by Geneva Lee
That’s what this is really about. He’s baiting me, trying to prove what he suspects—that Sterling is the father. The problem is I don’t know why he wants to know. He did everything in his power to get Sterling out of town. Now he’s gone, and I doubt my father wants to drag him back.
“I don’t see why the father is important.” It takes effort to get the words out without allowing my voice to break. It hurts to say it. Maybe because part of me knows it’s true. Sterling isn’t in the picture. Even Francie wouldn’t help me reach him. I’d been cut out of his life like a tumor—and maybe that’s what I was: something toxic he needed to root out before I ruined him, too.
“It’s one of your options,” he says, pulling a chair over to sit beside me. He doesn’t try to take my hand. In fact, he stays as far as possible from me as though my failure is contagious. “Tell me who the father is and we’ll arrange things.”
My eyes narrow. I don’t like the sound of that. “Arrange what?”
“The marriage, of course.”
“You want me to marry the father?” I can’t quite believe I’m saying it.
“For years, your social circle has included permissible choices. Say for instance that Cyrus Eaton or Montgomery West were the father. Either would be a suitable match, and their parents would certainly support it.”
I open my mouth, but I can’t think of a thing to say. It just hangs there. I feel like I’m being asked to play a child’s game. I’ll name candidates and my father will decide which are most like me, and which are not.
That’s how my life was always going to turn out, I realize. It was never my own. It never will be. Not if he has anything to say about it.
“I’m not marrying anyone.” He can’t force me down the aisle.
“Then that leaves two other options. Terminate the pregnancy.”
I swallow and level my eyes to meet his. They blaze back at me and I know that I’m not walking through this fire without getting burned. “No. I’m keeping her.”
“I assumed you would say that.” He sighs, the sound caught somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Then, you’re cut off.”
I expect this. It’s one of the reasons I left when I did. The longer I had before he found out, the more time I would have to get things in order. I’d planned to put some money aside, pay my rent in advance, do whatever I had to do to get by until I found a job. I thought I had more time. “I guess I am.”
“How noble of you.” His mouth twists, and I know exactly what he thinks of my decision. “Take the high road, will you?”
“If I had wanted an…” I can’t bring myself to use the word. “I could have done that back home.”
“Instead, you ran away like a child. Do you really think you have what it takes to be a mother? A single mother? A poor mother? No education. No means. You can’t afford this place.”
“There are other hospitals.”
“Yes, there are other hospitals for citizens.”
“I have a study visa,” I say defiantly. “I paid the healthcare surcharge and—”
“You do not have a visa as you dropped out of the program,” he interrupts me. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? You’ve been lying and stealing from me for months.”
“Stealing?”
“The funds for your apartment, for your classes…”
“I paid for those things,” I say, but even as I speak I feel everything unraveling. No matter how hard I try to stop it, I can’t get a hold on the situation.
“And how will you pay for them in the future? Will you stay in the country illegally?”
“Dr. Thompson wants me to stay. I’m sure she can help me.”
“Likely,” he admits to my shock. He never likes to admit that anyone else can be right. “You’ll incur medical bills for your treatment here. They told me you would need monitoring following the accident. Those kinds of bills add up.”
“I’ll get a job.”
“Even if you could, it won’t pay for this hospital,” he points out. “And I doubt they’ll be willing to issue a work visa to someone who lied about her intentions for coming here.”
“Plans change,” I say flatly, but reality is wrapping itself around my heart and squeezing until I feel like I can’t breathe.
“Obviously.” He stands, giving me a nod, as he plants his cane on the tile. “I wish you luck with those plans. I will pay this bill and see that you have through the end of the month at your apartment. After that, you will need a better plan. Perhaps, one that doesn’t change.”
“You’re just going…” He’d threatened me with this since I was old enough to drive. I’d always suspected it was a way to make sure that I came home.
“This is your choice,” he says, starting toward the door. “I am not the villain of this story. I offered you my help. I offered you solutions. You chose to refuse that help. I’m just glad that your mother isn’t alive to see this. It would kill her.”
“No, it wouldn’t. But I guess we’ll never know since you killed her.”
He turns sharply, nearly stumbling from the effort. “Keep your voice down. People will hear you.
“I hope they hear me in the hallway. I hope someone sells the story to the tabloids.”
“Why not you?” he says in disgust. “Pay for your bastard.”
“I would never disrespect my mother’s memory that way.” I can’t believe he’d accuse me of selling out the family. Not after I’d covered up what he did. I’m just as complicit as he is. But, more than that, I can’t stand the idea of my mother being remembered as the heart of a scandal instead of for the amazing person she was. “And you’re wrong. Mom would say to turn this into a diamond. She’d be there for me. She’d find a way to help me. Because she knew how to love unlike you. I wish you’d been the one to die that night. I wish she was here now.”
“Do you think I feel any differently?” he roars. “I can’t change what happened.”
