Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Onyx: Welcome home, Hennessy.
To say I thought it’d end up this way would be an understatement.
I never imagined it’d be like this. If Hennessy proved anything to me, it was that she really did have no fucking sense, but at least more lives were spared.
My father coming to my defense wasn’t something I ever thought could or would happen either.
It was a whirlwind of what the fucks and emotions I didn’t know were possible to experience, especially when it came from my own flesh and blood. I didn’t know where my father and I would go from here, other than it had to be better than where we’d been for the past twenty years.
Once we were back inside the estate, Caspian was seen by the doctor in the banquet hall.
It was the farthest room from Deja’s, and the last thing we needed to happen was for her to find out the truth.
She was the reason I was following orders in the first place.
I never wanted her to find out who her father truly was.
She knew about their affair or at least she assumed, despite my father’s attempts, rumors and myths were carried out for life.
She already had a fucked-up life with barely remembering our mother and having an arranged marriage.
Those were enough crosses for her to bear.
The rest could be kept a secret. I trusted Caspian to know that too.
It wasn’t like they could stand being in the room together in the first place, and I was grateful for that fact.
They hated each other. It had been that way since we were kids.
As soon as I could, I helped him sit up, apologizing, “I’m sorry they punished you because of me.”
“Not everything is about you.” He half smiled, waiting for Jones to drive him home.
“In this case, it is.”
Hennessy appeared, sitting beside him on the couch.
“Looks like you’re going to have some wicked scars there, Caspian.
Were you jealous of Onyx’s scars? You had to go get your own?
” She smirked. “Don’t worry, I have some medicine I can make to help you heal faster.
Now, can I ask why they whipped you too? ”
With confidence in his expression, he remarked, “Don’t worry, princess, you fucking owe me, and trust me, I’ll collect when the time is right.”
Her eyebrows pinched together. “You saw me tonight too?”
“Apparently, so did the council.” He winked at her. “You’re welcome for whatever time I did buy you.”
Her face softened as she carefully leaned forward, kissing him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“Come on, sir,” James chimed in, grabbing hold of him.
Hennessy locked eyes with Alfred. “You knew this whole time, didn’t you?”
He winked at her too before helping Caspian leave with him. When they were out of sight, my father and her uncle appeared in the banquet hall. We hadn’t had a second alone since everything came to light, and I expected there was only more to come.
My father and her uncle didn’t walk in here to say good night and tuck us in.
She didn’t waver, not that I expected her to. Looking up at her uncle, she interrogated, “Am I allowed to ask questions now?”
Her uncle nodded, answering her question from earlier, “Yes, mi nina. Deja’s your half sister. She’s the product of a love affair between your father and their mother.”
Our gazes shifted to my father, who was standing below our last family portrait, staring up at it, lost in memories that would forever haunt him. The irony was not lost on me.
The only reason I knew the truth was that they needed me to watch her, and they were aware of how much loyalty I had to my sister.
I wasn’t surprised my mother had an affair.
My father was a difficult man to love. I didn’t involve myself in things that didn’t concern me, and this sure as hell didn’t.
Nothing changed about how I viewed Deja.
She’d forever be my sister. Who gave a fuck who her biological father was?
Mine was the one who raised her, and that was all that mattered to me.
I never blamed Hennessy for her father's sins. I was just protective of my sister, and I wasn’t sure what she remembered about the day her mother confronted them on our estate.
The only thing I remembered was the screaming, but how much could you truly recall when you’re that young? My mother often yelled at my father. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for them to be fighting about something. It all made sense once I found out the truth.
Without looking at us, my old man openly shared, “Your father and I grew up together like most legacy children. My wife and I had an arranged marriage. Except she didn’t fall in love with me as I did with her.
” He faced Hennessy now. “She fell in love with your father instead. I wasn’t…
I’m not…” He gathered his words. “I’ve never been a loving man.
I just wasn’t raised like that, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t love her.
She was my weakness, and she knew that too. ”
I watched him carefully as he slid his hands in the pockets of his slacks.
“Their affair started before we got married. I met her when she turned twenty-one, and I was twenty-five. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
She was the daughter of another Brotherhood member, not a legacy child, but a higher elder.
They started their affair shortly after we met.
The council, of course, found out, and they were warned that she was already promised to me.
” He paused, allowing his words to sink in.
“Your father vowed to stay away from her. We were due to marry that summer, and your father fled to the Peruvian to forget. It’s where he met your mother.
He stayed at your lodge for the next year and a half, and when he returned home, Onyx had just been born.
” He paused again. This time, it was from the pain he was obviously feeling.
I stood, making my way over to him.
“I think you know what happened next…”
I gripped his shoulder, trying to give him any strength I could muster.
“Less than a year later, I thought I was the father of a beautiful baby girl, and for the next five years, I raised her as such. It wasn’t until the council needed her blood work for her arranged marriage that we found out her DNA didn’t match mine, but your father's instead.” He bowed his head, shaking off the emotions.
“I plead mercy for my family, but it didn’t matter…
your mother showed up shortly after and… ”
Her uncle took over. “The council had already made their decision. Eye for an eye. They wanted you, Hennessy. Your life for his sins, but your father sacrificed himself, and since he was a legacy child, they allowed it. With the exception that your mother would take you away from the Graves Academy and you’d never find out the truth of your legacy. ”
She stood, walking over to him. “Then how am I here now?”
“Because this is your home, mi nina.”
“So you went against my father’s wishes?”
“Not without your mother’s consent.”
She jerked back. “What do you mean?”
“Your mother always knew about Mrs. Devereaux. Your father never hid the fact that he was in Peru with a broken heart. That he was there to try to forget her. After Deja was conceived, your mother had just given birth to you. Your father flew back to be with her, but he wasn’t made for that world.
He constantly traveled back and forth between Peru and here, never stopping his affair with Mrs. Devereaux.
They were able to get away with it until it came down to Deja’s paternity. That was when all hell broke loose.”
“Is this how you met Elizabeth?”
“Your father knew I was unhappy with having the burden of our family’s business.
He helped me get a job at the Graves, and I chose freedom over the purgatory I’d been feeling.
With that, your mother thought I was abandoning her with all the responsibility, and she hated that I’d be working at the Academy where his lover’s mistress lived. ”
“Does that mean she knew about them?”
He nodded. “And she put up with it until she couldn’t anymore.
She wanted to give you a better example of love and in finding a husband.
She never imagined they’d kill him for it.
The choice was between the man who’d taken her for a fool or her daughter, so you can imagine that the choice was simple for her.
She got on that plane and never looked back until she called me about three years ago. ”
She listened intently to everything he was sharing.
“She was crying, saying she messed everything up for you. That she’d never be able to give you the life you deserved, the one you wanted.
She said you were unhappy like I was, that she could see it on your face every single day.
It didn’t matter how much you hid it from her.
You yearned for freedom in the same way I did.
She wanted you to attend the Graves Academy to receive the best education for your future, and she knew it’d open doors for you to build connections and make all your dreams come true. ”
Her eyes welled up with tears, and I hated seeing her so upset.
“She begged me to help her, to make the council understand that you were meant to be here. I spent the next three years doing exactly that until finally, they agreed, but only if Onyx would watch you and make sure you didn’t remember or find out the truth.”
“Why couldn’t Mrs. Devereaux and my father be together if they were so in love?”
“Because she was already promised to another man.”
“But it would have spared them their lives.”
He caressed the side of her face, looking deep into her eyes before adding…
“Because in this world, mi nina, the council is your God.”