“You’re nothing to me.”
“You tried to take Gracie away from me,” Charlie grates, but I can see the brimming anger isn’t a result of losing a woman he loved. It’s principle. He didn’t want to lose.
“I didn’t want her in this sick world! And you, you poisonous bastard, made her stay!”
“She was clearly a good earner.” Charlie sniffs insolently. “We were running a business, brother.”
“You couldn’t bear the thought of me having her. You couldn’t stand the fact that she despised you!” William steps forward, aggression pouring from him, making his suit quiver over his ominous frame. “She should have been mine!”
“You didn’t fight hard enough to keep her!” Charlie roars.
Those words. They make me shiver as the enormity of my mother’s story unfolds before my eyes in the form of two bitter brothers. The dynasty split. William left the immoral bastard to be immoral alone.
William practically snarls. “I tried my damn hardest to fight my feelings for her. I didn’t want her in the sickness we immersed ourselves in. You put her in the center of it. You were willing to share her with your fucking clients!”
“She didn’t argue. She loved the attention—thrived on it.”
I wince and so does William before a wave of anger travels across his cool face. He’s livid. It’s obvious. “She loved hurting me. You monopolized on it. Turned her to drink and brainwashed her. You took sick satisfaction in watching me die a little bit more each day.”
I begin praying, praying this isn’t real, praying that this man’s evil blood isn’t running through my veins.
Charlie smirks, sending that familiar chill down my spine. “She had my baby, Will. That made her mine.”
“No.” Gracie’s melodic tone drifts into the room, pulling everyone’s attention to the doorway, where she’s standing, back straight, chin raised high. She steps into the room, and I can see the bravery she’s fighting to maintain in Charlie’s presence. He still frightens her. “Olivia isn’t yours, and you know it.”
My eyes widen, and I look to William, finding him studying my mother, searching for an extension on that statement. “Gracie?”
She looks at him but quickly backs up when Charlie moves forward threateningly. “Don’t even think about it,” he snarls.
“He sent me away when I told him Olivia wasn’t his.”
Charlie visibly starts to shake. “Gracie!”
She jumps, but William and I are both motionless. “He threatened to harm her if I told anyone.”
“You fucking bitch!” He lunges for her, but William intercepts, knocking him back a few meters with a swift fist to his cheek.
William roars in anger, heaving and pulsing as Charlie staggers back and my mum screams. “Never touch her!” he bellows, shaking his fist, eyes enraged.
My mind focuses amid the madness unfolding. Charlie’s not my father? I’m too shocked to be delighted at the news that Charlie, in fact, isn’t my father. I can’t cope with it all. I’m being delivered information at a speed too fast for my fraught mind to cope with.
Gracie pulls William back but soon steps away, as if she’s frightened of him, too. “He promised to leave my baby alone if I disappeared.” She glances at him warily. She looks ashamed. And William looks like he’s seen a ghost. “He promised to let you…” She takes a long breath. It’s a confidence-boosting breath.
“No,” William murmurs, his jaw ticking. “Gracie, please, no.”
“He promised to let her father live if I disappeared.”
“No!” He throws his head back, shouting to the heavens, his hands diving into his gray hair.
My world implodes. The wall behind me catches me when I stumble back, disoriented, and I push myself into it, like it could swallow me up and remove me from the horrors I’m facing. William’s head drops, a million emotions invading his face one at a time—shock, hurt, anger… and then guilt when he finally manages to look at me. I can’t possibly give him anything. I’m a statue. All he’s got to go on are my stunned eyes and frozen form, but he really doesn’t need any more than that.
We’re both way past stunned.
Charlie chucks my mother a look that would turn iron to ashes. “You slut. It wasn’t good enough that you had ten men a week. You had to have my brother.”
“You forced them on me,” she shrieks. “You made me write the fucking details!”
“You lied to me!” Charlie fumes. For the first time since he steamrolled his way through that door, I see frightening anger flashing across his face. “You played me for a fool, Gracie, baby.” He gets up close and personal with my mother, and my trepidation multiplies when she recoils cautiously and William moves in quickly and places himself in front of her.