41. Konnor
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
konnor
I am more of a rush-in-and-find-out kind of man. Blesk is a put-it-in-the-centre-of-a-room, circle-it, consider-whether-it’s-better-off-buried-or-known kind of woman.
So, faced with two challenges at once, she buckles on one. Puts the call to her dad on hold and opens the envelope to tick at least one more thing off the fucked-up bucket list.
She sits on the floor of my bedroom below me, sorting through documents, and I watch over her shoulder from the bed. I let her steer. I know I come on strong.
Bank statements. Photos. News articles from when I was taken. A deed to Knight Estate. A collection of paper-based trophies that arsehole kept.
My eyes drift to her mouth, the way she licks her finger before each page.
My cock twitches. Got a good fucking memory that appendage.
I need to keep my brain-blood right now.
I focus on the pile of paper—there is nothing in that pile that could improve my life now.
I have everything I need right here, licking her finger.
Last night…
Fuck me.
Nope. Eyes back to the paper. Blood back to the brain cells. She turns another page, and I watch her face.
I say, “You know, my biological mother died a few years after I was taken. My biological father thought it’d be best if I got a fresh start.
He didn’t want me going through life with people treating me like I was broken or some shit.
He put me up for adoption instead.” I exhale with a derisive laugh and admit, “At least, that’s what they told me. ”
“You’ve never met him... Never wanted to?”
“Nope.” I pop the p.
“Why? Did the adoption upset you?”
“No.” I don’t think so. “I had very little memory of him anyway, same with my bio-mum, so a clean slate seemed fine. To be honest, from the moment I got free, the only person I wanted to see, the only person I wanted to be with, was you.”
She reaches out and rubs my knee. “Tabula rasa.”
I blink at her before chuckling. “Harry Potter spell?”
She giggles. “Latin. It means ‘scraped tablet’, but it usually gets translated as ‘blank slate’. I guess we both got a tabula rasa, in a way. Though, I think our circumstances are more akin to the ‘scraped tablet’ translation. It wasn’t blank—it was scraped.”
“Maybe that’ll be my first tat.” I laugh.
She glares at me, a hint of smile on her lips. “Don’t you dare mark that beautiful skin.”
I slap my knee theatrically. “Oh, man, but all the other kids will tease me.”
She rolls her eyes and picks up a news article—a feature showing an old photo of a group of teenagers. She taps on a young woman. “Who is this? She has your eyes, Konnor.”
I blink at it for a moment, trying to feel more than I do. Wanting to feel more for her. “I have hers. That’s my bio-mum in high school. I’ve seen that article before. So your dad kept every article about me?”
“They say serial killers take trophies.” She smiles tightly, gazing at the image of my mum. “She’s beautiful, Konnor.”
“I suppose she was.” I nod.
“Do you know these other people in the picture?” Her finger moves across their faces.
“That’s Dad, Ben. Don’t recognise the others. They all went to school together.”
She lifts a blonde brow. “Coincidence?”
“It’s the District, Duch.” I shrug. “Everyone knows everyone. Four degrees of separation, maybe less.”
“Less, I suppose, when they were growing up,” she says, flicking through pages. Her brows tighten and her shoulders drop on a sigh. “It’s all useless. Articles we could have found online. Pictures they put in the paper.” She scrunches her nose. “Did Ben ever tell you why he adopted you?”
I nod. “My bio-mum and Ben were close in high school. When the cops found me, he did everything he could to get me. He knew my story. I think he loved her—my bio-mum. I think he loved her a lot. He wanted to make sure my future would be better than my past.” I pause.
“He’s always been straight with me about it. ”
Something both sad and happy moves across her face. “So, that is why you are the way you are. So honest and open and vulnerable. What makes you say he loved her?”
“Don’t call a man vulnerable, Duch.”
She giggles, her tongue poking out slightly, and I literally forgive her for everything she may ever call me.
I answer her, trying not to look at that pink tongue. “Sometimes Ben gets this expression.” I shrug and frown. “Then he sighs and says how much I look like her. I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. Like I should be the one comforting him sometimes.”
“It’s plain to see he loves you, Konnor.
You’re his son in every way but blood.” She looks at the paper, exhaling a memory.
