Chapter 10
Emma
After what I have to admit was probably the tastiest meal I’ve ever had, I finish my glass of water.
Gio had it brought in for me from the kitchen by a woman in a black dress and white apron.
Though she didn’t say a single word to anyone, she anticipated their needs in a way that I always thought only happened in movies.
Apparently, you just need a seemingly endless amount of money.
“So you’re a teacher then?” Felicity asks.
I nod. “Kindergarten.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Very much so. I love my students as if they were my own children.”
“But you have no children of your own?” Gio questions. “Never been married?”
“No. Just never met the right guy, I guess.” I take another drink of water, the glass already freshened by one of the wait staff.
“So no husband, but what about the boyfriend?” Gio asks. “He seemed—angry.”
“Dylan’s not my boyfriend,” I reply quickly. “We dated a bit in high school, but that was it.”
“Yet it was him you called,” Gio presses.
“I—”
“Darling, let the girl breathe. She hasn’t been a part of our family for even a full day, and you’re grilling her over boys as though she’s in her teens instead of her mid-thirties,” Felicity scolds with a smile and a click of her tongue.
Gio seems unfazed at first, but then he leans back and wipes his mouth with a cloth napkin. “Yes, well, I suppose I’m trying to make up for lost time.”
The doors open, and a man wearing a black suit walks into the room. He has a tattoo that climbs up his neck, and his eyes are shielded behind dark glasses even though it’s well past sundown outside.
My stomach twists as he leans in and whispers something to Gio.
“Aah, okay. Thank you.” The man turns to leave, and even though I can’t see his eyes, I get the faintest impression that he’s sizing me up as he leaves the room. “Emmaline, I’m afraid that my pilot has grounded the plane for the evening due to storms.”
“Storms?” I turn to look at the open balcony doors. There’s a soft breeze coming in off the ocean, but the weather seems clear.
“Not here,” he replies. “Over Texas. It seems there’s a strong system moving in, and he says it’s not safe to fly at the present moment.”
Another dose of nerves dances through my system. “You said I could go home tonight. Are there no other flights?”
“Not at this hour. We use a helicopter to take us from where we are now to the private airport we use for travel. Unfortunately, the nearest commercial airport is three hours away, and they’ll likely have the same issue.”
His words make sense, but that does nothing to silence the shrieking alarms in my mind.
Pretend, Emma, I remind myself. Pretending is something I became good at over the years. I pretend that seeing Dylan every day doesn’t gut me.
I pretend that I don’t love him the same now as I did years ago.
Now, I need to pretend that I don’t see right through Gio and this entire charade. “Okay. It might be nice to stay another night. Can I call them and make sure someone takes care of my cat?” I ask.
“Of course, of course.” Gio nods. “You have the phone; make whatever calls you need.”
“Thanks.” Nausea sends bile up the back of my throat, but I take a bite of the strawberries and cream sitting in front of me. “So, where are we? It’s beautiful here, but I didn’t recognize anything out of the window in my room.”
“You said it yourself earlier,” he replies with a smile. “Paradise.” Gio stands. “I fear I have some business to tend to. Mattheus, come. My love, can you show our daughter back to her room and help her get settled?”
“Of course,” Felicity replies with a smile. She stands as well, then lightly kisses Gio as he passes.
As soon as he and Mattheus are out of the room, she reaches out a hand. “Come, Emmaline. I’ll walk you back.”
I hesitate. Will they lock the door again? Will I be trapped in this place forever? Or will they truly let me go as soon as the plane can land safely?
“Honey, you’re safe with me, okay?” she says softly, then takes my hand and gently tugs me to my feet. As soon as I’m standing, she releases me and heads for the door. “I imagine this is all a shock for you,” she continues as we move down the hall. “Finding out you were adopted, then coming here.”
“I knew I was adopted all along. My parents were always honest with me. So the kidnapping was pretty much the only shock.”
“Kidnapping?”
I inwardly wince. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”
“You can be completely open with me,” she says softly.
She doesn’t seem broken. Not in the way they explained. Is that because I’m here? Or was it yet another lie to get me to do what they wanted?
“Mattheus drugged me in my house and brought me here without my consent.”
She mutters something under her breath, and her cheeks flush pink with anger.
“Come. We’re going to take a walk.” Instead of going back into the room, she leads me out the back door and into a dimly lit rose garden.
The moon is large overhead, and its silvery glow lights our path as we walk among the flowers.
“Keep your voice low as we speak, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Do not allow your expression to betray what it is we’re speaking of.”
“Okay,” I say again, this time forcing a smile that mimics her own.
“You were never supposed to come here.”
I stop moving, shock at her words settling over me. “What did you say?”
“Come, you must keep walking.” She smiles when she faces me and loops an arm through mine, then forces me to keep moving. “You mustn’t look like something’s wrong, Emmaline. He has eyes everywhere. Smile, darling.”
I do, but it makes me feel sick.
“Now, what you need to know is that it isn’t safe for you here. You need to go home.”
“I want to go home.”
“He is going to try to keep you here, but if we play our cards right, we can get you out safely. You’ll have to move though. Now that he knows where you are—”
“Wait, hang on a second. What’s happening? Mattheus says he brought me here because you were suffering.”
“Darling, I’ve been suffering since the moment I uttered my vows. But I never wanted you to suffer the same fate as me.”
