Chapter Thirty-Six
Amelie
After Kalen’s swim training, we all went our separate ways.
Dad was taking Chelsea sightseeing, Bex and Adrianne made plans, and Aadi and Smalls wanted to go and check out a local pub.
I had to go and spend a few hours with Slate in the auditorium where the performances would be held.
He wanted to do a full run through with the lights, and he explained how there will be poles set up on the stage with lights on them, along with some smoke across the ground.
Mara, the girl who choreographed my piece for one of her end of year assignments, helped walk me through it.
Everything is very basic but still quite sexy.
She even had my outfit there to show me.
I’m up super early this morning, ready for my breakfast with Debbie.
It’s been moved to the cottage Camilla’s staying in.
Camilla called me last night and declared that she still doesn’t one hundred percent trust Debbie and so having it there and telling her last minute weeds out the chances of her trying something. Apparently.
There’s a knock at the door and Jasper pops his head in. “Are you ready to head out?”
“Yes, let’s get this done. I’m ready to be done with this whole place.” We both walk out towards his car.
“I’m thinking about asking Elsie to move in with me after graduation.”
I whip my head back to look at him as he opens the door for me. “Do you think it’s too soon?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I was asking you. I love her, so why wait?”
“Has she told you about her past? Because that is a lot to take on.”
He nods, and I slip into the car. He races around and jumps into the driver’s side.
“She has. Her nightmares are so bad when I’m not there. She sneaks me into her room some nights when I have to be on duty in the morning and she actually sleeps. I hate seeing her so fragile.”
“If you think she’s ready, ask her. What’s the worst she could say?”
“You’re right. Let’s get you to your breakfast with the mother you thought was dead and the estranged grandmother. You should write a book about this one day. No one would believe it’s actually your life.”
I laugh. He’s right. I wouldn’t have believed it a year ago.
Living happily in the UK. Having two killers as my best friends.
My mum not being my mum, and my actual mum being someone else thought dead but secretly alive.
Having four boyfriends but one of them isn’t Smalls.
Owning my own puppy who I miss so damn much…
I can’t wait to live with him, to see his cute little face every day.
Sawyer sends me daily pictures, I especially love Momo and Sawyer with no shirt on selfies.
Ah crap, I got distracted.
I swear Kalen’s been rubbing off on me.
After a while, we pull up to a small cottage that Camilla has rented out for her, Bex and Debbie.
Jasper pulls up and we exit the car. Camilla is at the door before we even get there, with a smile on her face.
“Welcome, welcome. Come in. Coffee is ready,” she states. She walks inside and we follow behind her as she leads us into the kitchen where Debbie is seated at the table drinking her coffee.
“I’m going to stand just outside the doorway. Yell if you need me,” Jasper advises. I nod and he walks back through the way we just came.
“I have to tell you something before you talk to Debbie,” Camilla announces. “You won’t be happy, but I had no choice.”
“What?” I ask, alert. It sounds like she has killed someone.
“Your brother. He walked out this morning and overheard me talking to Debbie.”
“Walked out? Why was he even here…oh, never mind.” It dawns on me why he was here if Bex is staying here too. “What did you do to him?” I ask, my brow raised, ready to call Jasper back in here.
“Relax girl,” Bex chirps, entering the room in her underwear and a small cropped T-shirt that barely covers her tits. “I managed to persuade him with my body, if you know what I mean.” She wiggles her eyebrows and I snort.
“That’s gross but doesn’t sound bad.”
“Oh and I may have roofied his drink…he’s currently asleep in my room.”
I step towards her and Camilla tries to grab my arm but I shake her off. “Did you do that before or after you persuaded him with your body?”
Her eyes go wide with realisation. “Jeez, after. I’m no skeezy perve who needs to date rape someone. Your girl Adrianne was talking about getting revenge on your boyfriend and was going to roofie him, so I stole the pills from her bag. You’re welcome.”
She turns and storms from the room. I almost feel bad, but I don’t.
I know she’s my newly acquired sister by blood but Aadi is my brother.
