Chapter 27 #2
“I didn’t—” I cut myself off, shaking my head. She won’t care that they found out on their own because of the DNA tests. “You’re right. It would’ve been better if they’d never found out. But they did, and we can’t hide it anymore.”
She jerks like I’ve punched her. “The hell we can’t. You—you need to leave.”
“Does your husband know?” Rhys asks.
“Don’t answer that,” Laney says to Mrs. Sullivan.
“I won’t tell him,” I say. “It’s not my place. But I am telling your sons. They deserve to know the truth. They need to know the truth. For their own protection.”
“You will not—” Mrs. Sullivan starts, but she freezes at the sound of heavy footsteps approaching.
“Hey, found your phone,” Lucky says as Rhys tries to shield me again.
I make eye contact with my half brother.
The one who’s trusted me the most from the beginning.
His easygoing smile freezes on his lips, even as it fades from his eyes as he studies the group of us.
He stops before he fully reaches the little circle we’ve made, like he doesn’t want to come inside our group where it’s tense. “What’s going on?”
His mother points at me while she huddles close to Laney. “She’s not who she says she is. You can’t believe anything—anything—she’s told you.”
Lucky looks at me again, and the bottom of my stomach drops out.
He’s kept this secret—that he’s known his dad isn’t his biological dad—for years.
He’s also shielded his parents from the truth at his brother’s request for years.
And now it’s coming out.
Has to be something of a relief.
But also scary as hell.
“Let’s all take a deep breath—” Rhys starts, but Laney shakes her head at him.
“You’re not deep breath-ing your way out of this. You knew, didn’t you?”
“He’s not wrong,” Lucky says, more cautious than I’ve heard him at any point the past two weeks. “Deep breaths never hurt anyone. Let’s back up, and—”
“Found your phone,” Jack says as he and Decker both approach too.
My gaze flies to Rhys’s.
“We found her phone,” he says, still looking back at me.
“No, I found her phone.” Lucky lifts a black phone with a white clock that’s similar to mine, but not the same.
Jack holds up something similar. “You found someone else’s. This one’s—wait. Something’s going on here. What’s this? What’s happening?”
“You need to leave,” Mrs. Sullivan hisses at me again.
I hold up a hand. “I’m not him,” I say quietly. “I am nothing like him. I don’t want to—”
“I don’t want you to say another word,” she interrupts.
“Mom? What’s going on?” Decker’s the first of the three to slip to her side and wrap an arm around her.
“She’s lying,” Mrs. Sullivan says. “Whatever she’s told you, she’s lying. You can’t trust her.”
My eyes are getting hot, and my nose feels swollen. I’ve never wanted to hug another woman as badly as I also want to yell at her in my life.
She’s hurting.
We’re all hurting.
I don’t know the circumstances around whatever relationship she had with my father, but she clearly knows who he is and what he’s capable of.
But her kids are grown adults.
They deserve to know the truth.
They want to know the truth, or they wouldn’t have invited me here.
And I meant it when I said they need to know the truth.
They need to know it so that when my father finds out, he can’t blindside and destroy them.
“Hear her out,” Rhys says.
Much as it’s comforting to know he’s on my side, I don’t think hearing me out is happening tonight.
No one here wants to hear me out.
I’m the enemy.
I’m the enemy that I’ve tried desperately not to be.
I swallow again as three identical sets of eyeballs aim in my direction.
“You’ve been lying?” Decker says.
“Only about my name and a few small inconsequential details.” I can’t make my voice any louder than a whisper. “I’m not Margie Johnson—”
“You’re not Margie?” Jack’s brow furrows.
“No. That’s not my real name. But I honestly am your half sister.”
“Make her leave,” Mrs. Sullivan says.
Laney sighs. “She can leave, but it won’t fix what’s broken.”
“They’ll hurt my boys.” Mrs. Sullivan’s voice cracks again.
“No one will hurt—” I start, but Jack interrupts me again.
“Who are you?”
“I’d like to know that too,” Lucky says.
The confusion and hurt in his face—dammit.
This isn’t how I wanted to tell them.
But if there’s one thing that life’s taught me, it’s that you’re never really in control.
You just think you are.
“My name is Margot,” I say, looking at each of my half brothers in turn. I pull my glasses off, grateful when Rhys easily slips them from me and puts them in his pocket. He’s here. Quiet, but I can feel his support. And that means he’s risking a friend.
For me.
Do I deserve that?
Do I?
“I didn’t tell you my real name because—because it’s not—because we’re related to—” I huff out a frustrated breath.
Why won’t the right words come?
Because there are no right words.
“Because she was protecting you,” Rhys says for me.
I cringe.
