Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
CHRISTIAN
My eyes sting and my skin itches as I pick my way down the stairs.
I’d have given nothing more than to sit down with Grace and tell her everything, and have her do the same, but she was almost dead on her feet, and I’m not that far behind.
Tomorrow makes more sense, but what makes sense and what we’d like to happen aren’t always in alignment.
Dealing with Grace meant I was left out of the loop when Dad and Xan caught up to George.
I’m keen to find out what their plans are for the raping bastard.
While Nicholas, Tobias, Saskia and I have a say, this is Xan and Dad’s call.
I can’t see a future where Xan is all live and let live, and that suits me fine.
George deserves to die in a stinking pile of his own excrement after starving to death.
I want his demise to be long and painful, for him to have time to think about what he did and to suffer for it.
By the time I reach Dad’s office, everyone is already gathered. Somber faces greet me as I take a seat next to Tobias. Considering it’s the first Friday of the month, normally we’d be gathered around the dinner table, sharing good food and spending quality family time together. Not this month.
“How is Grace?” Victoria asks.
“Exhausted.”
“She said anything?” Xan asks pointedly.
“Other than thinking you were glaring at her the entire flight home, no. I told her you weren’t glaring at her.”
“Some of the time, I was.”
“Stop it.” Imogen places a warning hand on his thigh. “Isn’t life hard enough right now without going after a woman who’s grieving? She made her choices during a time of terrible pain. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt until we know more, yes?”
My eldest brother has the good grace to blush. When it comes to Xan, Imogen has special powers. He’ll take criticism from her and reflect inward. She’s been incredibly good for him. Before she came along he hardly smiled, too mired in his own grief. She’s softened him in a good way.
“Yes,” he mutters.
“Where is he?” I ask Dad.
“Downstairs.”
He means in the cellars beneath the house, where it’s damp and dark. Good.
“And Alice?”
“In my living room. I’ve asked Alan to bring her along shortly. I want to see what she did or didn’t know.”
“And if she knows everything?”
“Let’s gather the facts first,” he says in his inimitable style. “Then we will decide what happens next.”
When Alice enters Dad’s office, she’s pale and nervy, her fingers plucking at the hem of her jacket.
Dad smiles kindly while the rest of us sit back and let him take the lead. “Sit down, dear.” He motions for her to sit opposite him.
She almost falls into the chair, her knees giving way. “Charles, before you say anything, I want you to know that I’m as shocked as you are. All these years, he kept me in the dark. It was only after he told me we had to flee that I insisted he told me everything.”
I can believe this. Alice is such a quiet little mouse of a woman. She’s always let George take the lead in pretty much everything.
“And now you do know, what’s changed for you?”
Her eyes flare wide. “Everything has changed. My God.” She presses a palm to her chest. “He… he… attacked Fiona. No woman deserves that. He’s not the person I thought he was.”
“Raped,” Nicholas growls. “Let’s not couch it in softer language. Your husband raped my mother.”
Dad flinches, and Xan’s hands fist so tightly, his knuckles whiten.
“I-I’m sorry. I don’t mean to…” She covers her face. “It’s abhorrent. Sick.”
“When he told you what he’d done, why didn’t you call Dad?” Saskia demands. “If it’s so horrifying to you, how could you have stayed with him?”
She drops her hands, turning watery eyes on my sister. “I was afraid of what he’d do. I’ve never stood up to him. Never. I didn’t know how.” Tears spill down her cheeks. “I’m a weak woman. I’ve always been in George’s shadow. I’m sorry I’ve let you down, but I was so frightened.”
“We’re not blaming you, Alice,” Dad says. “We understand.”
I fire a glance at Xan. He doesn’t look like he understands one bit, but he’s got too much respect for Dad to disagree.
“Wh-what happens now? To George, I mean?”
Dad’s lips flatten. “What happens to him is no longer your concern.”
“Are you going to kill him?”
“Like I said, it’s not your concern. You are still a part of this family, and Oakleigh is your home.
You are welcome to return to the farmhouse, join us on our monthly dinners, and attend any events you wish to.
