His Forever Family(26)

And a sense of privacy. Their cabin was down a rocky path, maybe three hundred yards from the rest of the estate.

They made it to the shore without a problem and dropped off their  boards. It didn't take long to see that he'd been right-the bartenders  were still pouring and the DJ had started playing thumping club music.

He looked around. Trust-fund babies, hedge-fund managers, debutantes  and minor celebrities, all partying together under the haze of the  bonfire's smoke in an alcoholic daze. This was his crowd. These were his  friends.

But were they? Had he ever been happy with them? Or had it just been a never-ending game of one-upmanship and drinking?

He and Liberty gathered up their things and began the long walk back to  their hut. Tiki torches marked the path, so at least they weren't  stumbling around in the dark.

Then a voice called out behind them. "Marcus?"

His mother.

He almost kept going. But Liberty was the one who stopped and turned  back. And since she was holding his hand, he had little choice but to do  the same.

His mother was still in her lime-green caftan. The shadows the torches  were throwing over her face made her look older than he'd ever seen her  before. It was almost like looking at a ghost of a woman he'd known in a  previous life. "Yes?"

She didn't reply until she caught up to him. "Marcus, I have something I need to tell you."

"I'm sure you do. That doesn't mean I need to hear it. Come on,  Liberty." He started to turn but his mother latched onto his arm.

"Don't you turn your back on me, young man. I am still your mother. And...and I owe you an apology."

That tripped him up, so much so that Marcus physically stumbled. "You what?"

Marisa stepped into him, touching his face with the palm of her hand.  It was almost a tender gesture. But Marisa Warren didn't have a tender  bone in her body. "You don't understand what your father and I have done  to protect you."                       
       
           



       

He stiffened. He didn't want to do this, didn't want to deal with the  guilt and the burden of being the one to carry on the Warren name-at all  costs.

She went on. "That's our fault. Perhaps we did our jobs a little too well."

"Yes, of course. You were obviously Parents of the Year." He tried to turn again but she wasn't letting him go.

"I didn't realize you remembered that nanny," she said, halting him in  his tracks for a second time. "I'd hoped you'd forgotten about her."

He stared down at her in shock. "Forgotten about Miss Judy? I was  almost kidnapped and she's the one who saved me-not you, not Father. And  what did you two do? You didn't call the cops. You didn't find out who  was behind it. You got rid of her. And you left me all alone."

Beside him, Liberty gasped in shock.

"But, dear," his mother said in a pleading tone, "that's not what  happened." She sighed heavily, as if the truth weighed on her. Marcus  didn't buy her act for a minute. This was nothing but manipulation, pure  and simple. "She was the one who organized the fake kidnapping."

Marcus recoiled in disbelief. Miss Judy? The one who'd given him baths  and taken him to the park and read him stories at night? The woman who'd  make a big bowl of popcorn so they could watch The Brady Bunch  together? The one who'd loved him? "I don't-what?"

"Why do you think we fired her? She staged the whole thing."

"How..." He was so surprised that he couldn't even form the words. All  he could see was the woman with the graying streaks in her hair and the  warm smile on her face. "She wouldn't have. She cared about me!"

Marisa shook her head. "She might have. But desperation makes people do  funny things. We had a private eye investigate what happened. Why would  kidnappers be scared off by a woman screaming? It didn't make sense."

He reached out behind him for Liberty. When her hand slid into his and  he felt her step closer to his side, the panic that was building in his  body eased back enough that he could try to think again. "Why should I  believe you? Because you've lied to me before. You've told me what you  thought I needed to hear to get me to do what you wanted. Why is this  different?"

His mother gave him a long look. "You should believe me because it's  the truth. What do I stand to gain by telling you this? You're going to  be very mad at me, I know. I just... I never realized that you hated us  for that. I thought we'd made it clear that we were doing what was best  for you."

"Yes, you made it quite clear that I was not to worry about it. That doesn't mean I was able to stop the nightmares."

A look of guilt stole over his mother's face. "She was in trouble. She  needed money. The day after the attack, we got a ransom note-we were to  pay a million dollars or next time, we wouldn't be so lucky. It was a  scam-she'd get the money and look like the hero. I'm just sorry that she  saw fit to use you as a means to an end."

Confusion rolled through him-that and anger. His whole life spent  checking over his shoulder for vans-all for nothing. "Why are you just  now telling me this? Why didn't you have her arrested? Why did you let  me live my whole life thinking there were people out to get me?"

His mother took a step back. "You were a child," she said in a pleading  tone. "What was I supposed to tell you? That the nanny you loved had  put you directly in harm's way? That she'd arranged for her  brother-in-law and his friends to don masks and use real guns to scare  your father into giving them a million dollars?"

"Yes," he said through gritted teeth. "You should have been honest with me."

Marisa scoffed. "You wouldn't have understood then. We didn't want to  subject you to the police, to a trial-and, yes, the publicity. You were  six, Marcus. You would have forever been the boy whose nanny tried to  kidnap him. People wouldn't have treated you like a Warren. They would  have treated you like this thing to be pitied. No," she said decisively.  "We did the right thing."

"You only cared about the Warren name." That's what he'd spent the past  thirty years thinking-they loved the name and the power that went with  it. Not him. Never him.

His mother looked incredulous. "Of course we did. Your father was  involved in high-level negotiations with the Saudis for oil then and our  first thought was that the negotiations had gone sour. We couldn't risk  showing weakness."                       
       
           



       

"You let those people go because you wanted to save face for a business  deal?" That he could believe. That was exactly what his father would  do.

Unexpectedly, her expression turned dark. "We ruined those people for  what they did to you. Their hands were not clean and we dug every single  misdeed of theirs up. They went to jail for other reasons, but you can  be damned sure they knew we had put them there. No one messes with a  Warren."

Part of him wanted to believe her, wanted to believe that his parents  had actually cared enough about his well-being to mete out punishment as  they saw fit. And there was a time in his life when he might have  bought everything she said, hook, line and sinker.

But he wasn't that naive little rich boy anymore. And this woman no  longer held that power over his life. So he drew himself up to his full  height and glared down at her. "And I'm just supposed to believe you?  All those scholarships that Father made disappear? Was my life in mortal  danger then, too?"

His mother waved those questions away as if they were mosquitoes.  "Wanting to run off and play soccer? Do you know how embarrassed your  father was?"

"Yes, I can clearly see how I've been nothing but a massive failure my  entire life. Well, get used to disappointment, because I'm done. I  always did everything you wanted-the schools, the girls, the company.  Now I'm going to do what I want and I dare you to try to stop me."

"Oh, Marcus, please-you're being melodramatic." Anything sympathetic  about his mother disappeared in the flickering light of the torches. "Do  you not see what we did for you? You're one of the most powerful men in  Chicago. You could run for office. You can do whatever you want. That's  what we gave you. The world is yours."

Marcus heard a strangled-sounding noise and realized it had come from his own throat. "Run for office?"

"Now," his mother went on, as if she'd won and he'd lost and everything  would go on as it had. "It's unfortunate that you decided to go public  with your little affair, but at the very least, we're on a private  island. This can be suppressed. No one needs to know you were dallying  with your assistant." She straightened the collar on his shirt. "Nothing  needs to change. You're still a Warren and that means something."