CHAPTER 26 Rowan
CHAPTER 26
Rowan
I stand and face this stranger. “Why has it taken you twenty-three years to show up?” My voice is as quiet as a graveyard at midnight.
But that stillness hides the atomic bomb detonating my insides and leaving them a wasteland. I want to beat my fists against his chest. To scream.
I’m used to not showing weakness to anyone, though, so I call on every single wall I’ve ever erected in my brain and raise them all.
The number of questions I have may be too many to be answered in this lifetime. For starters, besides, Where am I? I have:
What’s your name?
What’s my real name?
Why did you have armed men kidnap me?
Why are they such losers?
Where’s my mother?
Why did you abandon me?
How did you find me?
What are you going to do with me now?
There’s no good place to start, so I go with, “Where have you been all this time? Didn’t you care about your son?” I flap my hands but hold my head high.
My father scrubs a hand over his face and sighs heavily. He looks kind of small standing here. Sure, he’s well-dressed, and he’s got an aura of authority, but something about him makes him seem … human. Dammit .
Part of me wanted my parents to have been killed in an accident, which would explain why they never came to get me. Or that I was taken against their will. That something went wrong with the universal plan, which is why I’ve been alone for my entire life.
My body’s all tensed up in preparation for his answer. I’m waiting for him to say that he didn’t give a shit. That he left me to fend for myself like an orphaned kitten. Heat flushes through me, and I draw in a slow, steady breath.
He grimaces and stares down at his feet. Then he starts shaking his head repeatedly. When he looks up at me, his eyes are glassy. “Rowan, I’ve been looking for you ever since I learned you existed.”
Fuck. I can’t breathe. My chest seizes up.
Get it together.
Peeking over my internal wall like a meerkat, I blink at him. “You’ve been … try-trying to find me?” It seems too good to be true. Nevertheless, my fool heart dares to hope. I try to steady my racing heartbeat, but that’s a lost cause.
“I have. For decades.” He has a grim twist to his mouth, and everything about his manner oozes sincerity. Still, it’s hard for me to believe what he’s saying, for obvious reasons—namely, that it took him this long.
“How?” I demand, a hand on my hip.
He pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed, as he paces in front of me. “Every way that was within my power. Besides the private investigators, I even got the FBI involved. You just … were nowhere to be found.”
I chew on that for a moment. “What changed now? ”
“When you were fingerprinted recently, the person who processed them cross-checked them against a missing person report and found that your first name and birth date were consistent with what we were looking for. We’ve never been certain of the last name you were given. I had an investigator put you under surveillance to see if you were who I hoped you were. He thought you were, because you look like me, but we had to be sure. He wanted to get you alone to talk with you, but you were always with someone. And he said you weren’t cooperative.” He crosses his arms over his chest and taps his fingers on his biceps.
I wave that away and sit down. “If you’re talking about the dude in the tracksuit, he was a dick. He could have just said ‘I have a question about your father.’”
My father shakes his head. “Not in this situation, but I’m not happy with how he handled it, either.”
“Okay, I’ll set that aside for now. My question is, I’ve been fingerprinted before. They didn’t need it for foster care, but there were a few times …” I decide not to tell my father my criminal history. The juvenile stuff got expunged, thanks to a competent public defender. “And they already had my name and birthday.”
He throws his hands up. “I don’t know why the match only pinged now.” He sits down on the couch, an arm’s length away from me. I think that’s the correct place for him. Any closer would feel weird, but it also seems wrong to shove him away after I’ve been wanting to find him for so long.
I rub my forehead. “I don’t even know who you are. Or who my mother is.”
My father reaches out and lightly touches my shoulder. “My name is Remi, and your mother’s name is Bianca. I haven’t seen her since before you were born. This is all I had to go on to find you.” He takes a folded white envelope out of his pocket. “I think you should know the truth.” He hands it to me, and I pull a folded sheet of paper from it. The edges are tattered and worn, and the message is in large, cartoonish writing, similar to mine .
Dear Remi,
For months now, I’ve tried to gather the nerve to tell you that you’re going to be a father. Then, when I finally was brave enough to try, your nosy secretaries wanted to know why I was calling. They said you were a very busy man and didn’t have time for random calls. I could have gone to see you in person, but I knew the moment I walked into your office, they’d figure out why I was there, and part of me wanted to protect you, I guess.
Well, you now have a son. He was born yesterday, April 16. 7 pounds, 12 ounces. 18 inches.
He’s got your blue eyes. His name is Rowan John. I can’t keep him. I have my own life to live.
Don’t worry, I didn’t put your name on any birth certificate.
Bianca
I look up, and before I can begin asking questions, he says, “She was a woman I met at a communications convention in Las Vegas.” He clears his throat. “I only saw her that one weekend. I remember her saying she lived in California, but by the time I got this letter, I couldn’t remember what company she worked for or any other details about her. Except that she had a very pretty face. I was able to get the name of the company from the event organizers, but when I followed up, she had left that job.”
I glance at the envelope. It has no stamp and in the same handwriting says:
Remi St. Thomas
c/o St. Thomas Industrie s
St. Thomas Building
4314 St. Thomas Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90012
I look up at him with dawning realization. St. Thomas. St. Thomas Industries. “You’re …”
“Remi St. Thomas.” He clears his throat and looks at me expectantly, bracing himself for impact.
Holy shit. “St. Thomas as in …”
He nods. “As in the family you’ve likely heard of.”
St. Thomas is usually mentioned in the same sentences as Getty, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie. Industry titans who built America. Generational wealth.
This can’t be happening. I stare at the letter, then at this man who very much looks like me.
“And you’re my father?” I ask again, scratching my jaw, needing to be sure.
“Yes, Rowan.”
I set down the letter and run my hands through my hair, tugging on it. “But that means … I can’t be …”
“The son of a billionaire?” he asks.
I nod.
“You are.”