to pass down that ALS gene. I wish she was the mother of my children though,”
Uh, no thanks. That would mean I really wouldn’t be with Mia.
“Why the hell couldn’t you marry her?” I ask instead.
“Well, when I went back for her, she was already married to another asshole who has had it out for me since we were boys.”
Nathan? But before I can ask, he turns to look at me, a serious look in his eyes now.
“You do realize that everything I’m telling you is important right? That your turn is coming and you can’t run from legacy?”
“You must be out of your fucking mind if you think I’ll do anything you ask or join you in your shitty business after what you fucking did! After you hurt Mia!”
“What?” He reels back, looking up in confusion that I want to smack out of him.
“You fucking hurt Mia!” I shout. “You came after her and her family for that three year old shit with Aiden and the press. She was just a girl. She didn’t know any better and you decided to what? Teach her a lesson in keeping her mouth shut?”
Isn’t that what you tried to do to her, shithead? Am you any better than your family?
“No.”
“What?”
“I never went after Mia.”
The fuck?
“Why the fuck are you lying now? I found the file in your damn desk!” I grit out, pointing at his monstrosity of a desk. “You have heaps of information and surveillance on her family.”
Dad stares at me for a long beat, then he swings around in his chair, opening a drawer and pulls out the file I saw and left on his desk what feels like a forever ago. So much has happened since then.
“Open it.”
“I’ve seen it before.”
“You made assumptions when you looked at it before, but you didn’t really see what’s in there or read the reports.”
I reach for the damn file, my heart thundering in my chest. Opening it, the first thing I see is a picture of Nathan just like before. I flick through the pictures and notice every picture I saw last time, the medical records, the list with Nathan’s companies and clients, everything’s the same as last time.
“What am I looking at?”
“A file on Nathan and Nicky,” Dad says. “I never went after Mia.”
“But you knew she was…”
“Their daughter? Of course. I just never thought your mother would go to the lengths she went through just to get that information. Anyway, read Mia’s medical history.”
I flick through the file again until I get to a picture of Mia. She’s always been stunning her whole life, but there’s that look in her eyes, like she’s about to take on the world or something.
Where are you, Little Minx?
I flip through the pages, looking for Mia’s medical history but there’s nothing but another one with another name on it.
“Her medical history file isn’t in here,” I growl, impatience searing down my spine.
“Son, it’s the one you’re holding,” Dad says softly, the pity in his eyes making my stomach lurch. Why is it there?
I glance down at the name, the age, the date of birth. What the fuck?
“This isn’t her name,” I murmur, reading the file anyway like I’m witnessing a bad accident so gory and bloody, there won’t be any survivors.
I can feel my father’s stare on me, his gaze shrewd and assessing, but he sits there silently, as if he’s waiting for something. I swallow the damn ball in my throat but it only gets bigger as the hairs at the back of my neck stand-up on end..
“Read it,” he prompts but I’m already doing so.
Four years old.
Emergency room.
Blunt force trauma to the head.
Memory loss.
Complete personality re-generation.
“What the fuck is this?” I whisper, pain shooting through my chest. I re-read the report, over and over again. Each time feels strange, out of sorts, like I’m reading some sick, twisted story that isn’t real. “This isn’t real.”
“It’s as real as this shitstorm with your mother is.”
“How…” I start, but my voice trails off, the emotion singing through me too intense to speak. “Who did this to her?
Right now, that’s the only question I can focus on. Not the fact that she might not be who I thought she was, hell I’m not sure if she herself knows her real name.
“This report was found after years of digging. It was initially hidden, the evidence covered up by piles and piles of shit, but Nancy insisted that somewhere out there, the evidence of what Nathan had