Chapter Twenty-Two #3
“But while we were on our honeymoon, we caught her drinking.” His fists balled even then.
“We confronted her, and she confessed that she wasn’t pregnant.
She never was. She only said that because she was afraid to lose us and what we had was too special to end.
But because we were still fucking pissed, she turned it around on us and said we were the jerks who only wanted to marry her for the baby.
We were assholes. We lied about loving her.
We only wanted to use her for her uterus.
On and fucking on she went—blaming it all on us.
“She even went so far as to say it didn’t matter that she lied.
If we wanted to break up with her, we should’ve just done it.
It wasn’t like there was a real shotgun forcing us down the aisle.
We made our own choices.” He scoffed. “Can you believe we actually walked away thinking we were the jerks?”
“Yes.” I didn’t know I spoke until his face changed, flickering with surprise. “Sue... Sue was...” I swallowed hard. “Sue was always very good at making a person feel worthless for her mistakes.”
“Was?”
I realized too late what I said... but I wasn’t going to lie—not anymore. “Was,” I said, voice flat. “She’s dead.”
Alex nodded slow. “How?”
“In the car accident.” I couldn’t believe we were doing this—talking normally like I wasn’t holding the proof and the evidence of my mother’s murderer in my hands.
“She tracked me down to bring me home to see Omma before it was too late.
I hit a deer, crashed the car, and she died.
I came here thinking I could just hide out with my mother, send her off peacefully, and then start over in a new life.
“I didn’t know she was married to the three of you,” I stressed. “I didn’t know Lily existed.”
“Hmm. Well, I guess that’s something. At least you didn’t come here intending to deceive us. But it doesn’t change the fact that you did it anyway.”
Hera, help me, his expression didn’t give a hint of his thoughts away.
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to accept criticism from you, murderer.”
Alex laughed out loud. “Damn, you’re feisty. It’s very sexy.”
I blushed like a dumbass.
“And I wish I could say I’m not a murderer but.
..” His gaze flicked to the thumb drive.
“There’s still so much more to this story.
” He clapped, making me jump. “So, let’s get back to it.
We left off at the point in the story where we found out just how far your sister would go to get what she wants.
Naturally, legally, she was only married to one of us, but Rhodes is our boy.
Micah and I couldn’t abandon him to her swirling vortex of evil manipulations.
Especially because the next time she told us she was pregnant, it was real.
“Looking back, I think she thought we were holding out on her,” he said. “Sue was living her dream life in New York—spending our money like water—but all the big, major, insane purchases she wanted, like a nine-figure condo in Manhattan and a private jet, we said no to.
“I truly believe she thought a baby would give her more leverage,” Alex confessed. “If not in the marriage, then certainly in the divorce.”
I bit hard on my lip, holding back my thoughts on the matter, because they wouldn’t have been words of disagreement.
“With Lily on the way, she got even more pushy, and insistent, and threatening about us needing to give the baby the life she deserved, and if we kept refusing to give her full access to the family finances, she’d leave and get full custody of Lily,” he said.
“After that, we were forced to tell her that we’d been living on the dwindling profits left over from when we owned GloryBoi, because Rhodes gave all of his buyout money away, Micah put his share in an account controlled by his parents, and I never got paid a cent—”
“What?”
“—and Sue hated us from that day on.”
“Whoa, hold on,” I cried, shooting up. “What do you mean you never got paid a cent? You didn’t receive your share of the buyout?”
Alex shook his head, tipping his chin to the ceiling.
“Rhodes told us that he shared this part with you, so you already know those bastards came after us when we refused to sell GloryBoi. They dug around in our pasts. With Micah and Rhodes, there was nothing to find. The same couldn’t be said for me. ”
“What do you mean? What did they find?”
Alex chuckled, shaking his head. “They found out—and you’re really going to get a kick out of this one—that I’m not Alexander Montgomery.”
A high-pitched, buzzing noise sounded in my ear, drowning the alarm bells going wild in my head. “Excuse me?” I sidestepped toward the exit leaving the great hall. “What did you say?”
Alex? tracked my movement like a hunter. “I said I’m not Alexander Montgomery.” He tipped his head. “Or at least, I wasn’t born Alexander Montgomery. My real name is Fritz Calloway.”
