Rushing into the house, I follow the voices until they become clearer. As I steady my pace, I listen to my dad and Konnor arguing. Their words are like an auditory panic attack to my senses. Hate and distrust are being thrown around, threatening to unravel the family unit we have worked so hard to knot up tight.
As I approach my father’s office, the snarling gets louder. I hear my dad’s pleading voice ask, ‘Konnor, what do you remember about why Dustin Nerrock gave you up for adoption?”
His tone makes my lips tremble and my eyes well up. I peek inside to see Konnor standing stiffly over my father, who is seated at his redwood desk. Blesk is sitting on Jaxon’s lap, watching them intently.
Konnor growls and thrusts his hands around. ‘I have a better idea. Why don’t you just talk? Tell me what I know or what I don’t!”
I swing the door open and they both stare at me wide-eyed. ‘What’s going on? Why are you yelling at each other?’
Konnor is in front of me in seconds. I’ve never seen him look so unlike my brother. So angry. So filled with suspicion. ‘You should leave, Cass.”
I frown up at him and hold my own. I’m not letting him push me away or test my loyalty today. Dad is suddenly beside us, trying to control the situation, but it’s seemingly uncontrollable. ‘Cassidy, sweetheart, this is Konnor’s business. It isn’t something you need to be involved in.’
I glare at my dad because I want him to know he can’t just dismiss me. I’m a part of this family. I was there when Konnor had run away. I was there when he’d punched holes in every door of our house. I was there, and it’s not fair to treat me like I don’t have a place in this conversation. ‘If it’s his business, then it’s mine.’
‘Sweetheart, it’s—”
‘No. I’m not leaving until I know why my two favourite people are yelling at each other.’ My dad nods. Walking back to his chair, he falls into it. The defeated look on his face makes me want to cuddle him, but I don’t know whose side I’m on yet.
Konnor stares at me and I cross my arms.
He almost smiles. ‘Fine, Cassidy.’
I wait for Konnor to say something like, ‘Bloody princess’, but he doesn’t, and when dad talks, we all start to listen. ‘So, you don’t want me to ask questions, Konnor. That’s fine. But then I can’t distinguish what information you have, and so I’m going to just lay it all on the table and between the two of us, we can sift through the pieces and hopefully come out with a puzzle that looks like a picture.’ He takes a big breath in. ‘I went to school with your mother, Madeline. I’m yet to meet a woman who could summon the kind of infatuation that woman could. She was wild and intriguing and sharp as a razor with the biggest green eyes and a strange mind. But she was also very insecure and often troubled. She thought too much, and that had always led her to the horizon, looking for something more.’
My heart contorts. I want to scold my dad and find my mum to cuddle her tightly because he’s clearly in love with Konnor’s biological mother.
Dad’s lips slump. “She married Nerrock not long after high school. They had a son. They looked beautiful together and their son was picture perfect. It wasn’t until later that these rumours started to circulate. You all know what the District is like with gossip. Well, the rumour was that Deakon Nerrock . . .’ My father’s voice falters. ‘That you weren’t Dustin’s son.
‘Now Dustin’s family has a lot of money. They are one of the founders of the District and are deeply rooted in Catholicism. Adultery was completely reprehensible. People loved the rumour. I mean, Dustin and Madeline were political celebrities and the envy of everyone. Their love, life, and every moment was caught on camera and plastered all over the District, which made what had happened even more impressive because, Christ, the whole world had been watching them. And yet this had happened right under everyone’s noses. You were taken. Missing.’
I stare at my kind-hearted, gentle dad, who is now tightly wound with nerves. He doesn’t notice me; his eyes are lost in the whirlwind of his son’s emotions. Konnor has his head pressed against the wall. A whimper and a groan vibrates through him, but he’s not alone because Blesk is there comforting him. I wonder how much she knows. How is this girl such a comfort to him? How has she become his rock so quickly when we have fought tooth and nail to gain his trust for over a decade?
Who is this girl?
Dad clears his throat. ‘I’d be lying if I said I liked Dustin, but I never thought he’d go so far as to have a child kidnapped. I thought he might, well . . . I worried about your mother’s safety, but not yours. You were just a child. Who would hurt a child? Especially not you, the golden child of the District. I hadn’t realised how far he’d gone until now. I don’t know for sure, Konnor. I have no proof. But if this statement is true, then someone paid that man to take you.’
Covering my lips, I gasp and stare at my dad from above my hand.
‘And I know in my heart that it wasn’t Madeline, so that leaves . . . Well, it’s Dustin and Madeline’s account.’
I look at the papers my dad is shuffling around on his desk. A statement of some kind. Is he saying that money had come out of Konnor’s biological parents’ account to pay for the kidnapping? That’s sick.
‘That’s bullshit, such bullshit,’ Konnor yells. ‘Money came from that fucking account for my tuition! How’s that possible? Answer that question! I saw it, Ben.’ He cuts us both up when he refers to our dad by his Christian name. I wait with bated breath. ‘The invoice was clearly made out to the university for my tuition.’
