Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Freedom Mansion
D’Angelo
“Nicole and Craig Webb.” I stare at the photograph of the smiling middle-aged couple. They don’t look like monsters. Only, they are. “The twins finally have the names of the biological parents who fucked up their lives. But at what cost?”
Once, I would have thought that no parent could treat anyone like the twins’ parents treated them. But then, mine had me dragged from my bed in the middle of the night by strangers, cuffed, and thrown into the back of a van to never see them again just because they wanted me to be fixed.
They believed that I was troubled because I was bisexual.
I’m not troubled, delinquent, or wrong. I’m not any of the names that I was called by the teachers in that Discipline School.
I know that now, even though it’s taken years of therapy and hard work to reach this place of self-acceptance.
I still struggle with OCD and flashes of PTSD.
The twins are younger than me. They’re only just starting to get help.
What will having their pain being exposed in this vile article for everyone to see do to them?
Fuck.
I’m clutching my phone too hard, unable to look away from the article on Peninsula Daily News that has ripped apart our lives.
Yet I can’t loosen my grip.
…The kids who fell in love and then fell pregnant while tweaking… Guess which new rising NHL star was born in a crack house…?
The article is sick.
I’m dressed in my pinstriped suit, but it’s early morning, and my hair is mussed. I should fix my hair, but I can’t look away from the phone.
There are purple shadows underneath my eyes.
After returning from the arena, I only snatched a couple of hours of sleep in our bedroom.
It’s more than the twins managed.
Shay grabbed Eden by the shoulder and marched him upstairs to a spare bedroom. He insisted to us on the ride back from the arena that he explain what had happened to Eden by himself.
They needed space. I got it.
They haven’t come out since. I bet that neither of them slept at all.
Dread curls in my guts.
I’ve just found this family. I won’t have it destroyed by anyone.
Especially not by these Webb assholes.
“Can we prosecute the Webbs? They admit everything terrible that they did back then. I hope that the tabloid paid them enough to make up for life in jail.” Robyn’s expression is fierce, even though she is sleepily blinking from the rumpled silver sheets next to me on the four-poster bed.
Her fierceness contrasts to how cute she looks wearing Eden’s KIT-TEA t-shirt.
Pale morning light streams over the bedroom from the arched windows and skylights. It makes the branches of the mural oak tree appear to burn, which spreads across the far wall with painted robins hopping in its branches.
I scan the article again for at least the seventh time. I can’t look away like it’s a car crash.
The words must be branded on my mind.
…No one has a bloody clue what it’s like to give birth to twins by yourself in some abandoned shithole.
” The pretty, blonde Nicole shudders. She starts to cry.
“We were just kids ourselves with problems. You don’t know what addiction is like.
Maybe we were selfish for letting them be born at all.
We could barely look after ourselves, right?
We thought that we were giving them a better life by sending the boys to that nice couple.
How were we to know that the bastards were actually…
? We couldn’t get them back after they’d been…
you know…like that. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel bloody guilty.
I want to see them and say how sorry I am. You know, just tell them: I love you…
The twins’ mom is spinning lies to explain away the neglect and abuse.
Yet what if the twins fall for it because they want to meet their mom and dad? Hear them say sorry and how much they love them?
Wouldn’t I do the same if my parents offered it?
Except, mine never will.
“I don’t know. But you can bet that I already have my highly expensive team of lawyers looking into it.” I throw a velvet cushion out of the way, adding it to the pile on the far side of the bed, to make room to lie next to Robyn.
Her brows are pinched. I can tell how shaken she is as well and how much she is trying to hide it.
I press close to her. She is warm and smells of sweet vanilla from Eden’s t-shirt.
I rest the phone on the pillow between us. Then I stroke the soft skin of Robyn’s cheek. Her breath is warm against my lips.
Our serious gazes meet.
Yet I can’t help glancing back at my phone, which is still displaying the article and a photograph of the couple with their arms around each other.
Nicole is short and wiry. She may have been startlingly pretty when she was younger with the same blond hair and gray eyes as the twins.
I hate that.
Except, she looks prematurely aged, as if she could be their grandmother, rather than their mom.
Craig is tall with dirty blond hair tangled over his face and dull, watery blue eyes. He’s gaunt with thinning hair.
Their clothes are cheap but appear to be new.
