Forbidden Kiss (Carson Cove Scandals 1)

I had been in town for a couple of hours, but Shaina’s apartment wasn’t my first stop. I went to the university and spoke with the dean first—he was hesitant to tell me anything until he realized my name was on all of the tuition checks he was cashing—he got real friendly after that. Shaina was barely scraping by academically. She was attending most of her classes, but there had been a clear downward spiral over the last year. He introduced me to a few of her professors who confirmed the same thing.

I didn’t tell them that my daughter was using drugs, but I got the impression that they knew something was wrong. They had noticed a personality shift—and she wasn’t hanging around the same people she had called friends for a couple of years. She had become quite a loner inside the classroom—but I knew that wasn’t the case outside of it. The guy in the video didn’t look like a student at any school, much less an Ivy League one.

“Open the door—now!” I was two seconds away from putting my boot through it.

“What are you doing here?” Shaina cracked the door—she had large, dilated pupils that confirmed she was high as a fucking kite.

“Figuring out what the hell is going on.” I pushed the door open and barged into her apartment.

“Hey, what the fuck?” The guy she was with was the one from the video—and he was a lot bigger than I realized.

“I’m going to have a talk with my daughter—alone.” I narrowed my eyes. “Get the hell out of here.”

“You’re the one that needs to go, old man,” he growled and took a step forward.

I didn’t see the punch coming until my ears were ringing and my head was spinning—he hit me so damn hard that I was pretty sure I had a concussion the second his enormous fist slammed into my skull. It had been a long damn time since I took a punch—but he didn’t hit me hard enough to knock me out completely, and that was the last mistake he got to make. I managed to duck his next punch, drive my shoulder into his midsection, and deliver an uppercut that staggered him. Somewhere in the midst of it all, Shaina screamed—and tried to get in the middle of us.

The mother fucker that hit me pushed her so hard she went tumbling over the coffee table and hit her head on the way down. I saw blood on the floor—which meant I had to end the fight and take care of her—but her boyfriend, or whatever the hell he was, didn’t seem to give a damn about the fact that he hurt her. He swung at me—I ducked. He tried to hit me with a knee on the way up—I barely dodged that one, but I caught his leg and got him down to the floor. He landed hard—and a few punches to his face kept him down.

“Shaina are you okay? Oh god…” I scrambled to her side and saw a gash that was pouring blood. “We need help! Anyone!?”

The fight brought some other residents from their apartments to see what the commotion was—there were several witnesses in the hallway. One of them called 911. I did my best to contain the bleeding and keep her awake as we waited on the paramedics to arrive. The sirens brought her behemoth of a boyfriend back to life, and when he realized the cops were in the building, he took off. The cops had me in handcuffs the second they entered the apartment—it obviously looked like I was the one who was responsible for the bleeding girl on the floor and the carnage. I was taken to a squad car—my daughter was taken to an ambulance. I sat there stewing for nearly twenty minutes before someone finally opened the back door.

“Okay, Mr. Benson.” The cop reached in and pulled me out and turned me around so he could remove the handcuffs. “We talked to some of the witnesses in the apartment building—you’re free to go.”

“I’m glad to see that defending my daughter isn’t a crime.” I rubbed my wrists and glared at him.

“If the guy decides to press charges, you might be hearing from us again.” He put his hands on his hips.

“I don’t think you’re going to be hearing from him,” I growled under my breath and started walking towards my car.

There was no mention of drugs. Either they got hidden when they realized I was at the door, or the guy took them when he fled. That was something of a blessing. I drove straight to the hospital and found out that Shaina was still being checked out by the doctor—and they would probably keep her overnight for observation. They definitely noticed she was high, so that was an obvious concern. The doctor came to see me after they did a CT scan and said she had a nasty cut that required a few stitches but, she didn’t have a skull fracture or a brain injury. Keeping her overnight was just a formality. That was a relief—if there was one in that situation.

The doctor said I would be able to see her in a couple of hours, so I called Sarah while I waited. Sarah told me that she was going to fly out immediately, and while I didn’t think that was entirely necessary, I couldn’t tell the mother of my child that she shouldn’t come—not when her daughter was in the hospital. I waited until Shaina was moved to a room, and then the ER nurse gave me a pass so I could go up to her floor. Seeing my daughter in a hospital bed with blood on the bandage they had put on her head made me want to break down in tears, but I did my best to fight them.

“Dad…” Shaina’s face got red, and she started crying the minute she saw me at her door. “I’m so sorry.”

“You shouldn’t try to talk—just rest for now.” I walked into the room and sat down beside her bed.

“That’s going to leave a mark.” She reached out and touched the spot on the side of my face—I could already tell I was going to have a black eye and bruising halfway down my face. “Did the doctor’s look at it?”

“Please…” I pushed her hand away. “Don’t worry about me. Just rest…”

I wasn’t sure if the doctors had given Shaina something for the pain or opted not to since she was high when the paramedics brought her in, but she was definitely out of it. That could have been the result of losing blood. She was stable—that was all that mattered. She tried to talk for a couple of minutes before she finally closed her eyes. The smart thing would have been for me to go back to the ER and have them check me out—my vision was a little blurry and head was throbbing. I got a couple of concussions on the football field when I was younger, and I definitely had one, but it was pretty mild. I didn’t lose consciousness, and I wasn’t throwing up—I had done both when I got knocked for a loop in high school, and they didn’t do anything but put some smelling salts under my nose before they put me back in the game.

I can add getting my skull smashed by a coke head to the list of accomplishments I thought I’d never have.

“Is she resting?” The door to Shaina’s room opened, and a nurse walked in.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Is it safe for her to sleep with a head injury?”

“The doctor said it would be fine—we did give her something to help her rest after he gave the okay.” She picked up Shaina’s chart, flipped through it, and checked the monitors. “Did the doctor tell you what showed up in her blood test?”

“He did,” I sighed.

Cocaine…

“I’ll check back in a couple of hours.” She walked around the bed and patted my shoulder. “I’ve been through this with my own daughter. I know it’s hard.”