Chapter Nineteen Jealousy And Lies
Romeo
“Well, I am damned proud of you, Logan,” Deacon stated as he chuckled. “You stepped up and showed me, didn’t you? But I can’t blame either one of you,” he nearly chortled the words. “We three were best friends for almost four years. We partied together. Studied together. Survived many cramming sessions for finals and classes together. I mean I helped you to rehearse your marriage proposal, Logan. I was gonna be your best man. All while I virtually spied on you and finally broke you two apart. Then…” He sat up and swiped the blood from his lip to continue, “I foiled your little undercover gig at that strip club a few months back. I have to admit it Liv, you rocked it in those sexy outfits. And Logan as a bouncer? Priceless! I watched you on those cameras. Man, were you fighting the hots for each other while you were undercover in that club.” He tisked. “But Liv just couldn’t forgive you for dumping her all those years ago, Logan. You were hot together though. I admit it. But in the end… I fooled you all over again! The best the CIA has in Liv and the best Tech Marine of all time in Logan!” He actually laughed hard until tears leaked from his eyes. Then he suddenly stopped and stared at them. His amusement instantly gone, as he spoke in a hard, quiet tone, “And no matter how much time goes by, you can’t reverse any of it. You will never get those years apart back. I won, you lost.”
I raised my brows at his diatribe. Ok, I could see it now. The answer to my previous questions. He was a sociopath, exactly as the Walkers had described. His feelings weren’t based on normal things. He also harbored a lot of resentment for them. He exuded bitterness, despite the mocking devil-may-care act he used to cover it.
“So you were jealous?” Julianna asked.
Blinking in confusion, Deacon peered up at her from his place on the floor.
Everyone in the room looked over at her now.
“You heard me.” She nodded her head at Deacon. “Call me an amateur shrink, if you will.” She shrugged. “It’s a hobby that comes in handy for some cases I take on. But I see it now. At first, I just couldn’t figure you out. You seem so unbothered by all of this. All the crimes you committed. All while you think it’s funny. Then I saw it. It is that little green monster that grew to be a giant hideous green freak named Jealousy . You resented the fact that they all grew up together while you were mostly alone. They had a childhood together. Good times I’ll bet. All while you had no real family.” I looked over at my twin. “So O got you a sister. But still, that wasn’t good enough for you. No. You wanted what you were robbed of. An inheritance of belonging somewhere with family, love, acceptance and a sense of belonging. None of which you ever experienced. You hate them because you did not have what they took for granted.”
Damn, my woman was smart. I hid my smirk and my father failed to hide his, as he snort-laughed. He’d already thought Julianna was clever and quick.
Deacon scoffed as he slowly stood from the floor while rattling his chains. “You don’t know what you're talking about, Ms. Regatta.”
“Don’t I?” she went on, “You wanted to destroy them, their home, their lives. Even their relationships. Just like your mother wanted to do in her own warped world. You inherited her disposition and her sickness apparently. Being overlooked, kicked to the curb. Losing family and your place in life. It must have been torturous at times and very lonely as well. So you willingly followed your mother’s instructions. You hated the Walkers as much as she did.”
His eyes seemed to change as he stared at her. They turned to a steely color as his entire expression turned to stone. “Yes! I hate them,” he blurted as his careless demeanour completely fell away. “All of them think they’re better at everything. Then all of the Louisiana Walkers just crumbled after their father died. They walked away from their home, from their own mother. They had all that history and family. But they just threw it away.”
“Because of your mother!” Liv exclaimed. “She murdered our dad!”
“Yeah, that was her best work, I think,” he said as he actually glorified her horrendous crimes. “She was handy with a knife. And no one ever suspected her for his murder. Why? Because the official record had her dead already in that house fire. You gotta admit, she was a mastermind.”
“I don’t understand,” Valencia finally spoke up. “Are you saying that my moth—that O was never raped?”
We all stared at her.
“What?” Jarret asked her as he looked entirely confused.
“When she was a teen, your brother raped her. Liv’s father, Jacob.” Valencia got tears in her eyes and went on to explain, “Then he denied it and got with Bea. She had to keep quiet about what he did to her because he threatened her life. He had gotten her pregnant and when she told him about it, he beat her so badly one night that she lost the baby. She told him that was it, she was gonna warn her sister Bea about him. Then he set her bed on fire while she had been sleeping, so he could get rid of her and that was where she got her scars. You know the ones on her face. She told me that he was an evil man and he got away with it all. Her sister Bea never believed her. No one did. No one supported her. So she finally moved away. But she never forgot and she did go back to get her revenge.”
The room went absolutely silent.
“All of that is lies.”
We turned our heads to the doorway, where the voice had come from.
Talon stood there and he glared at Deacon. “And he knows it. If anyone knows what O really did and what she was like…He does. As a child, she had been known to kill animals and she knocked a young boy out of a tree, killing him at ten years old. Just because she did not like him. She then burned her childhood house down at twelve while her little sister and her parents were inside asleep. She murdered Deacon’s father, burned him alive too as he slept and all the man had ever done wrong was that he wasn’t his brother Jacob. Olivia Claire only cared about herself. Her feelings were above everyone else's. What she wanted was the only thing that mattered and the lives of her family members didn’t matter at all. Years later, she murdered my father with a knife to his heart and took him from us. Because Jacob turned her down when she asked him to run away with her. There was no rape, no miscarried child, no burning bed, except the one she used to kill an innocent man.” He swung his glare over to V. “Nothing she told you was the truth or reality.”