I bet that this trash tabloid bought the clothes and chose the non-threatening pose.
Can you tell whether someone is monstrous underneath the smiles?
Nicole and Craig appear to be the type of people who would fuss over grazed knees and take you to soccer practice. Looking at them, you would have guessed that they’d raised Eden and Shay with the love that the twins deserve.
Yet it’s a lie.
I pick up the phone again. But Robyn gently takes the mobile out of my hand and places it too high on the pillows for me to see the screen.
“Hey, stop it,” she says, softly. “You must be able to quote it word for word by now. It’s not helping Shay or Eden to keep looking at this.”
“What will? Finding the journalist who thought it was a good idea to print this shit, then stuff the printed copy down their throat?”
“That would at least make me feel better.” Robyn kisses me, dragging my attention fully onto her.
“Calm down, papa bear. Shay and Eden are safe. They’re just down the corridor.
They survived and escaped that hell. We’ll see them through this.
And what we do about it depends on how the twins want me to spin things.
We can simply not comment and hope the interest dies down by itself.
The important thing is to do less and choose to only do the right things.
If you put out your own version, then the press will feed on it like piranhas.
You’re making it more of a story. But then, Shay may want to hold his own open interview. ”
“He’ll never do that.”
“I know. This sucks. But Shay and Eden are the victims in this. They haven’t done anything wrong. So, they have shitty biological parents and were adopted. It’s not like it’s a scandal about them doing something wrong. The fans will be sympathetic.”
How is Shay meant to focus on his hockey?
He’s just been chewed out for being distracted by Wilder. We must win the next game tomorrow.
“Do you think that all of this is real? What if it’s fake? These Webbs may not even be their parents.” I narrow my eyes. “This could be a tactic to fuck with us like dropping Wilder on us last minute.”
“Maybe. But there are these details in it, which match with what Shay has shared with me. How would the journalist have known them if the whole thing is fake? How can we find out for sure?”
I give a dark smile. “I’ve already sent a text to Garcia. He’s tracking down the journalist and the sources.”
Robyn snuggles closer to me, draping her arm over my hip. She caresses me in circles that soothe her as much as they do me.
“If they’re the twins’ genuine biological parents, do you think that someone has brought them to America?” She asks in a small voice.
“They better not have done for their own fucking sakes.”
The twins’ adoptive parents — the ones who did look after their hurts and took them to ice hockey as well as soccer practice — haven’t even seen the twins play pro hockey live. They have only been able to see that the twins have a home where they are loved over Facetime.
The twins’ true parents are going to see that their sons are safe and loved. It’s an omission that I won’t let pass any longer.
“You look comfortable. Are we okay to join you, darlin’?” Shay’s voice says from the door but it’s shyer and less certain than I would like.
Shay should know that he is always welcome in this bedroom.
It’s his as much as it is mine or Robyn’s.
There is also a raspiness to Shay’s voice, which I know comes from crying for hours.
Robyn and I instantly sit up.
Robyn holds out her arms. “Always. The bed’s cold without my limpet.”
Shay smiles but it’s smaller and more forced than normal. “Come on, Dee. We’re needed for cuddling duties.”
I study Shay.
He is wearing a simple, creased black t-shirt and joggers. He appears as exhausted as I expected.
There is no way he slept last night.
His tousled hair falls over his face. Shadows are deep under his eyes. The bruise on his cheek has darkened to purple. He is walking stiffly, which means that he is still hurting from the brutality of the game yesterday.
Damn Wilder.
Damn the Peninsula Daily News for running this story.
Was it in revenge for prosecuting Melanie, the journalist there who had an affair with Wilder?
I dart Robyn a hurried look.
Did Wilder pull his journalistic connections at the newspaper to run this cruel story into Shay’s background to punish Robyn and me, as much as to win the Conference Finals?
My stomach lurches.
Is this my fault?
I blink away unexpected tears.
Then I hold open my arms, suddenly needing to hold my sub and feel for myself that he is safe.
Shay looks between us, before his shattered expression softens. “Look how popular I am.”
Robyn’s lips quirk up. “Get used to it.”
Shay moves more slowly than his usual hyper Tigger bounce because of the pain in his hip and shoulder, but still climbs eagerly onto the bed, squirming to fit between Robyn and me.