Chapter 22
***
In the evening, we sit outside.
Vaughn put two chairs on the porch and made tea. The sun went down half an hour ago, and the sky above us is cycling through its nightly spectrum: orange, pink, violet, then a deep blue slowly filling with stars.
I sit on the chair with my legs pulled up, balancing the cup on my knee. Gerald the cactus casts a long shadow in the sand. The air is still warm from the day’s heat, but a dry wind brushes over the crests of the hills, smelling of sage and earth.
In a strange way, I enjoy these evenings.
It sounds crazy—I’m sitting in the middle of the desert, hundreds of kilometers from everything I’ve ever known, with the man who dragged me here.
And yet, it feels like an adventure. Like something that belongs only to me.
No server room, no cameras, no father monitoring my every move.
Just me, Vaughn, and the stars.
But adventures have an end. And with every passing day, the question of what kind of end this one will take presses louder in my head.
“Vaughn.”
“Hm?”
“What happens next? I mean... with us. With everything.” I swirl the tea in my hands. “We can't stay here forever. Eventually, the supplies will run out. Eventually, my father will find us. Eventually, this has to end.”
He takes a sip and watches the horizon. In the twilight, his profile looks as if it were carved from stone—the sharp jawline, the straight nose, the silver strands at his temples.
“It will end,” he says. “Soon.”
“What does soon mean?”
“Days. Not weeks.”
“And then?”
He doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he sets his cup on the ground and leans back in his chair.
He interlocks his hands behind his head and stares at the sky.
It looks like relaxation, but I know him well enough by now to recognize the tension.
Something is bothering him. Something he wants to tell me but doesn't know how.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Riley—”
“You’re doing your face.”
“My face?”
“Your I-have-to-tell-you-something-unpleasant face. You’re biting the inside of your cheek and your right eye gets narrower than your left. You do it before you say something I don't want to hear.”
He turns his head and looks at me. A hint of surprise in his eyes. Then something that looks almost like pride.
“You’re amazing.”
“A compliment from my husband, how lovely.”
He has to grin. On one hand, it’s so surreal that we’re married; on the other, we’ve actually been living together like a couple these past few days.
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
I set my cup down too. “Talk.”
He exhales slowly. Then he asks:
“Which of your parents had red hair?”
I blink. The question is so unexpected that my brain takes a moment to process it.
“Neither,” I say. “My father has dark hair. At least he did before it turned gray. And my mother was blonde. Why?”
“Your grandparents?”
“I hardly saw them. My father cut contact with his family when I was small. He said they were toxic people.” I furrow my brow. “But my maternal grandmother definitely didn't have red hair. She was blonde too. What are you trying to say?”
Vaughn lowers his gaze. He studies his hands, folded in his lap.
“Red hair is recessive,” he says quietly. “For a child to have red hair, both parents must carry the gene. Both. Not just one.”
Silence. The wind brushes over the hills. Gerald creaks softly.
“I’m not stupid, Vaughn. I know how genetics work.” My heart starts beating faster without me being able to say exactly why. “My mother was blonde and my father was dark. Recessive genes can skip generations; I learned that in basic biology.”
“They can. But they have to be present on both sides. Richard Blackstone has no carriers of the MC1R gene in his family line. I’ve checked.”
“You’ve checked my father’s genetics.”
“I’ve checked everything, Riley.”
My mouth goes dry. I swallow, but my throat feels like sandpaper.
“What are you getting at?”
Vaughn stands up. He goes into the house and returns minutes later with his laptop. He flips it open, types, scrolls. Then he turns the screen toward me.
I see a scanned document. Yellowed paper, official stamps. Clark County Family Court. My gaze falls on the heading, and the letters burn into my retinas like neon:
Adoption Decree
Below that, two names I don't know.
Petitioners: Richard Allen Blackstone and Emilia Rose Blackstone
Child: Baby Girl Thompson, born March 14th
My birthday. March fourteenth.
Biological Parents: Howard James Thompson and Loraine Marie Thompson
Thompson.
Not Blackstone. Thompson.
I stare at the screen. The letters blur and sharpen and blur again. My heart hammers so loud I can hear the blood rushing in my ears.
“This isn't real,” I say. My voice comes from far away, as if someone else were speaking through my mouth. “This is a forgery. Like the loan agreements. Like everything else.”
“Riley—”
“SHUT UP!”
I bolt from the chair, the cup hitting the ground and shattering on the stone tiles of the porch. Hot liquid splashes over my bare feet. I don't care. I don't care about anything.
“You’re lying,” I say. My whole body is shaking. “You’re a goddamn liar. You brought me here, you told me my father drove your parents to their deaths, you showed me forged documents, and now—now you want to tell me I’m adopted? That my father isn't my father?”
Vaughn stands up. He takes a step toward me. I back away.
“Don't touch me!” I raise my hand. “Don't touch me, Vaughn. Not now, and not ever again!”