If I were truly protecting them, I wouldn’t be here.
I would’ve sent a team of attorneys to handle this on their behalf in a way that would make damn sure my father could never hurt them.
So yes.
Yes, I could’ve done this better.
But I wanted revenge.
And I wanted to get to know them.
Two birds, one stone.
Decker glares at Rhys. “Protecting us from fucking what?”
Those words—those words, I have. “Threats and intimidation and everything my father would throw at you to keep you silent.”
Lucky rears back. “You know him? Our—our biological—you know him?”
“He raised me. He’s not a nice person. And he wouldn’t like knowing that you exist.”
Mrs. Sullivan is leaning so heavily on Decker that if he moves, she’ll fall over. “Make her leave,” she whispers. “Please make her leave.”
Crying is weakness.
That’s what my father always told me.
Fuck my father.
Crying is real. It’s human. And too many of us are in pain for me to not want to cry right along with this woman who’s been doing her best for her sons for decades.
Has she made mistakes?
Who hasn’t?
Not my place to judge, and there are more important things to hash out than how we all got here.
“He will hurt them over my dead body.” My voice cracks while a tear slips down my cheek. “There is nothing—nothing—that I won’t do to make sure he never has the chance to hurt any of you.”
“Who is he?” Decker demands.
“Tobias Merriweather-Brown,” Laney answers for me. “CEO of the Aurora Gardens empire.”
Mrs. Sullivan flinches like she’s been punched. Lucky joins Decker in flanking her. “It’s okay, Mom. We’ve got you,” he murmurs.
“Some big corporate dude?” Jack says.
“Second-generation billionaire hotel king,” Laney says. She nods toward me. “With Margot being next in line.”
Jack sways like he’d like to sit down.
Lucky and Decker huddle tighter around their mom, and my heart squeezes again.
I don’t think they care how or why she slept with someone who wasn’t their dad.
They’re with her to the end too.
And that’s family.
That’s the kind of family I want.
The family that forgives when you fuck up. The family that stands by you in the storms. The family that embraces you for your humanity instead of your perfection and productivity.
I want it so badly while realizing it’s slipping out of reach that I can’t suck in an even breath while I swipe at my cheeks.
Rhys tightens his grip on me. “It’s okay,” he murmurs.
Trying to be that family for me while Decker turns the darkest, most outraged glare I’ve ever seen on the man who was his good friend five minutes ago.
I’m breaking them apart.
I’m causing collateral damage.
I’m doing all of the things I never wanted to do.
“So you lied because, what? You thought we’d want money?” Decker says.
Rhys growls softly.
“No, because—” I start.
“Because you’re spying on the retreat center so you can build your own?” Jack says.
“No.”
“Because it’s fun to dick around with nobodies?” Lucky says.
That one hurts. “You aren’t a nobody. You’re—you’re more somebodies than my parents will ever be.”
“Hey, guys, I found Margie’s phone,” Mr. Sullivan says. “Whoa. This feels heavy. Everything okay?”
Fuuuuuuuck.
My eyes burn more, and the tears come faster.
He’s going to hurt.
He’s going to hurt hard when he deserves nothing but happiness for the man he’s been.
“Good fucking thing you’re already at your car,” Decker mutters.
Mr. Sullivan’s brow furrows as he looks at his wife. “Sweetie? What’s wrong? Did someone—did someone die?”
The triplets share one of their classic silent communication looks.
“We need to go home and have a talk,” Decker finally says.
“Probably need to return a few phones first,” Rhys mutters.
Decker flips him off, then looks at me. “And you—you need to fucking go home too. And I don’t mean to my cabin. You can get the fuck out of there, or we’ll have the sheriff remove you.”
“I don’t—I’m not—I won’t—” I can’t find the right words.
I’ve been rehearsing what I’ll say in my head all week, and now, under the glare of three men who’ve come to represent family to me, none of it is adequate.
I can’t say I’m sorry.
It’s not enough. It will never be enough.
Because I’m sorry for so much more than lying to them.
I’m sorry we share genes because of a terrible human being.
I’m sorry that they found out because they jokingly took a DNA test to make sure they were related to each other, which is so classically funny and perfectly them.
I’m sorry that their family—their real family, the family that’s been there for them from birth through childhood and young adulthood and through their lives until now—will hurt because of the lies.
Possibly for years to come.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jack says to all of them. “Laney—take the phones?”
“Of course,” she murmurs.
He ignores me while he hands over the phone he found to Laney. “Let’s go. Mom. Dad. I’ll drive.”
Mr. Sullivan looks at me.
Really looks at me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
It’s so fucking inadequate.
I’m so fucking inadequate.
Arrogant enough to think I could do this without hurting anyone.