“Except for the part about revenge,” Liv said. “She attacked, killed, framed, kidnapped anyone she hated. And she admitted most of this on tape. We have the proof. You heard what Rip told her in that video. She never denied any of it.”
“I was there all those years ago,” Jarret told Valencia. “At least during the time before Bea married my brother Jacob. He never went near her. Olivia Claire followed him around and tried everything to get him to be her boyfriend. He never even looked at her, he always loved Bea. And Bronson was a good man. He unfortunately loved a woman who thought of him as a means to an end and when marrying him did not get her what she wanted…she got rid of him. None of what she told you makes any sense.”
Liv nodded. “Her marriage to Bronson is on record. His death and her fake death are a fact. She got those scars as she underestimated the gas leak timing she had set up to kill Bronson and was caught up in that blast. So that was how she got scarred.”
“Killing was in her nature,” Glory said. “From the time she was a child. No one caused it by doing her wrong.”
Valencia stared at her then at Liv. Suddenly, she seemed to finally understand and the shock was visible on her face. “So, she lied about all of it?” Then she looked up at a silent Deacon to ask, “Is all of that true?”
He refused to look at her and gave her no answer.
“Deacon?” she called to him. “Tell me the truth!”
Still ignoring her, he glanced over at my father and quietly asked, “Are you done with me? I would like to go back to my cell.”
“NO!” Valencia shouted. “You don’t get to just leave, Deacon. You knew she lied to me. All those stories of me as a baby. How she adored me as her little princess. She even cried when telling me of how much she loved my father and how he died in an accident! When all along, my real family was out there searching for me?”
Deacon finally turned to look at her and he explained, “I always believed you were my sister. She was gone for a time in my life. Then when she came back, she had you with her.”
“But the lies about the Walkers?” she asked desperately.
“They deserved it,” he snapped.
“Her reasons for why we always had to hide underground?” Valencia continued her questioning. “That the Walkers were killers. They were the evil ones. Persecuting her. Always coming after us to do us harm?”
Deacon said not another word.
“My whole life was a lie?” she screamed at him.
My father motioned for Tito and Rocky to take Deacon out.
They headed to the other door at the back of the study.
Valencia kept crying, actually you could call it weeping.
Julianna went over to console her.
I clenched my hands. I wasn’t sure if Julianna would be safe around this woman. We didn’t know anything about her real disposition. She had kidnapped Jarret and had him beaten. I fought the urge to rush over and yank her away from someone that could be as insane as that O woman had been.
Julianna sat on the arm of the chair and took Valencia’s hand.
Her sister looked up at her and asked, “Y-you don’t hate me?”
Julianna shook her head. “Why would I?” She bit at her lip and glanced over at Jarret. “I’m sorry. But we have to realize she was lied to. O twisted her ideals. I think everyone deserves a second chance.”
“And that is what makes you the best defense attorney in the entire South,” my father said as he smiled.
Looking stunned, Valencia lowered her head. “But I don’t deserve a second chance.”
“You’re damned right you don’t!” a voice cut in.
We all looked up.
A young woman stood there, as two men of the Rebel Saints held her upright.
Talon stared at her then looked at one of the men. “Is this the woman you found in the crypt, Bones?”
Bones nodded. “She claims that V put her there to die.”
“I did not,” Valencia defended as she looked over at the young woman. “I knew they would find you there.”
“I almost suffocated!” the girl snapped breathlessly as her knees buckled.
Bones and the other man with him hefted her up, so she wouldn’t collapse.
Dante jumped from the chair near where she stood. “Set her down here.” He motioned to the chair.
The two Rebel Saints moved her over and sat her down.
Lowering her head into her hands, she cried, “There were dead people in that crypt. It was pitch dark after they shut the door. I thought I would die there!” She wept.
Dante looked a bit pale as he sat on the chair arm and timidly reached out to pat her back.
I watched him. Well, damn. Shaking my head, I looked over at Valencia. “Who is she and why did you lock her up in Neversmile’s crypt?”
Valencia shook her head. “My moth…” She sighed heavily. “O, had her as a secretary. She had lots of help like this. Servants. People who had no place else to go.”
“I had someplace! Then my family was killed and she took me in,” the girl said as she raised her head. “I don’t know why you wanted to get rid of me so badly.”
Valencia looked at her with sadness in her eyes. “Della, I didn’t want to tell you the truth, but I found out from Maddox…” She swallowed heavily then went on, “That your family was murdered.”
Della stared at her in shock as her face went white. “No! That can’t be true.”
Valencia had tears rolling down her cheeks too, as she admitted, “Believe me, I wish it wasn’t true. I asked Maddox if maybe it was an accident? But he said he did not know what happened to them. And after what I heard here today? I think she killed them.”
“W-what?” Della stammered as she looked confused.
“With all the things she’s done, I can’t deal with you right now.” It was Valencia’s turn to cover her face in her hands.
Della glared at her as she stood from the chair. “You are two things, V. A bitch and a liar!” She stumbled over to her and jumped at Valencia. Grabbing her ziptied wrists, she dragged her to the floor and started punching her.
Julianna looked astonished as she leapt onto Della and tugged her off of Valencia.
“Let me go!” Della shouted.
I didn’t really know what to do about a girl fight, but I felt concerned for Julianna.
Dante came over and grabbed Della up. Wrapping his arms around her, he tried to subdue her.
At the same time, I helped Julianna up.
“You women will stop this right now!” my father yelled.
“Wow,” was all I could say.