Wait? What?
My parents pay for his tuition. Don’t they? So, that can’t be true. That would mean my parents payed for him to be kidnapped. Is that what Konnor is accusing him of? Is that why he’s yelling at my dad and calling him by his Christian name?
Shaking my head, unable to believe any of this, unable to rationalise this information, I listen to Dad talk.
Dad stiffens. ‘Konnor, your mother had handed the rights to that account over to me a few weeks before she’d died. She’d said it was for you and you alone if you were ever found or ever returned. That money would have gone to Dustin’s other children, his future children, and she knew she didn’t have much time left. So I have been using the funds for your tuition and for anything else I see fit. We didn’t need the money, of course, but it was important to Madeline that it go to you.”
A bit of relief fills me. It wasn’t my parents’ account that the money had come from. Dad now has the rights to that account, though, because Madeline wanted to make sure Konnor would get his inheritance. It’s confusing as hell.
Konnor blinks at him. “You loved her.’
As I watch my dad fall apart from all these secrets, I don’t know what to do. I can’t even imagine what my brother is going through right now. Blesk leans into him and whispers in his ear. I glance at the window behind Dad’s desk. It’s open all the way. Max is probably below that window, listening. . .
With a sudden thought occurring, I look directly at my dad, wondering if we’re all sharing an infidelity that my mum knows nothing about.
‘I love your mum, Cassidy,’ my dad’s voice is soft and pained as he reads the accusation in my eyes. ‘But, yes, Konnor, Madeline was my first love.”
Konnor looks desperately at our dad. ‘Okay, so are you my dad? I mean are you my biological dad?’
My dad – our dad – shakes his head. “No, Konnor. I wish I was.’ We all sink together. ‘You’re my son, but you’re not my blood. I’m sorry. I don’t know who is. She never told me.”
Konnor’s face contorts. “So you two had planned my adoption? Before they even found me? That’s such crap.’
I shake my head, clearing my throat ‘That makes zero sense. This sounds like fricking BS, Dad. When kids go missing and they aren’t found for four fricking years, don’t people just, kind of -‘ I hesitate. ‘Assume they’re dead?”
Dad’s response is sad, but also almost. . . robotic. ‘Madeline had never given up hope, not for a second. I don’t know if she’d suspected foul play because she’d never told me. We very rarely spoke, Konnor. We’d never discussed the adoption. I’d received a letter in the mail one day, and it just said that I was entrusted to make sure you’d receive the money if you were found or that it went to her charity if you weren’t. It was from a lawyer. She hadn’t even sent it herself.’
He stares directly at Konnor. ‘I’m not sure if you have heard about this, but Madeline started a charity for you. Nerrock Missing and Beyond. It’s for lost children and their families. This is your legacy, Konnor. If you were never found. If you were just . . .gone. All the money would have been donated in your name. That was Madeline’s wish. Well, that was what the letter said.’
Konnor grimaces. ‘You never tried to talk to her? Face to face?’
‘Of course I did. I was completely disconnected from her. No one would let me speak to her.’
‘Did she know? Did she know Dustin had something to do with my disappearance?’
Dad rises from his chair and holds up shaky hands. ‘Slow down. Firstly, we don’t know he did for sure. We are just speculating here and only because you came in here, guns blazing. But since we are, I can admit it crossed my mind. It was very peculiar that months after the rumours of your legitimacy as a Nerrock began, you went missing.”
Konnor’s whole face tightens. He glances at Jax, perhaps seeking comfort in his friend. ‘She stayed with him anyway?’
‘Even if she did suspect him, you don’t divorce people like Dustin Nerrock. It’s too. . . dangerous.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Konnor mutters.
Dad smiles tightly and shifts his weight in the chair. ‘I know you don’t. Because I have worked very hard to keep you kids out of that world.’ I hold my breath as he continues. ‘The District’s streets are run by The Families. The whole structure is corrupt. They are just dangerous company to keep and even more so to marry into.’
Dangerous company to keep. . .
Jax’s eyes widen. ‘So, what, like the mob?’
My eyes shoot across to Dad as he answers, ‘Something like that.’
I try to control my breathing, having known the truth this whole time. The District is run by the mob. It’s a collective secret that no one agreed to keep, but everyone strictly adheres to. Everyone knows that Jimmy is at the head of the table, but most people in the District respect him. Fear him too.
‘And Nerrock is involved?” Blesk presses. Her interest stretches outside of the realm of a concerned girlfriend and into something else – something I don’t understand.
‘Well, he would deny it. They’re just businessmen, Blesk.’
Konnor’s jaw clenches as he steps towards our dad. ‘Are you involved with them?”
Dad coughs. ‘God, no!’
Blesk speaks delicately and apprehensively. ‘Is my. . . I mean, the man who took Konnor, was he involved?’
‘I don’t know, Blesk.’