He stops. His hands hang at his sides. His face is expressionless, but his eyes tell a different story. There is no triumph. No satisfaction. There is something that looks like pain.
“The adoption decree isn't a forgery,” he says. “It’s from the sealed court records of Clark County. It took me six months to gain access to it.”
“And I’m just supposed to believe you? You? The man who got me drunk and married me to hurt my father?”
“You can check the records yourself. When we get out of here, you can go to the court and view the originals. You can take a DNA test. You can visit Howard and Loraine Thompson and ask them yourself.”
Howard and Loraine Thompson. The names hang in the air like foreign objects in a sentence that makes no sense.
“Who are these people?” I ask. My voice is hoarse.
“They live in Oregon in a small house outside Portland. Howard works as a janitor at a school. Loraine is a nurse. They never had another child.”
The details hit me like punches. A janitor. A nurse. No casino empire, no penthouse, no limousines. Simple people in a small house who gave their baby away twenty-seven years ago.
Or had to give her away.
“Why?” I whisper. “Why would my father—why would Richard Blackstone—adopt a child? He could have had children of his own.”
Vaughn closes the laptop. Slowly, as if shutting a book he’d rather not have opened.
“Emilia couldn't have children,” he says. “A complication from an ectopic pregnancy years before they adopted you. They wanted a child. But Richard Blackstone didn't want to wait for years of vetting by child services.”
“What does that mean?”
“The Thompsons were in debt. Like many people in the area. Howard had a small contracting business that went bankrupt. They owed money to the bank, and the bank sold the debt to a collection agency. The collection agency belonged to a holding company. The holding company belonged to Richard Blackstone.”
The pattern feels familiar. Loan. Trap. Destruction. The same scheme as with the Mercers. The same scheme Vaughn showed me days ago, which I still don't know is the truth.
“He made them an offer,” Vaughn continues.
“Debt forgiveness in exchange for the child. The Thompsons refused. For months. But Blackstone increased the pressure. Foreclosures, eviction notices, threats. In the end, they faced a choice: keep the baby and end up on the street, or give her up and survive.”
I feel sick. A deep, physical nausea rising from my core, twisting my insides.
My father bought me.
He took me from my parents. Not by chance, not by fate, not through a normal adoption. He blackmailed them until they had no other choice.
But is that true? Did they really have no other choice? I can't imagine how desperate you have to be to sell your child. There must always be another way than doing something like that. And who says this isn't all one giant lie Vaughn is telling me? Red hair or not.
My knees give out and I sink onto the porch steps. The stone edge cuts into my thighs, but I barely feel it. My gaze is fixed on the sand, on the shards of the cup gleaming in the starlight like tears in the desert.
“Riley.” Vaughn’s voice sounds gentle.
I raise my hand but can't get a word out. Just the hand that says: Don't.
Silent tears run down my cheeks and drip onto the stone. One after another. Like the drops of an IV, slowly and steadily delivering a substance into my bloodstream that changes everything.
If what Vaughn says is true, then my entire life up until now has been a lie.
My name isn't Riley Blackstone.
My name is Riley Thompson.
And the man I’ve called father my whole life stole me from my real parents.
I don't know how long I sit there. Minutes. Maybe an hour. The stars travel across the sky. The wind grows cooler. The shards on the ground glisten indifferently.
Vaughn sits down beside me eventually. Not directly next to me, but an arm’s length away. He says nothing. He doesn't touch me. He’s just there.
“You knew,” I say finally. My voice is hollow. “Before you approached me in Vegas. You knew I was adopted.”
“Yes.”
“You knew the whole time and you said nothing.”
“Not exactly the best pick-up line,” he says, trying to lighten the mood.
I snort contemptuously.
“Riley, I wanted you to trust me first before I—”
“Trust?” I laugh. It sounds like tearing paper. “You’re talking about trust? You kidnapped me, Vaughn. You married me to—to blackmail Richard Blackstone. You slept with me while you knew my whole life was a lie. And you’re talking about trust?”
He lowers his gaze. For the second time in our history together, Vaughn Mercer has no answer ready.
“Go away,” I say. “Leave me alone.”
He stands up and goes into the house. The door closes softly.
I sit on the porch steps and stare into the desert. I briefly consider running away, but then realize I don't even have the strength for that. Vaughn is probably watching me through the window anyway.
Somewhere in Oregon, there’s a small house. A janitor and a nurse live there, people who gave away a red-haired baby twenty-seven years ago. Who thought about it every day of their lives. Who maybe still light a candle on March fourteenth.
My parents.
My real parents.
I pull my knees to my chest and rest my head on them. The night air turns cold on my skin. I’m shivering, but I don't go inside. Not yet.
Because inside sits the man who just revealed the biggest lie of my life. And I don't know whether to hate him for it or thank him.
Maybe both.
Maybe I first have to find out who Riley Thompson really is before I can decide what she feels.