Chapter 51
New Orleans
“The doctor told me everything’s fine. The sedative dose you were given won’t harm the baby,” Beau says from the doorway of the suite where I’m staying at their house.
I nod in agreement.
I had to tell them about the pregnancy before they sedated me again, but even so, when I woke up, I panicked. It was only when a second doctor came to examine me here in Louisiana that I finally calmed down.
I’m surprised to see him here. During the days of my previous stay at his house, he hardly spoke to me.
When I once commented to Lucifer about it, he answered honestly that his friend was probably still deciding whether he liked me or not, because Beau is as constant as a mountain, and his feelings about someone never change.
Back then, I assumed he didn’t like me. But since he picked me up at our home yesterday in New York, after the unknown man, whom I think must’ve been a special bodyguard, saved me from Martin and took me there, he’s been nothing but protective and kind.
“Where’s Lucifer?”
“You still want to see him?” He answers my question with another.
“Yes, I do. At least to talk.”
“At least? Sounds like you’re still weighing whether he deserves your forgiveness.” Despite his calm tone, I can sense his anger surfacing.
“My family took him in, and he repaid us by killing my father,” I say. But deep down, I feel confused, because now I’ve had time to process the little I know about the chaos my life became since yesterday.
I remember clearly the man who saved me from Martin calling my brother a pedophile.
Was my father one too? Is that why Lucifer killed him?
My heart breaks at the thought because even though the rules I was raised by say I must love and honor my family, I know this: Lucifer would never have killed my father, knowing how much it would devastate me, for no reason at all.
“If I were him, I’d have killed him too,” Beau says, confirming there was a reason behind it. “In fact, I’d have been much crueler.”
“Why are you here, talking to me?” I ask, trying not to shiver at his words. I need answers.
“Because Lucifer loves you so much he might not have the courage to destroy your illusions of a happy family. So I’m here to literally be the devil’s advocate.”
“What do you know?”
He walks to the window and stands with his back to me for several minutes.
I’m propped up on pillows, too weak to get up, but at the same time, I want to rush to him and demand he tell me everything.
Contradictorily, I also want to send him away, because something tells me what I’ll hear will change me forever.
“Please, I need to know,” I finally decide.
He turns to face me. “Your father worked as a supplier for a group of pedophiles.”
“What?” I get to my feet, though my legs are still unsteady. I stumble, and he notices.
“Sit down, Jackie,” he says, pointing to the armchair.
I obey because there’s no point in arguing. I feel like I’m about to faint.
“You know Lucifer was supposedly kidnapped when he was eleven, after he was already living with your family?”
“No.”
“He was playing in the street when some men took him. At least, that’s what he remembers.”
My eyes fill with tears, unwilling to believe what I’m hearing because the pieces are already starting to fit together. “Go on.”
“He was taken to a place with cages, like for animals.
He was thrown in one and kept there for days, barely eating or drinking water.
Two other teenagers were locked up with him.
The three of them heard enough to understand they were in the hands of pedophiles.
Lucifer, especially, figured it out quickly. His life had never been easy.
“They . . .” I can’t bring myself to finish the sentence.
“No. He told me the guy looked at him like he wanted to hurt him but he never touched him because ‘virgin kids are worth more,’” he says with disgust, and my stomach turns too.
“They were going to sell him, Jackie. Back then, Lucifer didn’t know about human trafficking.
But he had lived long enough with his degenerate parents to understand there are perverts who want children.
He’d already sent more than one of his parents’ friends—who’d tried to touch him—to the hospital. ”
“My God.”
“Lucifer, like the other boys, managed to escape. He ran straight to your house, Jackie. To your parents’ arms. The only place in the world where he felt safe. Because no matter how tough he was, he was still just a child.”
I bury my face in my hands and cry for several minutes. Beau waits in silence until I calm down.
“When he was around twenty, he discovered what your father really did when he caught him about to sell a girl.”
At that, I rush to the bathroom and throw up.
Beau waits, and when I wash my face, he pours a glass of water and hands it to me.
“Go on.”
“You can guess the rest. Lucifer stopped him from selling the girl. During the ‘interrogation,’ your father ended up begging forgiveness for having tried to sell him once. I don’t know every detail of that ‘conversation,’ but I know the result. Lucifer killed him.”
“He didn’t know what my father had done in the past.”
“No. And your father told him he never thought about trying to sell him again because your mother truly loved Lucifer. There’s a reason I’m telling you this: he’s always loved you.”
“Love? He doesn’t love me.”
“He does. As much as I love my Amber. Maybe at first like a sister but later as a man. And it was always love. He just thought himself unworthy after what he did to your father. Think about everything you’ve built together.
About the child you’re expecting. Consider it all carefully before making a decision about your future. ”
“I need to see him.”
“He’s on his way. But the story isn’t over, Jackie. There’s much more you need to know about your family. What matters is that you understand that compared to your brother and your father, Lucifer, the rejected and betrayed boy, is a fucking saint.”
I hear the bedroom door open, and I don’t move.
I see his shadow in the darkness, in the doorway, and I can’t stop the tears from streaming down my cheeks.
For hours, yesterday and today, I’ve wept the tears of a lifetime spent being told strong girls don’t cry.
I never want to think of that stupid advice again. I never want to think of my brother again.
After Beau left me alone, Amber came and stayed with me. We talked for a long time.
With Beau, I listened. With Amber, I spoke.
I let it all out: childhood moments, family memories. And I realized the most constant memory of all was of him, with him.
Lucifer, the boy who was abused, unloved, unwanted, but whom my heart had chosen for me all along.
I remembered the conversation we once had in the old apartment, when he told me he could still recall the smell of my mother’s cooking. I pieced that together with what Beau told me: that after escaping the pedophiles, Lucifer had unknowingly run to the house of his abuser for shelter.
I cried in shame and pain. I cried with remorse and rage at my father, for being a vile trafficker of children.
I cried for my brother, who came back only to be lost within hours, because now I’m certain it was Martin who was trying to kill Lucifer, and that, he will never forgive.
I cried with Amber’s arms around me, and I listened as she told me she’d been raised in a sect of pedophiles and that one of her daughters had been saved from there.
I was nauseated by what Beau said my father did, but until Amber spoke to me, pedophilia was just a technical term for a heinous crime I vaguely read about in newspapers or heard in the news.
But when she revealed graphic details, testimony from the trial of one of the pedophiles from the sect her father led, I finally understood the kind of monster the man who gave me life had been. I felt relieved he was dead.
“You should be sleeping,” he says because even without seeing each other’s faces, he knows I’m looking at him.
We’ve always felt each other, and that bond doesn’t need light.
Our love, scarred, riddled with pain and secrets, still carries all the light in the world.
“I didn’t want to sleep before you came. Come here.”
He shakes his head. “I just wanted to see you. Sleep. We have a lot to talk about tomorrow.”
At another time, I’d have stepped back, thinking he was rejecting me. But now, I know he’s only trying to shield his own feelings. Lucifer thinks I despise him.
I get up and walk to him. I pull him inside the room and close the door.
“We have a lifetime to talk. I’ll listen. I’ll hear everything you want to tell me. But right now, I just need you to hold me, Lucifer.”