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She lowers her hand. “I didn’t think so at first. The paternity test came back positive for Lucian. Initially, we were just making sure it wasn’t her own father’s child, since Boyd always had a thing for very young girls. Most of the genetics between father and son are quite similar, though, I later learned. It’s when I requested further testing that I learned the truth about Roark. That child went from beautiful grandson, to stepson, overnight.”
The way the sparkle in her eyes dims to something darker sends a feeling of dread to my stomach. “Did you kill him? Did you give him those pills?”
The disturbing smile on her face doesn’t disappear with the question. “She was pregnant again, you know. Considering Lucian wouldn’t so much as touch the poor girl, who do you think the father might’ve been?”
“Did you kill him?” I ask again, desperate to know.
“She stopped taking her pills. Didn’t want to affect the baby growing in her belly.” Eyes spacy and unfocused, it’s as if she’s reliving the memory. “There is nothing more cu
“Answer the question.”
“I couldn’t bear the humiliation. And poor Lucian. Believing Roark was his only son. It was too much. I snuck into Roark’s room that night, because Lord knows, that child feared everything. Wouldn’t come anywhere near the doll on Amelia’s nightstand.” The feathery touch of her fingers ru
The sound of shattering dishes snaps my attention to the doorway, where Lucian stands, his hands balled into fists at his sides,. “What have you done?”
“What I had to. You don’t think I know what your father pumped his money into? What he was so desperate to hide from me?”
“You killed my son.”
“Your brother. He wasn’t yours, Lucian.”
“He was my fucking son! The only thing I ever loved.”
“He would’ve destroyed your life. She was destroying your life, and he was the reason you almost died that night.”
Brows lowered, he steps deeper into the room. “I’ve tried to forgive you all these years. For forcing me into marriage. Forcing me into that bullshit institute.” Lips peeled back, he snarls and stalks closer. “What have you done?”
“Your father put you in that Institute. Not me. He put too much faith in that doctor. They both swore you’d forget that woman after a while.”
Woman? Amelia?
It seems to dawn on him, and he lifts his gaze to Laura, eyes darkening with betrayal. “Solange?”
The woman whose name Lucian spoke when he seemed to be having a hallucination a while back. When I asked about her, he told me she wasn’t real. She was a different affliction, he said.
“The sound of her name still makes me want to wretch.” Laura grimaces, as if she might just do that. “I knew from the very begi
“She was real.” Uncertainty bleeds through his voice, as if he doesn’t trust the answer.
“Of course she was real. It’s a wonder to me that you ever fell for all that brainwashing.”
Eyes narrowed, he stares back at her, his mind seemingly lost to unseen images. “You … never acknowledged her.”
“Why would I acknowledge the woman? She was nothing to me.”
Brows pinched tighter, he lowers his gaze, as if more images are coming to mind. “The staff … they always gave me strange looks.”
Laura scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Of course. The two of you looked ridiculous together. It was obvious to everyone that she was obsessed with you, Lucian. The way she’d pet you and fawn all over you. She couldn’t keep her hands off you.”
He rubs his hand over his head, back and forth, as if he might rub the hair right off. “She’d disappear for days at a time. Days.”
Rolling her shoulders back, Laura clears her throat. “I became privy to a cage your father kept in his chambers. Locked away in some secret little room. He’d lock himself up with her for days at a time, fucking her like his little pet, when he wasn’t torturing her. I’m surprised you couldn’t hear her screams through the walls.”
A strange numbness settles over me, and I can’t even begin to imagine what has settled over Lucian with this revelation. To think it even possible that he could’ve been brainwashed for so many years, into believing that woman didn’t exist. And for what purpose?
“You … you tried to convince me she wasn’t real.” Clutching his skull, Lucian paces at the end of the bed, while I sit trying to piece together the how’s and why’s of such a thing. “Do you have any fucking clue what they did to me there? Their methods of making me forget!” His bellow bounces off the walls, and I flinch at the flourishing anger in his voice. Judging by the cold disgust creeping across his face, it must’ve been torture. “All the drugs they pumped into me!”
“All your father’s brilliant idea. He figured since you suffered years of hallucinations with Jude, what was one more?” She sighs and mindlessly toys with a loose string on my shirt, making me lean away from her, eyeing the opposite side of the bed for escape. “Not like I’d ever let you run off with that dirty child molester, anyway.”
Breath stutters in my throat at that, and I look back to him. “Lucian?” He’d only ever mentioned that she’d taught him things, never that he was molested.
He offers only a quick glance toward me, not bothering to dispute her choice of words. “She was twenty-five. Half the age of my father when he fucked her. And at least I consented. At least she didn’t threaten me, if I refused.” His expression hardens again as he stares back at Laura. “You killed her, didn’t you?”
“How humiliating do you think it was, to know both my husband and son were fucking that filthy little harlot? Of course I killed her. And if I hadn’t stopped your father, he’d be fucking her, too!” She points a trembling finger at me. “He wanted a grandson to offer up so badly, he was willing to make one himself.”
“What do you mean, stopped him?” he says past clenched teeth. Bunched shoulders and the tension in his jaw are clues that he’s one second from snapping.
Laura’s dark chuckle is unfitting for the moment, leaving me to wonder if she’ll snap, as well. “The heart attack? Your father’s heart was as healthy as an ox, before I spiked his drink. Tell me life didn’t get better when he died. Tell me you didn’t feel free the moment Roark was no longer your responsibility.”
Subtle, to avoid snagging her attention, I scoot myself toward the other end of the bed.
“You made me believe I was crazy.” Lucian steps around the bed, his movements slow and careful, approaching as if she’s an animal that might try to escape him. “You let them pump me full of drugs and left me there.”
“A mother does what she has to. Tell me you weren’t better off without her in your life.” As I set my sights for escape, the cold, steel tip of a sharp blade presses against my throat. “Or this one, for that matter.”
I breathe hard through my nose to calm the racing of my pulse.
The murderous expression on his face is one I’ve never seen before. Not even when Boyd was shooting at us. “Put the blade down. Now.”
“I see it in your eyes, Lucian. The same look when you were fawning all over that French whore. Obsession. You’re obsessed, and we know what happens when you become obsessed with something.”