“Fritz... Calloway?” Surprise stopped my inching in its tracks. “That’s a stupid fucking name.”
Fritz barked a startled laugh. “No arguments here. My birth mother was a drug addict who walked right out the damn hospital two days after giving birth to me... without me. I ended up in the system, of course. Foster care until I was eight, then a group home from eight to twelve.”
I held his gaze. “And then...”
A mirthless smile curled into his cheeks. “And then when I was ten years old, one of the older kids in the home started... doing stuff to me.”
My muscles locked up.
“I was small and weak.” Alex’s low, deep voice filled the room.
“He was bigger and stronger. He didn’t think there was anything I could do to stop him.
He didn’t think anyone would believe me if I told.
He found out he was wrong on both counts when I stabbed him with a penknife I stole from a kid at school.
“When the caregivers came running in and found him bleeding on the floor with his pants down, they believed me when I told them why.”
I gave in, releasing the long, slow breath bursting to get out of my lungs. The buzzing quieted, leaving way for a blanketing silence.
“He died in the hospital a week later,” Alexander continued.
“The director of the home didn’t want anyone to know that everyone in charge missed that he was abusing me to the point I had to kill him, so they covered it up.
They said he was jumped on the way home from school by an unknown assailant that was never caught, and not even a little blemish went into my file.
“That’s why the Montgomerys had no idea when they adopted me.” Alex tried again to take a step closer to me.
I let him.
“They changed my name,” he went on. “Like I was a fucking puppy, not a person, but I didn’t complain.
I let them drive me off to my new life of mansions, butlers, and playrooms with a whole-ass slide and jungle gym in it.
The only thing they wanted in exchange is that I be the perfect little robot boy they’d never been able to have.
“I got great grades, I joined all the clubs, I got into the prestigious Titan Prep, and then into Columbia.” Step.
“They were so proud... until the conglomerate sent their worst after us, and their PIs dug up the history of Fritz Calloway. They ended up interviewing one of my old caregivers who told the PI the whole story of how I’d gotten away with murder, and with that weapon in their arsenal, the conglomerate forced me to sign on the bottom line and give them my share of the business for free. ”
The question left my lips unbidden. “Did they tell your parents too?”
“No, I told my parents.” Step. “After the buyout was announced to the media, dearest Mommy and Daddy came knocking with their hands out.” He looked away—anger finally bleeding through his serene mask. “I guess it’s true what they say: a wealthy person never has enough money.
“Even though my folks never had to work a day in their lives, a millionaire is not a billionaire, and they wanted to be billionaires. They hounded me for a cut of the money,” he forced through gritted teeth. “They got nasty, Sarang. Fast.”
I jerked to hear my name leave his lips.
“They started going on about how I was an ungrateful brat who they plucked out of the gutter. That the least I could do was repay their investment in me.”
Bile burned my throat. “That’s disgusting.”
“Yes, it is.” Step. “You want a master class in how not to treat your son or daughter, Connie and Richard Montgomery could teach it to you.”
“You had to tell them you didn’t have any money to get them off your back.”
“And then I had to tell them why.” Alex stepped again—only three feet away and drifting closer. “They wouldn’t accept that only Micah and Rhodes got paid, and not me, so I had to tell them I was blackmailed with a murder I committed when I was eleven years old.
“They haven’t spoken to me since.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it.
He shrugged. “It’s no matter. Honestly, the three of us were never that close. Growing up, I only ever saw them as absent roommates who paid the housekeepers and chefs. Them walking out of my life was no great loss. No,” Alex said. “The only family I’ve ever really had is this one.”
My eyes drifted down to the flash drive. “And Omma threatened that when she hired her own investigators to look into you, and they spoke to your same former caregiver.”
“Yep,” he hissed. “Real fucking chatty, she is.”
“This,” I whispered, “is what you couldn’t let get out.”
“That has been the fuse lighting the slow destruction of my life.” His eyes flashed as he moved ever closer.
“I never got a cent of that fucking money, so I became the useless fifth wheel dragged behind the car.
I got all jaded and paranoid after the conglomerate dug up my deepest secret and my parents ditched me.
I was scared to go after anything because it felt like at any moment, someone would pop up and blackmail me into giving it all away.