We have to learn how to be sisters and no doubt I’ll have her back, but if it comes down to choosing between them, I’ll pick Aadi every time.
We have history, loyalty and memories on our side.
“So we will need to deal with him when he wakes up. He wants to tell your dad everything, and I know drugging him wasn’t the wisest idea. I just wanted to bop him over the head and hope he passed out until you got here.”
“You wanted to bop him? Jesus, this is getting worse. I’ll just talk to him when he wakes up and tell him that we’ll tell Dad together. I was just trying to wait until after graduation before shit got weird.”
Debbie has remained quiet. Camilla sets the coffee and a plate of pastries on the table. “I’ll let you two talk. There’s a handsome young man in the living room that I want to go and stare at for a while.”
I take a seat across from Debbie. She takes a sip from her coffee and looks up at me. I study her face for a second and can see the similarities between us. More than I can see between Bex and myself.
“Thank you for meeting with me. I never thought I’d be doing this.”
“So why are you?”
“It’s probably easier to take you back to the start.”
I nod and she continues. “When I was seventeen, Harold pulled me into a meeting. He offered me a lot of things to pursue a relationship with Monty. He wanted a Knox and Kessler blood child. I told him that I wasn’t in love with Monty, and he knew that I was in love with your father.
He was new here in the UK and we bonded right away.
After a few months we started to drift apart and when he told me he couldn’t be with me, I was heartbroken.
He did tell me that he was mixed up in something which meant that he couldn’t be with someone from my family.
Apparently it would complicate things too much, and he was here only for them.
I knew of The Order thanks to my father and my uncle, so your great uncle Dirk. ”
I didn’t even put the dots together that he was my great uncle.
“They were involved. I saw the tattoos and did my research, but being a girl I wasn’t allowed to be included.
Harold became persistent after a few years had passed.
He turned to blackmail eventually because he really wanted that child.
I didn’t think that he was serious until my father was killed.
Harold never came out and said that he did it of course, but I know that he did. ”
I nod. That’s exactly the sort of thing Harold would do to try and get his own way.
“By this stage, Monty had told his father that he was in love with Maggie, which also wasn’t allowed, but Harold turned a blind eye.
He was getting what he finally wanted, so he left me alone.
I wasn’t happy though. I became obsessed with trying to prove that Harold had killed my father.
I met a man within The Order – I wouldn’t say that I was in love with him because that had always been your father. ”
It saddens me that she loved my dad like that, and he walked away without trying to fight for what they had.
“By then he had met Laura and gone back to Australia. She was pregnant and they were starting a family, so I threw myself into this new relationship, using it to weed out any information I could on the organisation. Harold caught wind that I was snooping, and when the guy I was seeing disappeared, I found out I was pregnant and decided to lay low. He found me when Bex was a few months old, told me he knew what I was doing, and that he would kill her if I didn’t stop putting my nose where it didn’t belong.
I stopped digging and moved immediately.
I wanted to start a new life and when she was almost eleven months old, he took her, Amelie. ”
My eyes widen in shock. Who would do that? Why?
“He still wanted me and Monty together, to double his chances of an heir. Maggie didn’t want kids so young.
He told me that he would sell Bex, so I did what any mother would do.
I told Harold I would do it, I would have a child with Monty.
I did some things I’m not proud of after that.
I killed someone within The Order and I managed to get Bex back.
I got straight on a plane with a fake identity and went to find your father.
I knew that if anyone could keep my daughter safe, it would be him. But Camilla intercepted me.”
“Why did you go back and see my father?”
“Closure. I planned to vanish underground. I found a team of mercenaries that I could work with. I had to wait around for the adoption to be finalised first, which is when I found out I was pregnant with you. Camilla wanted me to adopt you with Bex, so you could grow up with your sibling, but I felt that wasn’t fair on your father.
He’s a good man and deserved to know he would have a child out in the world somewhere.
He wanted you of course, and promised he would tell no one that I was your mother, somehow persuading Laura to get on board. Now you know why.”
“It still doesn’t explain why you didn’t just vanish after my birth.”