“My parents always wanted a girl. Mum says she fell in love with me the moment she saw me. And my dad…” Her voice trails to a soft pause.
“I’ll tell him what happened between Erik and me soon.
Tonight, maybe.” Her eyes leave the documents and drift to her phone on the chest of drawers.
She says it again, quieter. “Tonight.” Then clears her throat. “What’s your adoptive mum like?”
“You’ll meet her soon. You can decide for yourself.”
“Come on, Konnor,” she pleads, peering up at me.
I look at her for a moment. “Okay, Duch.” I exhale. “Well... Mum is awesome. She’s a little like Cassidy. A bit eccentric. A little—” I stop, something in the pile catches my eye. “Weird…”
The air seems to thicken.
I’m off the bed before I finish the thought, with a bank statement already in my hand. I look at it. Stare. $5,100,000. One deposit? I check the sender’s account: Lumad LTD.
Why do I recognise that account?
The name at the top of the sheet says Donavon Knight. Blesk’s dad. The date of the deposit: August 22, 1999. I can hear Blesk shifting behind me, but I can’t look at her yet.
My jaw is locked.
My brain won’t stop.
“What is it?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Konnor?”
“The news article,” I say. “Hand it to me.”
She does.
The date: August 22, 1999.
No, no, no.
Please fucking be a joke.
Green jelly crystal…
My happy new life…
My body shakes with rage before I even know for sure. And I’m across the room snatching my phone, dialling, while Blesk is still staring up at me from the floor.
Wrong number.
I pull the phone away from my face and stare at the digits. I find the right contact and wait, pressing the phone so hard against my ear that it hurts. He answers.
“Adolf. It’s Slater. Don’t talk. Just listen. My bedside table—top drawer. There is an invoice in there. I need a photo of it sent to my phone. Right now.”
He pauses, then, “Sir, I’m not sure I—”
“Adolf.” Something in my voice stops him, stops the hesitation. “Please.”
“Right away, Mr Slater.”
I lower the phone. Blesk hasn’t moved, but she looks timid, like glass, somehow, her knees pulled up, the documents fanned around her on the floor. She is watching me as if I might explode, as if I might fall apart.
“Konnor?”
Bourbon.
“Give me one second, Duch.” I need fucking bourbon. I know, know. Blesk’s dad was a drinker. I know, I know, I fucking know! “I’ll explain everything in a second, okay?”
I rush out the bedroom door, my veins screaming for intoxication. To make this stop. To make it numb.
Down the stairs.
Hit the ground floor.
I reach the bar, pour the bourbon, my hands shaking hard enough that I have to use both of them to get the damn liquid in the glass. I don’t bother with ice. I sip it.
Then I down it.
I set the glass on the bar.
I wait.
My phone dings and the photo comes through. I look at it. My brows draw in. No. I scowl at it. No. I stare long enough that the numbers stop being just numbers and become a truth that shatters everything.
Ben.
Renee.
I think about the expression Ben gets sometimes. The sighing. ‘How much I look like her.’ I always assumed that was grief, but what if it was guilt? Guilt for…
No.
I leave the glass where it is and take the stairs. My legs feel distant, like I’m watching someone else climb, my muscles giving slightly under each step.
I push into the room. “Duch.”
She jumps to her feet.
“Lumad LTD.” I get close to her, holding the phone out.
“That’s the account that paid my tuition this year.
That’s the account on the sporting precinct invoice.
Adolf just sent me the photo.” She’s looking at the phone, but I go on.
“It’s the same account, Duch. It’s the exact same fucking account. ”
She blinks up at me, concerned brown eyes still not understanding what is right in front us. “What does that mean, Konnor?”
“The same person who transferred Donavon Knight over $5,000,000 on August 22, 1999—the same day I was taken—also paid my tuition this year.”
“What are you saying?”
“Ben and Renee Slater paid your father to take me.”
A haunting silence follows that sentence as Blesk’s eyes slowly widen. Like it’s all a lie. Now she knows. This house. My happy memories with Cassidy and Flick. My amazing new life. My dad… Renee. No. My only sense of family has been scraped clean.
Tabula fucking Rasa.