an eye.

  Brock had been drunk, although he didn’t seem intoxicated. I thought he was fine. Maybe I was too ill to notice.

  My failure ended one baby’s life and seriously threatened another’s.

  I had never hated myself as much as I did right now. Right in this moment, I would trade my life for Gia’s. I would lie in that bed, unconscious, machines keeping me alive. But I couldn’t. I was doomed to watch her small body in that bed until she woke . . . Or she didn’t.

  I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall. I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t survive this.

  I came home from the hospital a few hours ago and immediately grabbed a picture of my little girl full of life and my bottle of sleeping pills and went into the bathroom. The only thing stopping me from swallowing this whole bottle was that there was hope, no matter how small, that Gia may wake up. I wouldn’t leave her alone. I wouldn’t abandon her. I didn’t want her going to Brock. I needed to protect her, but I was tired. I was tired of fighting. I was tired of feeling so fucking empty. My heart was empty. My womb. My soul. Everything. I ached with the emptiness.

  Tears slid down my face and I stared at the picture of my precious Gia. I hung my head.

  How would I survive if she didn’t pull through?

  “Mia?” Roxie called out. “Mia, honey, are you home?” I couldn’t even gather the strength to answer. I knew she’d find me. Roxie never gave up. She was my stepbrother’s girlfriend, and in so many ways, she’d become the sister I never had.

  She peeked around the corner and saw me on the floor. Her face fell as she made her way to me. “Mia . . .” she said, her voice thick with tears. I could see them shimmering in her eyes. She kneeled down in front of me. “Are you okay?” I shook my head as a bigger wave of sorrow swept over me and a sob escaped my throat. “Here, let me take these.” She gently pulled the pill bottle from my hand and set it on the side of the tub. “Do you want to get up?” I couldn’t answer her. I really didn’t want to do anything other than sit here. In true Roxie form, she stood and pulled me to my feet. She wrapped an arm around my waist and led me out of the bathroom toward my bed. I climbed on and lay down. She slid behind me and held me as I fell apart.

  We lay in silence for a long time, my back pressed to her front. She stroked my hair slowly. She didn’t offer empty comforts or try to shush me; instead, she let me get my grief out.

  “Did something happen?” she asked, her voice soft.

  I worked up the courage to say the words out loud and she let me. “Gia has pressure sores on her feet and legs. One is spreading. Her white blood cell count is high. There’s a chance this could kill her.” My voice caught in my throat on the last sentence. The hand stroking my hair stuttered briefly before it returned to it’s soothing rhythm.

  “I’m sure she’ll be okay.” Her voice trembled.

  “She’s been in the coma a year, Roxie. What if she never makes it back to me?”

  “You can’t think that way.”

  “I have nothing left. I have this empty house, this empty body, this empty life.”

  Roxie popped up on an elbow and rolled me to my back. “You are not empty, Mia. You. Are. Not. Do you hear me? You have people who love you. You have people who are here for you, no matter what.”

  My eyes watered with fresh tears. When would they stop? I was sick of crying. “I lost one baby; I can’t lose both.” She swept me into her arms and held me close. I crumbled in her arms, clutching her. I knew I would never lose Roxie and David. He may be my stepbrother, but he was all the family I had. Our parents blamed me for the accident. Brock and his family disappeared.

  Crushing loneliness swept around me, threatening to consume me.

  David loved Gia. They were incredibly close. But she was my daughter. A mother wasn’t meant to bury her child. She was meant to love and protect her and watch her grow. And I failed her.

  Pain wracked my body. I wished for numbness. I couldn’t take this debilitating, soul crushing pain. One person wasn’t meant to carry all of this on their own.

  Roxie settled back on the bed and held me. I still gripped Gia’s picture in my hand. I didn’t want to let her go.

  Slowly, my tears dried and my eyes drooped. I fell asleep in Roxie’s arms.

  CHAPTER 2

  Roman

  I NARROWED MY EYES AT the snow-covered sidewalk as the kids heading to the bus stop had to maneuver around it. My glare moved to the fire hydrant completely buried in snow.

  Not only was my asshole neighbor making the kids walk on the street to get to the bus, but now the neighborhood’s safety was called into question. If a fire broke out, the responders would spend several extra minutes uncovering it before they could fight the fire.

  Fuckers.

  The usual old-school muscle car was parked on the street, which meant the kids had to walk around the car as well.