“You could learn from it!” And that’s the real issue. It’s not that he made a mistake. It’s that he can’t admit it. “You call me a whore, but you’re a murderer. What choices did you have? Go to jail? Lie? Pay people to turn a blind eye to what really happened? Who cut you off? Who took away all your power when you made a mistake? No one. No one ever takes anything from Angus MacLaine.”
“Money is power, Adair. Money buys second chances.”
I shake my head. “Don’t you see? You can’t buy a second chance. Second chances are given. And you’ll never get one, because you killed the only person who would ever consider it.”
He bangs his cane on the floor. “This is not about me.”
Everything’s about him.
“Is that what you want?” he continues. “A second chance? Why would I give you that?”
“Because you’re my father, and you’re the only parent I have left.”
This finally stops him. He stands near the door, and for the first time in my life, my father looks small. Maybe I’ve finally bent him. Or maybe I see him differently now that I’m carrying my own child.
“I don’t have to wait for her to be here,” I say, placing my palm on my stomach, “to know that I will always put her first. If that means losing my inheritance, you can take it. You want the family name? I’ll take mom’s maiden name. I’ll go to the public hospital. I’ll sell whatever I own. I will protect her, because that’s what a mother does. That’s what Mom would do. She wouldn’t make ultimatums. She wouldn’t force me to do something I would regret for the rest of my life. She would give me a second chance. Actually, no she wouldn’t. Mothers don’t give second chances. Mothers just love you—the good, the bad. A mother’s love is free. I don’t have a mother to give me that anymore, but I can give that to my baby.”
We regard each other with a silence that feels like it will never end. I can’t help but think this will be how I remember him: quiet, rigid, small. I won’t miss him. There’s nothing to miss. All he’s ever given to me was money and expectati
ons. You can’t miss those things.
His eyes shutter and then he finally speaks, “Adoption.”
“What?” I ask, unsure I heard him.
“There is one more option. You can give the baby up. Stay in London, have the baby, and give it to someone capable of caring for it.”
“I’m not giving her up to some stranger.”
“Not a stranger,” he says. “That would be too risky. If the wrong person found out you were her mother, there’s no telling what they might try to do to our family.”
“I don’t think most people looking to adopt a baby are interested in blackmail.”
“Ah, my sweet, stubborn, stupid child. You know everyone can be bought, but everyone is capable of betrayal. Learn that now before it’s too late,” he advises. “You are right about one thing, however. You won’t give her to a stranger.”
I’m too flummoxed to respond. I’m not sure my father has ever admitted I was right before. Still, I don’t see how this is a real option, especially if we both agree that the baby can’t be given up.
“The solution is simple.” Angus MacLaine always has a trick hidden up his sleeve. He saves it for when he needs it most. I’ve watched him play it during billionaire-dollar mergers. He produced it during the investigation into the car accident. “She will stay in the family.”
I press my hand harder against my stomach as I feel an undeniable kick, as though she understands what he’s saying before I do.
“I will pay for the medical bills,” he continues. “You will remain in London and give birth. After which, you will continue to have access to your trust fund and remain in the will. You can remain in London. Return to school. You will both be taken care of.”
“And?” There’s a catch. There always is with a MacLaine. “You’ll just play granddad?”
“Yes,” he says, catching me off guard, until he shows his final card. “Because you’ll give the baby to Malcolm and Ginny to raise. No one will ever know the truth.”
“I wish I hadn’t waited until he was dead to return to Valmont,” Sterling says darkly. “I wish I’d come back to kill him myself.”
“He’d already won,” I say wearily.
“So, they just took her from you?” He runs a hand through his dark hair. “Is that even legal? Did you sign documents?”
“Not exactly,” I admit before plunging into the rest of the story. When I finish, he’s pale. He moves onto the couch next to me and draws me into his arms, tucking my body against his, before kissing my forehead. I let myself cry, openly and freely, for the first time in years. It’s ugly and painful, my sobs wrack my body until my lungs hurt. I’ve told myself not to dwell on the past, because I didn’t think I could survive it. Now, standing on the other side of it, I’m left to wonder if I just gave up.
“Do you think...Did I give up too easily?”
His arms tighten around me, protective and strong, and I dread the first moment I have to spend without their comforting presence, knowing it’s an inevitable fact of life.
“Lucky, you didn’t give up. You never gave up.” He tilts my tear-stained face up to meet his own red eyes. I didn’t realize until this moment that he’d been crying, too. “I’m proud of you, but you don’t have to fight alone anymore. I’m here now, and from this moment forward, we fight together.”
16
Sterling
“And you were in London the whole time?” I ask, dreading her answer. This came up once before when Luca had mentioned time we spent in London. I’d thought she was jealous, then. The more she tells me, the more angry I become.
She nods. “You mentioned being in London while you were serving.”
Of course, she remembers that tiny detail Luca spilled at the gala. I’m not sure why he even brought it up. It was never a night I wanted to remember-—until now.
“I was there for a stopover on my way to final training in Afghanistan,” I confess. “A lot of it’s a blur. The night ended with whiskey and tattoos.” I gesture to the brotherhood tattoo she asked about earlier.