But what happens to George is up to us.” Dad gets to his feet and pokes his head into the hallway.
“Alan, please escort Alice back to the farmhouse.”
Dad’s butler enters the office. On unsteady feet, Alice stands. She scans each of our faces. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers before leaving with Alan.
“Poor bugger,” Tobias murmurs.
“I’d never stay with a man who didn’t respect me as an equal,” Saskia announces. “It’s fifty-fifty or it’s fuck all the way off.”
I chuckle. “The unfortunate sod who gets paired with you has a bundle of trouble on his hands.”
She grins. “You know it, brother.”
“Alexander, you’re with me,” Dad says, already heading for the exit.
“Whoa, hang on.” Nicholas shoots to his feet. “I’m coming, too. I want to hear first-hand what that fucker has to say for himself.”
“Me, too,” I say.
“And me.” Tobias stands.
“I’ll sit this one out,” Saskia says, and both Imogen and Victoria nod in agreement.
“And to be clear, it’s not because I’m a woman who can’t stand the sight of blood, but if I’m in the same room as him, I may just rip his throat out, and he deserves to suffer for far longer than that.
” She walks over to Xan and hugs him. “Make it painful.”
Imogen winces. “I understand your thirst for revenge, but don’t do anything detrimental to your own mental health. Please.”
Xan gathers Imogen into his arms and holds on for a few seconds, his nose buried in her hair.
Victoria moves into Nicholas’s body until there isn’t a millimeter between them.
My heart pinches painfully. I wish Grace were offering a similar kind of support, but until we clear the air and decide whether or not we can forgive one another for our decisions and actions, it’s better she isn’t.
We file out of Dad’s office and make our way to the bowels of Oakleigh.
I haven’t been down here in years, and it’s easy to remember why.
These old houses were built with cellars as storage, not as livable space.
The smell of damp crawls up my nostrils, and spiders webs hang in the corners.
It’s cold, dark, and thoroughly miserable.
Exactly what George deserves.
Dad unlocks the third door along and enters. We follow. George gets up from the only chair planted in the center of the room. A single bulb hangs from a wire above his head, and I’m pretty sure I heard the scuttling sound of a rat making its escape as we arrived.
“Charles.” George hangs his head, avoiding all of our gazes. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Dad asks. “Raping my wife and lying to me for more than thirty-five years, or getting found out?”
That’s Dad. Right between the eyes.
“I-I never meant to hurt Fiona, or you. You’re my brother, and I love you.”
Dad snorts. “Fuck you, George. You were jealous because I was the first born, the heir. You always wanted what I had, and Fiona was no different.” His voice cracks.
I put my hand on his shoulder, lending some support. This must be fucking torture, and a fresh deluge of hatred fills my veins for the man who’s caused all this pain and suffering.
Xan steps into the light. He towers over George by a good five or six inches, and he’s using that height to intimidate.
I’ve seen this many times before with strangers who escape traditional justice, but not ours.
“Did you kidnap Annabel and me? Did you order those men to rape and strangle my fucking sister?” He clamps his hand around George’s throat.
“Did you?” he roars. Containing his rage on a twelve-hour flight home must’ve taken every ounce of restraint he had, but it’s pouring out of him now.
Dad steps back, arms folded, letting Xan take the lead.
“What?” George croaks, trying, and failing, to release Xan’s hand from crushing his windpipe. “What are you talking about?”
Nicholas lets out a bitter laugh. “Denial? That’s really your play? If I were you, I’d choose another tactic, because that’s not going to wash with us, you lying piece of shit.”
“I swear.” He flips both hands up like he’s in an old western, and Clint Eastwood’s holding him at gunpoint. “I never touched Annabel or you. I would never do that.”
“Hmm,” Tobias muses. “The word of a rapist isn’t worth much, though, is it?”
“On my life, I didn’t do it.”
“Your word’s not worth shit either, is it?” I say.
“Please. You have to believe me.” Wild eyes seek out Dad. “Charles, I wouldn’t hurt your children. You know Alice and I couldn’t have kids. I love them like they’re my own.”
