Chapter 16 #2
“And how is that my problem? Or yours, for that matter?” Alyssia snapped, feeling tears well up in her eyes. “I wasn’t there when Antonio was born! I can’t speak for what’s right and what’s wrong, and I don’t see why I should be punished for it, let alone my baby!”
“Look, don’t tell anyone that I told you this,” Douglas finally let go of the chair. “Maria’s plan was to kidnap you and use you to force Antonio’s hand. She didn’t even know you were pregnant until she saw you at the meeting.”
Alyssia stared at him in angry silence, until eventually he looked down at the floor.
Tears welled up in his eyes at the thought of what he’d done, the pain he’d caused, and the two lives that now hung in his hands.
Eventually, Alyssia spoke again, the ice in her voice so cold it could have frozen Alaska.
“You betrayed my family, and for what?” she growled.
“A pay-check? A woman? What did she offer you, Douglas, that you’d betray the people who took you in and fucking helped you out of the gutter?
You were nothing until you came to the Blackwoods, Douglas, and you know it.
We could have quite easily turned you away, sent you back to whatever shithole you crawled out of, but no.
We helped you, we gave you the home you so clearly don’t value, and you’d do well not to forget that! ”
Douglas lifted his head and looked her square in the eyes. Alyssia glared back at him, her gaze unafraid, and eventually he lowered his gaze again, staring at his fingers instead.
“She offered me nothing,” he finally admitted. “It’s what she stole from me that matters.”
“What could Maria have possibly stolen from someone with no family, no belongings, and no free money?”
Douglas sighed and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open to show her a photograph of a woman.
The woman looked exactly like him, just shorter and with blonde hair instead of his steel grey, and a heck of a lot younger.
If Alyssia hadn’t known better, she’d have guessed it was his daughter, but Douglas had famously never had children.
“Who’s this?” she snapped. “Some secret wife we don’t know about? Another bastard child Maria’s given birth to? Oh wait, let me guess … you fucked Maria, and this is the result?”
Douglas laughed shortly, before putting his wallet away.
“Not quite, although I do love the girl. She’s my niece.
My sister gave birth two months before she died, but she couldn’t keep the baby, so she …
gave her away. I wasn’t at the birth, or I’d have taken the baby myself, so after my family died, I went looking for her.
“When I found her, she was living with Maria and Tony as their adopted daughter. When I asked where they found her, they claimed she’d been given to them by a surrogate, and when nobody came forward to raise her, they took her home and kept her.”
Silence fell as the two stared at each other, Alyssia still not quite trusting him. Something about his story suggested that there was more to come, but she didn’t feel like pushing it just yet.
“So, is she still there?” she asked eventually.
“Yes,” Douglas nodded, his eyes growing weary.
“She’s indebted to them until she’s eighteen, which is next April.
If I can somehow rescue her from them, I’ll be free.
If not … she’s stuck there until her eighteenth birthday, when she’ll be forced into the sex trade – if she hasn’t been forced into it already. ”
“Have you told Maria who she is to you?”
Douglas nodded again, clearing his throat. “Maria knows. She refuses to release her to me, saying that Milania won’t know who I am, and that it’s a waste of time trying to introduce an uncle to her after seventeen years of calling her ‘Mum’.”
“And you didn’t fight it?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Douglas sounded hopeless. He ran a hand through his hair. “I tried asking David, but he refused to have anything to do with Maria, and Tony was useless. Still is, but at least he’s got a reason to be useless now.”
“Hang on, you keep mentioning Tony like he’s still alive. What do you mean, he is useless? Tony’s dead … right?”
Douglas looked down at Alyssia, not entirely sure what to say to her. Everyone had seemingly accepted that Tony was dead, even though the general suspicion was that he was alive. How could he tell her that her suspicions were true, that Maria had kept her husband alive whilst pretending he’d died?
Sitting in the chair, Alyssia couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to the story of Tony’s alleged death.
She’d always suspected, along with the rest of the Blackwoods, that his death – if indeed he was dead – was more of a murder than a natural one, but without proof it was hard to say anything.
“Look, what you have to realise ?” Douglas began, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat and continued. “Maria … Mrs Blackwood … she’s not right. In the head, you understand?”
“You mean she’s crazy?” Alyssia asked, almost daring him to say it. “We know that. She’s been crazy for as long as I’ve known her.”
“It’s deeper than that. She’s obsessed with this family fortune that she thinks she’s owed.
It’s why she drove Tony to drink, then put him in a mental institution and forged his death certificate.
She told everyone he was dead, and refused to show anyone proof, until finally the whole thing went away. ”
“A mental institution?” Alyssia gasped. “You mean, she had him committed?”
“Pretty much. Tony was getting more and more forgetful as he got older, so it was easier to pretend he had dementia, and get him into an institution that way. After that, she realised she could go after everything that she believes David stole from her if he didn’t tell Antonio who she was, and here we are today. ”
“How has David stolen anything, though? She could have taken Antonio with her and raised him, he just wouldn’t have had the Blackwood surname.”
Douglas shrugged, pulling out a small bottle of vodka and downing it before continuing his story.
“That’s probably why she left him with David. Either way, she started reaching out to anyone and everyone who had a weakness. Me, Alexei, Ruben … she even tried to get Reynolds involved, but luckily his issues had been resolved before she got to him.”
“She went after Reynolds?” Alyssia shouted, groaning as the baby kicked. “How sick is this woman? Reynolds has never had a problem in his life!”
“Well, not any more,” Douglas looked away again.
“Before he came to work for you, he and I worked for Maria. He had a drinking problem, like me, and we both ended up in jail together after we got into a rather nasty bar fight. David forced him into rehab and AA before hiring him as soon as he was clean, and making him sign a document that essentially meant any disloyalty would result in his death. Maria found out and went absolutely mad with rage – she thought Reynolds would be the ultimate influence over your husband. The fact that he put David and Antonio before her was the biggest slap in the face she could have received.”
“What a mess,” Alyssia sighed, sinking back into the armchair. “And now, here I am, a prisoner at the mercy of some mad woman’s deluded obsessions.”
“Not quite deluded, Alyssia,” came Maria’s sneering voice.
She stalked into the room, dressed in a burgundy velvet dress, a black feather jacket, and stiletto heels that, whilst elegant, made her totter around the room like a baby deer.
Were it not for the seriousness of the situation, it would almost have been funny.
“Mrs Blackwood,” Douglas’ voice was very deferential, almost submissive. She waved him away, throwing him a disgusted look, and he fell silent.
“I’ll deal with you later, worm.” she snapped. “Nobody betrays me.”
“Look, I don’t know what you think you’ll achieve from kidnapping me, but it won’t change anything,” Alyssia said. She tried to rise, but a sharp pain stabbed through her abdomen, and she groaned in pain.
“Well, dearest daughter-in-law, that baby in your belly is enough to get any man running to your aid,” Maria smirked. “And that’s what I’m counting on – unless Antonio’s as much of a deadbeat as his own father was?”
“Antonio isn’t a deadbeat!” Alyssia gasped, feeling a horrible wetness between her legs that splattered onto the floor. She looked down and groaned loudly. “Oh, God damn it!”
“What?” Maria snapped, peering at her. Alyssia looked up at her in horror and gestured to the puddle on the floor with a hopeless wave.
“My waters have broken.”