Chapter 1
ONE
SEVEN YEARS AGO
Everything about my life is a lie.
My perfect world tumbles into ashes. I’m not worthy of being raised in Bay Harbor Islands, Miami, with parents who are respected members of an elite community.
I’m a throwaway, a discarded piece of trash that nobody wanted.
The room pitches in and out of focus. Words rush around me like water parting around each side of a boulder.
I look at the man in front of me. Once I called him Dad.
His lips move, and his black moustache undulates but I fixate on the one white hair that quivers just below his nostrils—if I didn’t, I’d start screaming and never stop.
Beside him, the woman I’ve called Mom is crying.
I snort with amusement—or is it anger? How could they do this to me on the night before I leave for college? Why are they being so cruel?
I can’t believe what I’m hearing and gape at them.
My mind is in denial but from their expressions this is no joke.
I swallow hard trying to think, and shake my head.
How could anyone start a sentence with “You know we love you”—and then, as if it doesn’t matter that they’ve deceived me all my life, just casually mention they adopted me at birth?
I look from one to the other, speechless but trembling with anger.
Finally, Dad shakes me and I glare at him, batting him away. “Don’t touch me.”
“I see now we should have told you earlier but it’s not information a younger mind could cope with, Alani.” He dashes a hand through his immaculate salt-and-pepper hair.
I stare at him. His mouth is moving, the moustache twitching, but he’s not making any sense.
My heart pounds and I can’t breathe. “What information? I’m adopted and you forgot to tell me that my mother tossed me away like a bag of trash and you’ve lied to me my entire life—how much worse can it be? ”
I recall him telling me how much I resembled my mom. It had all been lies. He’d tell me I had his brains and the scholarship I’d won was because everyone in his family was successful. What a joke. Anger at their deceit shakes me so hard I can’t speak.
“You need to sit down, Alani. This has been a terrible shock. I’m so sorry.” Dad waves to one of the sofas in the family room. “Willow.” He turns to my mom. “We knew this would be difficult. Come and sit on the sofa and I’ll explain everything to Alani.”
I drop into the soft chair and peer around at the opulent room.
The painting above the fireplace should be in a museum and I stare at the landscape as if I’ve never seen it before.
Being in a wealthy family has never concerned me.
They’ve given me everything I need but I wanted to prove I could make it on my own.
I worked hard to become another successful Fairchild and make them proud of me—but I’m not their daughter, am I?
I don’t have their genes. I’ve never resembled Willow.
It’s all lies. The man leaning forward opposite me, his hands loosely clasped between his knees, is speaking again.
In one second, in my mind, he is no longer Dad but Samuel.
Dr. Samuel Fairchild, plastic surgeon to the stars, and me—I’m nameless—a child they adopted and conveniently forgot to tell me.
A child they needed because Willow spent her entire life on her career and left it too late to have a baby.
“Alani, listen to me.” Sam—that’s what everyone calls him—searches my face. “There were circumstances we couldn’t discuss with you as a child, so we waited. Our intention wasn’t to upset you.”
I swing my attention back to him, my voice shaking.
“Upset? Is that what you’re calling this?
I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now.
” I take a breath, trying to calm myself.
“This is a terrible shock.” I turn to Willow, my stomach twisting.
“My real mom… did she give me up? Or did you buy me from her?”
“No, I didn’t buy you, Alani, she was too young to care for you.” Willow clasps a tissue in her hands so tight her knuckles are bone white. “It was a legal adoption. We were offered you because of the circumstances of your birth, and your father being a doctor helped our application.”
More confused than ever, I stare from one to the other. “Tell me about my mom. Why did she give me up for adoption?”
“We know nothing about your mother.” Sam clears his throat in a familiar gesture that he often does when trying to evade an answer. “Her case was sealed due to her age.”
I swallow hard, imagining a poor kid, being pressured to give up her baby. “What about my dad?”
“Here lies the problem.” Sam shakes his head. “He’s a criminal. He raped your mom and murdered many women. He’s a psychopath.”
Horrified, I stare at him and push my hands into the pockets of my jeans to stop them shaking. I swallow hard. I need to know. “I’m guessing you have all the details. What did he do to prevent you from telling me about him?”
“Nothing, we’ve never met him, Alani.” Willow reaches a hand out to me. “Please let it go. He’s not someone you need to get involved with. He’s a dangerous criminal.”
I bite my bottom lip. How can I possibly go through life not knowing? “Tell me. I have a right to know.”
“I’m not giving you his name.” Sam narrows his gaze at me and shakes his head.
“I don’t want you hunting him down online.
You need to forget he exists.” He sucks in a deep breath.
“He raped your mom and left her for dead. She spent months in a coma and recovered a month before you arrived. Before you ask, her parents refused an abortion due to their religion but they agreed to adoption. That’s all we know.
” He gives me a long look. “You came to us because sometimes mental problems like his run in families and as a doctor, I’d be aware and looking out for any change in your behavior. It was us or life in foster care.”
My head is bursting. I’m the result of a brutal rape. My father is a monster. I swallow bile rushing into my mouth. My knees grow weak but I have so many questions. “Is he alive?”
“Yes. He’s in prison for what he did to your mom.
He was prosecuted on twelve counts of murder but he walked on everything but the rape and attempted murder—he’s a psychopath.
” Sam runs a hand down his face. “Look, Alani, he doesn’t matter and we didn’t care about your background. We knew we could give you a good life.”
“We wanted you so bad.” Willow dabs at her eyes. The model in her never quit. She sits, back straight and legs crossed at the ankles, perfectly attired, with not a hair out of place. “We knew you’d be okay if we raised you right and look how you’ve turned out.”
I blow out a long breath. At least in foster care I’d have known my mom dumped me from the get-go.
Anger simmers on a low burn. I’ll be leaving soon and maybe this will all fade into the background but right now, I can’t look at them.
Everything I’ve ever known has been a lie, including all the stories told to me by my grandparents.
I stand, and the room is so silent, the only noise comes from the gold French Rococo clock ticking on the mantle.
The tick, tick, tick is the seconds into my new life as the daughter of a rapist. Nothing will ever be the same.
I stare at the Chinese rug under my feet.
Do they want me to thank them? Or have I fulfilled my role by making them a satellite family so Sam can relate to his clients?
A happily married man with a family you can trust—right?
Wrong! I run from the room before I say or do something stupid.
Right now, I’m sure my real father’s genes are hovering just under the surface waiting to break free because I so want to kill them.