“When was that?” Adair asks, and I can see her eyes flit back and forth like she’s reviewing memories of her time there trying to figure out if one of them has me somewhere in the background. But she won’t find it.
I’m the one who had a chance to fix things, not her. “December.”
“Ellie was born in November,” she murmurs. I feel like I’ve pulled a block out of her carefully constructed reality as realization after realization comes crashing down on her. She shakes her, forcing herself to smile through the obvious pain. “It’s not like you knew we were there.”
“That’s just it,” I say, feeling sick to my stomach. “I think I did.”
Winter five years ago
For the first time in nearly a year, I’m finally out of the South. I’d expected my first trip from Camp Lejeune might be a trip to New York. After the way I left things with Francie, I owe her that, even if she’s forgiven me. Instead, I’ve found myself on my way to the final phase of training before I’m giving a permanent assignment. I’d been told to prepare to leave the country when I enlisted, but I hadn’t expected that to happen for a lot longer. I also hadn’t expected to find myself in London.
“Wait, is this the first time you’ve been out of the country?” Luca asks, and I bristle. He shoots Jack an incredulous look, but he shrugs.
“Don’t look at me, man. I haven’t either.” Jack’s cool response stops me from overreacting.
“Really?” Luca repeats. “Never?”
“I grew up in foster care,” I remind him.
“Single mom,” Jack says. “We didn’t exactly go on vacation.”
In the last few months, we’ve gotten to know each other better, each of us skirting around whatever sad stories sent us signing up for the Marines. During the first three phases of special ops training, we’d stuck together. Unlike some of the other recruits neither Jack nor Luca joined to prove anything. We just didn’t have a lot of options. It made it harder to relate to some of the more ride or die types training alongside us, many of whom had washed out and headed back to their Marine units. Luca liked to say that we were a sort of suicide squad and that made us stronger than some of the others. It’s pretty damn easy to say you’ll fight for someone else and then fail to live up to that promise, it turns out. But when all you’ve got is the fight, there’s a certain glee to going balls to the wall. Plus, we’d discovered that we all had our own particular set of skills.
I’d always been good at numbers with an interest in literature, which meant I’d taken to code cracking and a few of the foreign languages we’d been introduced to. Jack’s talent lay in his steady hands, trained from years of teaching himself instruments. He ranked at the top of every marksmanship test. He could even slow down his heart enough to get a shot off at a record-breaking distance, a feat which meant he’d been flagged for extra training as a sniper. It was something we were all expected to do to some extent, but Jack? He’s the one they’ll call in when they want to take out a high-level target from a helicopter. Luca’s particular skills don’t fall into a training category. He’s just fucking insane. If an ounce of him fears death, he’s never shown it. He walks into every training scenario with a sort of jubilant nihilism. I can never decide if he’s going to be the one that saves the entire unit or gets us all killed.
“Look, we need to celebrate,” Luca says. “We’ve got one night in London before they send us to the ninth circle of hell. We should make it count.”
“You’re going to get us discharged before we even get assigned to active duty,” Jack says.
“What? No! I know London. I have family here,” he says as we brush past a few other trainees in the hall on our way to the stairs.
Jack lifts his eyebrow behind Luca’s back. We’ve pieced together enough about Luca’s family from things he’s said to know he’s not talking about a typical family. I’d guessed but Jack was the one to look it up and discover that the DeAngelos we
re a well-established, far-reaching criminal organization. Of the three of us, Luca’s been the most tight-lipped about why he joined up. I can’t help thinking his chaos in a bottle routine is hiding something darker. I just can’t figure out if he’s running from his past, his family, or himself.
“Are we going to their house for family dinner?” Jack says dryly.
“Believe me, you don’t want to hang out with my family. Not when you have a city like this at your disposal.” He snaps his fingers and whips around, continuing to walk backwards. Somehow he manages to not knock into anyone, but, probably, because everyone moves out of his way. “I’ve got it. I know what we’re doing tonight.”
I brace myself. I can only imagine the trouble he could get us in a city this size.
“Does it involve a felony?” Jack asks.
“Stealing ah a horse isn’t a felony—”
“It actually is in North Carolina,” Jack says.
“—if you’re only borrowing it,” Luca continues. “I was never going to keep the horse, so it would have only been a misdemeanor. No big deal.”
“I still don’t understand why you took the fucking horse.” He shoots me a look, and I correct myself with a sigh. “I mean, why you borrowed the horse.”
The only time we’d left base at Camp Lejeune for a night out had involved said borrowed horse, a police chase, and some serious sweet talking. Thankfully, the officer had a soft spot for Italians, and Luca had flirted our way out of trouble before it got back to any of our commanding officers. Jack and I hadn’t agreed to a night out since.
“Hey, where are you heading?” A deep voice calls when we reach the lobby. We pause to find the last member of our usual group standing with a few ranking officers. Noah Porter tips his head toward the men he’s talking to before making his way to us.
“I’m taking them out for the night. Want to come?”