Chapter Nine
Charli walked down the hall to her own room. As soon as she opened the door, she went over to the crib and looked down at her son. Ben was sleeping so peacefully and she reached out to touch his cheek softly. “My sweet baby boy, I’m here and I will protect you above everyone else.”
Ben opened his eyes briefly and smiled at his mother. Then closed his eyes to be lost in that sweet baby slumber again.
Charli went over to her bed and curled up covering herself with the blanket folded on the end of the bed.
She tried to close her eyes but her mind wouldn’t let her sleep.
So much had happened and she raised her hand to brush away her tears.
She just laid there with her eyes open as the stillness of the room surrounded her.
Lost in her own thoughts on the bed trying to wipe her tears away.
Ace quietly stepped into the room. With a troubled sigh, he went over to the bed and knelt next to the bed to face her. “Baby, please don’t cry. I’m sorry.” He took her hand in his.
Charli just stared at him, then she sighed and closed her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere and I’m not giving up this farm or my family. I just won’t.”
Ace nodded and squeezed her hand in his. “Good, because I love you more than you realize and I won’t give you up either.”
Charli rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling and didn’t say anything then she finally spoke, “I’ve been here since I was five years old.
I watched Ben and my grandma bury my parents and you know who else was there?
Mario and Jullian. My dad had four brothers and three sisters and the only ones who showed up was Jullian and Mario.
They stayed long enough to see my parents put into the ground, then they left.
I didn’t see them again until I was fourteen because Mario insisted I come for a visit.
We spent two weeks together but I only saw Mario and his father.
No one else came around, no one else even called to talk to me.
When Ben came to get me and we traveled back here, he never said a word to me about them not showing any interest in me.
Mario would call me now and again, he seemed to be the only one who cared.
Then I heard they all moved back to Italy.
But I didn’t hear from them in person, mind you.
I got a postcard from Mario telling me about the move.
He wrote that he didn't have my phone number. Then nothing until last night.”
Ace nodded. “Ben mentioned this to me once. It was when we were both up one night before that last battle. He poured us a drink and talked a bit. Yes, he wasn’t a man who said a lot but his few words told it all. About your parents and a few things about your dad’s family.”
“What things?” she asked.
He slowly shook his head. “Nothing detailed. Just that he did like your dad but he wasn’t keen on that family at all. They weren’t to be trusted and he was more than relieved to have not seen them over the years. Said they were trouble.”
Charli sighed again and kept staring at the ceiling. “He never talked to me about it. But that was Ben. He would never badmouth them to me. He wasn’t built like that. But that’s only part of everything happening right now.”
Ace nodded. “Annabelle, Jack and Jade. Do you think this woman really is Collette Whittaker?”
Charli nodded. “Yeah, she really is Luna’s sister. She began to remember her life as soon as she saw Luna. And before you ask, yeah she’s Annabelle’s mom.”
Ace sat there for a long moment then he sighed heavily. “Does she want the baby back?”
“You’ll have to ask her,” Charli told him softly.
“This is gonna break Jade’s heart along with Jack’s.” Ace growled.
Charli nodded. “I know but in the end, someone isn’t going to be happy about it.” She opened her mouth to say something just as a frantic knock sounded on the door.
Ace got up, walked over to the door and opened it.
Deuce stood there, holding out his laptop. They both surveyed the camera feeds from the woods.
Ace turned his head and told Charli, “He spotted someone hanging around the tree line area. We have to check this out.”
Charli got up and turned the baby monitor on. Then she grabbed the small hand held receiver. She joined her husband and brother-in-law.
They all walked back to the kitchen.
Luna and Collette stepped out to the hallway and joined them as well.
Deuce set the laptop onto the kitchen table.
When she saw the laptop screen, Collette gasped and her knees buckled. It showed the face of the man standing there while glaring at the main house.
Luna steadied her.
Joker grabbed another chair and slid it over.
She sank into it and then she looked up at Ace and whispered, “I know this man.”
Ace growled and motioned to Deuce. “Get King and get after that asshole.” Then he looked over at Collette. “Do you recognize him?”
Collette nodded. “He came to Gauntlet’s house all the time.
I never knew his name but every time he came, I would be locked into my room.
” She shook her head. “No one ever talked about him, at least not to me. But I heard hushed and fearful whispers from the staff. They were all afraid of him. Gauntlet was always respectful to him but after he left, he was always pissed. It was almost as if he hated being respectful to a man he hated. He would rant and rave about how one day he would show him who was in charge and it wasn’t him.
But he always talked the big talk like that and never had any real power.
He would bitch and gripe but he wouldn’t admit he had no real power.
” She looked over at Luna and added, “We both knew who really had the power and it wasn’t Carmen Vance. It was always Jedidiah Whittaker.”
Luna nodded. “But in the end, not even he had any real power, it was all illusion. The man who claimed to be our father never really had any real power either. He only had money that wasn’t even really his.
