I held her, my arms wrapped around her soft comforting body, her head against my uninjured shoulder, as Stewart drove. It wasn’t long before I realized he was heading towards the ruins of the monastery and not Paris.
“Stewart? Why are we going back to the monastery?”
“There’s unfinished business.”
I didn’t question him. Stewart saved my life countless times. He raised me. There was no reason to question him. He wouldn’t answer anyway.
As he parked the car beside my roadster, I was glad to be back. The place made me feel close to my mother again and filled me with warmth.
With Stewart following, Deborah and I walked along the abbey marveling once again at the enormity of the structure as we tried forgetting what we had just been through.
“Your mother really loved this place more than any other,” said the voice from the darkened room.
Bracing myself for the only possibility, I turned around. He stood beside Stewart, shorter than I remembered and with more grey in his hair, but it was unmistakeable. The man was my father.
“I haven’t been back here since she passed,” he said sounding a little sad as he looked back at the abbey. “I always suspected Dimitri watched this place. Although that wasn’t what kept me away.”
“How?” I asked, stunned. “How are you still alive? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“You couldn’t know. Only Stewart knew and he was sworn to secrecy. I had to protect you from the men who were after me. Those men you met today.”
“Protect me?! You’re the reason I’ve lived in danger all these years.” I yelled.
All the pain and anger from losing my parents so young came back. It was never very deep. Here was the man I idolized as a child, half of the world I lost all those years ago, back from the grave and I couldn’t help but wish he was still dead.
“She died because of you,” I accused him. “I’ve blamed some stupid drunk all these years, but it really was because of you, wasn’t it?”
“You’re right, I should have known better. I was trained to know better. I got sloppy. I thought I was indestructible. I became too cocky and didn’t realize the danger I put my family in.”
“That’s your excuse? You got sloppy? Fuck you Dad! This isn’t just some mess, this was our life. I was a child! My parents were killed in front of me. Didn’t you think about how that would affect me? And then you left Stewart to raise me instead of doing it yourself.”
“Stewart’s better than me,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t stay with you. I had to leave. Then they were after me. Stewart is smarter, quicker, more lethal than I ever was. You were safer with him.”
“Bill, you owe Will an explanation. He deserves to know what happened,” Stewart said. “Tell him the truth.”
Everything I had seen of Stewart throughout the years suddenly clicked. All my suspicions about him, the things I thought were too absurd to be true, were confirmed. Stewart wasn’t just a driver. He was a trained killer.
“You left your child in the hands of a killer,” I said bitterly.
“You were safe! I did what I had to do. I never expected what happened that night to happen. That drunk—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I interrupted.
I couldn’t imagine telling him how much it hurt to see him. How his standing there, and my knowing he had been well for so many years, made the loss of my mother that much more of a tragedy and I felt like I was losing her all over again.
Looking at Stewart I realized how important to my life he really was. He had no obligation to stay with me, yet he did. It was more than I could say for my own father.
I had no more words. I couldn’t look at the man, my father anymore. I had to leave. Looking down at Deborah still in my arms, I slowly let go.
“I’m sorry,” I said to her before storming off towards my car.
“Will, wait!” My father called after me, but I didn’t care. He had been dead for the past twenty-five years, he could stay dead.
“Will!” Deborah cried out.
I felt bad leaving her, but I had to get out of there. I needed to get away from all the memories that haunted me for so many years. Stewart would take care of her. She was better off without me anyway.
Speeding back to Paris I called and made a plane reservation, something I had never done before. I didn’t want to be William Hargrove King, III in his private jet. I wanted to be as anonymous as possible. Besides, Stewart and Deborah needed the jet more than I did.
As I sat at the airport waiting for the plane to board, I spotted several small families similar to my own as a child. Tragedy in any form has an amazing way of changing the world for a person. I once was that innocent child and in a flash became something else.