Jaxon shuffles in place and even though I really like him, I wish he wasn’t here to witness such a private conversation. ‘Whoa, this is a bit intense. Konnor, you’re a mafia kid.’
Konnor tightens. ‘No, I’m not. I’m a Slater.’ He claims our name above all else and that makes me yearn to hold him close. He is a Slater and no new information will ever change that.
But right now I need to know for my own aching self, inside and out. ‘Is Butcher one of them?’
As I imagine Max’s eyes turning into slits at the question, my pulse begins to shudder in my throat. I think I want him to know. . . that I know he’s been brought up in this world – as have I, in many ways, with Konnor as my brother.
Konnor glares at me. ‘Cassidy, why? Why would it matter?”
Evading his eyes, I stare straight ahead at my dad. ‘Just wondering. Flick hangs out with them a lot now.”
Konnor steps in front of me and I crane my neck to look up at him. ‘You’re lying,’ he states. ‘Why do you care about The Butcher Boys? Why is that name even coming up?’
I feign indifference. ‘They’re our friends, Konnor. That’s all.’
‘Oh, so now they’re our friends? Not just Flick’s friends anymore?’
Blesk touches his arm and pleads, ‘Konnor.’
‘Son, what is your qualm with them?’ Dad asks. ‘Do you know something I don’t?’
Konnor eyeballs me before glancing across to Dad. ‘Don’t like them, that’s all. I don’t want Cassidy hanging out with them.’
I snort. He’s not even here most of the time and he’s barking orders at me? “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I’m not five anymore and can do what I fricking like.”
“Cassidy, calm down.’ Dad tries to settle me with his gentle tone. “Your brother just worries.’
My brows weave. “Great, now I have a restriction on friends.’
I don’t know why I’m getting so worked up by this. I guess I’m just sick of being treated like a child. By Konnor. By Max.
“You’re acting like a brat, Cassidy,’ Konnor spits out.
‘I’m acting like an eighteen-year-old girl who is being interrogated by her brother because she has ‘boys’ who are friends. Can you be more of a cliché? I bet you wish I was gay like Flick.’
‘Not boys, Cassidy,’ he says. ‘Butcher boys.’
My dad intervenes. ‘We are digressing. These aren’t conversations we should be having. Nor are they necessary. Luca Butcher’s sons are not the issue here and you’re not in any kind of danger. This should go without saying, but this is Konnor’s business. None of this can leave this room. Konnor, if you want to make arrangements to discuss this further with other parties, then you can, but it should be discussed here, with me, first. I can’t stress this enough. Everything I’ve done, all the truths I’ve withheld, have been for you. Promise me you won’t go ruffling feathers. Okay?”
Konnor slowly nods. ‘Does Nerrock know? Does he know where I am?’
“Yes, of course,” Dad says. “He knows who you are, Konnor, and where you are. But you’re not in any danger. It’s over. You’re mine. Trust me.”
Uncertainty flickers in Blesk’s eyes. “How can you be so sure?”
“Trust me.’ Dad approaches Konnor. ‘Do you? Do you trust me?”
Konnor’s shoulders fall slack. “I trust you, Dad.”
Leaning into him, Blesk comforts my brother in a way I cannot. Despite loving Konnor more than anything in the world, I’ve never really been able to breach his walls. He’s always kept me at a distance. But with Blesk. . . with Blesk he finds comfort. It’s like she is physically taking away his pain.
Touching his forehead to hers, Konnor sighs, proof that a bit of tension is already fading. As I watch Blesk comfort him with a mere squeeze of his bicep, my heart aches for that kind of love.
‘We’re going to go rest,’ Blesk says as she leads Konnor out of the room.
Strolling over to his desk once again, Dad falls into his chair. ‘Cassidy, baby, can you get your old man a drink?’
My eyes begin to sting. ‘Okay.’
I pour him a drink from the bottle of whiskey on his cabinet and place the tumbler down on a coaster in front of him. As he takes a mouthful, I watch silently with furrowed brows. When he finishes the glass, I pour him another. ‘Is that all true, Dad?’
I study him, not convinced he’s told us the whole truth. He looks too exhausted to have gotten everything off his chest. The truth is supposed to unburden you, not cripple you under even more weight.
Shaking my head, I say, ‘His own dad paid to have him kidnapped?’
When he finally looks up at me with sunken eyes, his gaze darts over my shoulder and his face pales. His eyes widen for just a split second. My heart pummels inside my ribcage and I spin to see Max filling the doorway.
‘Max,’ my dad says with a closed smile. The room suddenly has no air.
Max is blank. His stare doesn’t waver from my dad. ‘Ben, sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to say goodnight to Cassidy.’
My mouth falls open as I observe the soulless interaction. A knot rolls up my throat. My dad’s hands tremble as he folds them in his lap. He smiles. This time it meets his eyes, but I can tell his teeth are clenched by the way his jaw moves.
‘Of course.’ Dad’s voice is strained. ‘Don’t keep her up too late. She has ballet school tomorrow.’
‘I wouldn’t dare.’