  Anger burned in my chest. We had sidewalks for a reason. Each homeowner was responsible for clearing the section in front of their house, but that clearly was too much work for them.

  Same as mowing the lawn. In the six months I’d lived here, I’d only seen the douche in the muscle car cut the grass once or twice. That left the yard overgrown and dying at the end of the season.

  Fuckers.

  I got my boots, gloves, and jacket on, then proceeded outside to shovel the sidewalk. It took a while since there was so much snow, but at least the kids wouldn’t have to walk on the street when they got home.

  The front door of the house closed and I glanced up, seeing the pretty boy coming my way. Apparently, he was too good to take care of this fucking snow. He stopped in front of me, slowing my progress, his snow-covered boots in my vision. I looked up at him and quirked an eyebrow in question. “Hey, man,” he said, his British accent making me want to punch him in the face. I didn’t respond, merely looked at him and waited for him to get on with whatever he was going to say so I could get this done. “My name’s David. This is my sister’s place.” He nodded toward the house. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “That’s nice.”

  His jaw ticked. I had no clue what he wanted and I certainly didn’t give a shit. “I was wondering if you would mind doing me a favor?”

  Him? Asking me for a favor? This was going to be good. I stood up straight and leaned against the shovel. “Really?”

  “My sister . . . She’s going through some shit. Would you mind keeping an eye on her? Make sure she’s okay?”

  My eyebrows shot up and I fought back a laugh. This asshole was really asking me to keep an eye on his sister? “Why can’t you keep an eye on her yourself?”

  “I have things going on myself. I can’t be here all the time. I just need someone to make sure things are okay here.”

  “I believe I’m already doing that.” I gestured toward the mostly cleared sidewalk. “And I’m not your sister’s babysitter or housekeeper.”

  He let out a slow breath. “Listen . . .” He paused, clearly waiting for me to supply my name.

  “Roman.”

  “Roman, I wouldn’t normally ask this, but my sister’s not doing well. I’m worried about her, but I can’t be here all the time. I’m over here every chance I get, but I’m just . . .” He let out a long breath. “I’m scared she won’t be okay and I’d feel . . . safer if you kept an eye on the house and called me if there was anything off.” He held out a small piece of paper.

  I had no desire to get caught in this shit. “I’m just shoveling so the kids don’t get hit by a car.”

  “I appreciate that. I just . . . You’d really be doing me a solid if you would take my number.”

  “I’m not interested in getting involved in whatever this bullshit is.” I went back to shoveling, trying my best to ignore him.
/>   David sighed and ran a hand over his hair. “I know I’m asking you to get involved in something you don’t want to get involved in. I can’t be in two places at once. Since you live next to her, I thought maybe you’d be able to make sure the house isn’t on fire and she isn’t dead.”

  I didn’t want to deal with other people’s drama, but there was something about the resigned way the guy acted; it made me reach out and take the paper and tuck it in my pocket. I nodded.

  “Thanks, man. I’m sorry I didn’t clear this shit.” He gestured to the snow at large. “Things haven’t been easy.”

  I wondered what was going on that had this guy so defeated. His shoulders slumped, his lips turned down at the corners, the sorrow in his eyes. “I don’t want the kids walking on the street to the bus, especially since they’re calling for more snow this afternoon.”

  He nodded, his eyes studying my face. “Let me get a shovel and help.”

  He disappeared and came back with a shovel a few minutes later. In silence, we cleared the sidewalk, driveway, and walkway to the house. I turned my attention to the fire hydrant and dug it out. David helped out, surprisingly.

  Maybe he wasn’t as big a douche as I thought. I watched him as he moved the snow out of the way. No, he was definitely a douche. He had on shoes that were clearly expensive. Who the fuck walked around in shiny black shoes during the winter with snow everywhere?

  Douchebags, that’s who.

  “Thanks,” I said when we were done.

  “No problem. Thanks for keeping an eye on my sister. Things are just . . . really fucked up right now.”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  He nodded and then turned back into the house. I went into my own, took off my snow gear, then programmed his number into my phone. I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, needing to get some sleep before my shift. Working twenty-four hours was a bitch.

  * * *

  The snow fell rapidly. With the way things were going, the roads would be a mess and my shift would be crazy tonight and tomorrow. I looked up at my neighbor’s house, wondering why she was such a shut in. I’d seen glimpses of her, but hadn’t paid a lot of attention to her. She always moved like a person who had nothing left to live for, like somehow she was irrevocably broken.