“Funny that,” Xan says, nostrils flaring. “Because we are your fucking own. Annabel and me. Your filthy DNA runs through my veins because of what you did to our mother, and it makes me fucking sick to think about it.”
George’s knees buckle, and Xan lets him go as he slides to the cold, concrete floor. “No,” he whispers. “It’s not possible. I never…” He gazes up at us, eyes swimming with tears. Fucking crocodile tears. “You have to believe me. I didn’t know.”
“I suppose you didn’t kill Mum, either,” Nicholas spits out.
George pales, like someone pulled a plug on his veins and let all the blood drain out.
I shoot a glance at my brother. Is that what he thinks?
Mum took her own life… didn’t she? God, do they really think George is responsible for it all?
I sweep my gaze to Dad. He doesn’t look in the least bit surprised at Nicholas’s question, which tells me he already knew his thoughts before today.
“I loved her.” George moans, gathering his knees to his chest and rocking forward and backward. “I’d never have hurt her.”
Nicholas drops to a crouch so fast, for a second, I think he’s fainted.
But he pushes his face into George’s and grabs him by the shoulders, shaking him violently.
“You fucking raped her, you animal. You think that didn’t hurt her?
You think she wasn’t in agony all these years while she kept your vile secret?
You as good as killed her. If you hadn’t come back to Oakleigh, she’d still be alive. ”
George flinches, refusing to look at Nicholas. Fucking coward.
“Why did you return?” I ask. “What changed after sixteen years away?”
His watery gaze finds mine. “I missed home. I missed all of you. I wanted my family around me.”
Dad snorts. “Liar. You thought you’d got away with it. Yet two weeks after you arrive home, my daughter and my wife are dead.”
“I swear, Charles, I didn’t hurt Annabel or Fiona. I could never hurt them. I loved them.”
“Hang on a second,” Xan says. “If you didn’t know your vile assault on my mother resulted in pregnancy, how did you know we’d found her journal, where she wrote down everything? Every foul detail. You had to have known that because you ran, and you left that shitty little apology note.”
Good fucking point. Both issues were discussed at the same time.
George’s chin trembles. He’s refusing to look at any of us now. Pathetic.
“When you found that key in the snow globe but not the box it opened, I concluded there was a good chance that Fiona might’ve written down what happened the night before her wedding and hidden it somewhere.
I couldn’t be sure, but I could make plans for if what I did ever came to light.
” He swallows, wiping away a bead of sweat that trickles down his temple.
Considering it’s bitterly cold in here, it shows how much he’s panicking.
Fucking good. I hope he pisses himself, scared witless.
“I planted a few hidden cameras in your rooms, Alexander, and had someone write me a script that would send an alert and a video to my phone if certain keywords were picked up.”
“Why my rooms?”
“Because you found the key. I knew you’d never let anyone else have it. You like control.”
Xan snorts, but doesn’t deny it, because that might be the first truly honest thing that’s come out of this bastard’s mouth.
“That night, I got an alert. I knew instantly what it meant. I’d put plans in place, so I grabbed Alice and the bag I’d prepared just in case, and I ran.” He runs his hands through his thinning hair, gripping it at the roots. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Stand and face up to the consequences,” Dad says. “That’s what you should have done, George.”
“What, so you could kill me? We all have survivor’s instinct, Charles.”
“And we all make choices,” Dad hits back. “All you did was delay the inevitable. You know how The Consortium works. If we hadn’t lucked out with Grace recognizing you and calling Christian, we would have caught up to you eventually.”
George pushes to his feet, a hint of defiance in his eyes as he stands before my father. “What happens now? You slit my throat? Shoot me? Leave me in here to rot? What, Charles?”
A small smile lifts the corners of Dad’s mouth. “That’s not my decision to make.”
Two deep lines pop between George’s eyebrows. “What does that mean?”
Dad backs off and stands right next to Xan. He puts his hand between Xan’s shoulder blades. “The decision of what to do with you lies with my son.” His smile widens. “And believe me, if you think he’s the better choice, you have one hell of a wakeup call coming your way.”
Dad’s hand shifts up, and he squeezes Xan’s shoulder. “So, son. What say you?”