He played a game of smoke and mirrors all his fucking life, but even those weren’t enough to hide behind for long. ”
Collette grabbed Luna’s hand and asked, “At least tell me he lost in the end. Everything he stole, borrowed or tried to steal. Please tell me he lost it all and he died a broken man?”
Ace nodded. “Yeah, he lost it all, including his life. Our brother saw to that. He died in the same way he killed your real father. Shot all to hell with the same fireproof vests he sold to Uncle Sam and a slit throat.”
Collette nodded. “Good, I know it sounds horrible to say, but he deserved at least that much. And us, the ones he ruled...”
Luna nodded. “We’re picking up the pieces and pushing through. That's all we can do.” She smiled at her sister. “At least we found you again.”
Collette smiled faintly. “I can never get back the years I lost. Too much has happened, too much has been erased.” She looked from Luna to Ace.
“But that doesn’t mean I won’t try. You see.
..Jedidiah never thought I was strong. He always labeled me as the weak one but he didn’t know the real me.
I was always stronger than he thought. I survived Gauntlet and I will survive this too.
” Lowering her head, she admitted, “Gauntlet used and abused me in ways no man should ever do, but when he started in I would go to a place in my mind where he couldn’t hurt me.
When he figured that out he would do his worst and when I came back he never understood how I always healed so fast. But every time I did, I grew stronger than he thought I was capable of.
Then the day he cut me open and took my baby, he was just going to let me die.
But when I woke up in that damn hospital, my mind had shut down.
It wouldn’t let me figure out what that man did to me.
He wanted me to die but instead I became someone different. ”
Luna took her hand in hers as she looked upset by all that had happened to her.
“I didn’t know what happened to the baby they said I had carried,” Collette went on.
“And I learned to live under another name. Then Mario told me he was coming here and I knew what I had to do. I had to come back here and learn what my mind helped me to forget. I had to remember those secrets in my past.” She looked at Luna again.
“But as soon as I saw your face, the past came back to me, all of it. I remembered every detail of the life we had and what happened when I was taken from you.” Her hand lowered to her belly.
“I remembered the baby I was forced to have, the day Carmen came into my room and he screamed at me that the labor was taking too long.” Her eyes glazed over as if she were remembering everything from that day.
“I remember him tying me up then taking a knife out and approaching the bed. I kept screaming when he cut me open and lifted the baby up from my womb.”
“Damn,” Ace muttered as he looked a bit ashen.
Joker agreed as he slowly shook his head.
“The baby was crying and I was screaming and I remember him turning his back to me while he wrapped a towel around the baby. I laid on that damn bed as I was bleeding out. That was the day I vowed... never again would he hurt me. I believed I was going to die. Then I think I passed out.” She lowered her head.
“Someone came in and took me from the bed. Then just as I passed out again, I remember being in the back seat as someone drove me away.” She paused as her words dropped into a whisper, “So when I woke up, the doctors said I had been in a coma for three weeks and when they asked about the baby, I couldn’t tell them a damn thing.
” Shaking her head, she admitted, “I couldn’t even remember being pregnant. ”
Luna looked upset too, as she tried to console her, “Being used and abused then having your body cut open, left you weak and in shock. I'm just glad you survived it. I always felt in my heart that you were alive somewhere.”
Collette nodded her head. “I suppose when I woke up, I had nothing left to give by that time. Everything in my life was gone, I didn’t even care about the baby. I had no feelings one way or the other about what happened to it. I didn’t even know if I had a boy or a girl or if it even survived.”
Jack spoke now, “You had a little girl.”
They all looked up.
He stepped further into the kitchen as he stared at Collette.
“Gauntlet took the baby to another state and handed her over to a woman he kidnapped. He ordered her to raise her, then he left her all alone. He never came to see the girl and in the end he killed that woman. He didn’t care about the little girl.
My wife Jade found her. The woman was her sister but she was too late to save her life.
We thought the baby belonged to her sister until we found a note left by her in a toy Annabelle loved.
We didn’t know who the mother really was until now. ”
Ace turned his head to look at her. “So, I guess you have a decision to make.”
Collette nodded slowly. “But not right now, I hope.” She looked back at the laptop screen on the table. “I think you have a more pressing problem to deal with.” She motioned to the screen.
Ace looked determined as he gave her a nod. “Yeah, we do. Deuce and King are out searching for him.”
Mario came in just then. He walked over to the laptop with the man’s image frozen on the screen and studied his face then he looked over at Ace. “That’s my Uncle Ray. I haven’t seen him in a long time but that is Raimondo Benittini for sure.”
Ace curled his large hands into fists and growled in rage. “This is the man who needs to kill us all to escape being caught for his sins. Well, I for one, am not about to let him do that. He will be sent to hell instead.”
Joker looked up and asked, “You gonna call Shay in on this?”
Ace shrugged. “I’ll call him to update him but I think we can take care of this asshole ourselves. He’s got a hell of a lot more to lose than we do.”
Collette reached over to take Luna’s hand in hers again and she gripped it tight.