We reach a bench at the back of the garden, overlooking the ocean as it kisses the shoreline. Felicity sits, so I follow suit, remaining quiet while she thinks through whatever it is she plans on saying.
All the while, my stomach is a pit of knots.
He’s going to try to keep you here. Why? I’ve been alone for over thirty years. Why does Gio want to keep me now?
“I wanted a daughter so badly. A little girl to dress up. The bows, the braids—I wanted it so badly.” A tear rolls down her cheek.
“Gio and I had a whirlwind romance. It was candles, flowers, stolen kisses—a wonderous proposal. After we were married, I learned who he truly was. By then, I’m ashamed to admit, I loved the lifestyle.
” She turns to look out over the ocean. “When I found out I was pregnant, I was so happy. Until I realized what it meant. My child, boy or girl, would be wrapped up in his world.”
“What world? Who is he?”
Felicity smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“A highly intelligent man who doesn’t miss much.
” She takes a deep breath. “Mattheus came first. I tried so hard to keep him out of it. To convince Gio that Mattheus should be allowed to choose his own path. He was a sweet boy, Emmaline. He really was.”
I try to picture Mattheus when he was younger. As one of my kindergarten students—so carefree and happy. But it doesn’t come easily, knowing he drugged and kidnapped me.
“He was two when I found out I was pregnant with you.” She presses a hand to her stomach.
“I was so terrified when I found out you were the daughter that I had once prayed so desperately for.” More tears roll down her cheeks.
The pain surrounding her is so thick that it presses down around us.
Even as she fights against the visible pain with a forced smile.
“I knew what a life for you looked like, and I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing you into it. ”
“I don’t understand. If it was truly so bad, then why—why did you stay with him?”
“Fear,” she replies. “We already had Mattheus, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get him away safely. I couldn’t leave him here, not when there was still a chance I could pull him away from this life.”
“Then what happened to me?”
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
“I hadn’t prayed in years. Truthfully, I pulled away from God and leaned into the life that Gio offered me.
But the night I found out you were a girl, I prayed so hard.
” Her voice cracks. “Harder than I ever had. I prayed for Him to take you away. To give you to someone else.”
Her words hit me square in the chest. “You didn’t want to have me.”
“Oh, darling, no. I wanted you more than anything. But this life is not kind to women. I knew what would happen to you if you stayed. He would have used you as a pawn. You would’ve ended up married to someone just like him—or worse.
When the pregnancy continued, I began to formulate a plan.
A way to get you safely out. I befriended a nurse at the hospital, and I paid her to lie to us.
To tell us that you—” She pauses a moment and closes her eyes.
“That you died. I made her promise to find you a good family. And we parted ways—never speaking about it again.”
“He said that you saw a baby. A body.”
“A cleverly designed doll,” she replies. “Made to look real. We only saw you from a distance, and even as I knew it was fake, my heart broke just the same. Gio never looked too hard at the lie. If he had—” She shudders. “I prayed that he wouldn’t, and he didn’t.”
Shock can’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling as I sit here on this bench, listening to what Felicity is telling me.
She knew that I was alive. This whole time.
Hot tears burn in my eyes. I understand her reasoning—she wanted to give me a better life—and she did.
But knowing that I was given up for adoption is nothing compared to learning why.
“Did you ever check on me?”
She shakes her head. “I knew that if Gio caught wind of it, he’d level the world to get to you, and I would be buried by his wrath, unable to protect you.”
“He would have killed you.”
“In a heartbeat.”
“It’s been over thirty years. How did they find me?”
“I don’t know.” She closes her eyes. “I thought you were safe. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Emmaline.” She turns toward me, then reaches up and cups my cheek. “But, my darling daughter, you are oh so beautiful. And as much as I despise the reasons, I am quite glad I got to meet you.”
With trembling fingers, I reach up and touch her hand.
I never sought out my birth family because, as far as I was concerned, it was Patricia and Emmitt Franklin who raised me, and nothing else mattered.
But when Mattheus first showed up, I was intrigued by the idea of discovering the truth about where I came from.
Now, learning what I have, I wish I could go back to when I didn’t know.
But that doesn’t take away from the overwhelming emotion consuming me as I sit here with the woman who tried to give me my best chance.
“Me too.”
“Now. We need to get you out of here. Is there anyone back home you can think of who can help you? I can’t trust anyone here. They’re all on Gio’s payroll.”
Dylan’s name is the first one that pops into my head.
And because of that, I shove it back down. “Bradyn Hunt,” I say. “He’s been a friend of mine for a long time, and he runs a search and rescue business. They’re looking for me now.”
“Then we need to make sure they find you. Before it’s too late.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Felicity takes a deep breath. “Let’s not worry about that right now, okay? Right now, I want you to focus only on pretending as though you know none of this. They cannot suspect you do.”
“Mattheus can’t be trusted?” Given that he drugged me, I’m assuming not, but I want to hear it from her.
“No. As much as I hate to admit it, he’s worse than his father.” Her voice cracks a bit toward the end. Just enough of a waver that I can feel her pain. Her disappointment. That she tried to keep him kind, and he followed the darkness anyway.
“I have the phone.” I hold it up. “I can call him.”
She shakes her head. “That one is being monitored. Give me the message, and I’ll make sure they get it.”
“How?”
“I’ve lived in this prison a long time, darling. I’ve learned a trick or two about moving in the shadows.”