at the head of the table.
My mother to his right.
Gretchen to his left.
“Well, if we’re telling this story on a timeline, I guess it begins when Gretchen was abducted and brought in as a slave.”
My jaw ticked, a seething hatred inside me for what that bastard, Marcus, had done to her.
“Your mother and you hadn’t yet started working at the mansion, which is obvious considering you weren’t born yet.”
Staring at anything besides the people sitting at the table, I studied my shoes, the scuffs in the leather, the shine of the marble floors beneath them as he spoke.
“Marcus took liberty with the slaves,” Franklin explained, “and Gretchen became pregnant with Lisbeth. Obviously, something so scandalous couldn’t be allowed to become public, so rather than taking the chance of releasing Gretchen to raise the child, Katrina decided to adopt the child and raise her as her own.”
“That was the first lie,” I commented. “One Lisbeth still doesn’t know about.”
Gretchen’s voice shook when she offered, “I can tell her.”
I cut my head to the left, my eyes meeting hers.
“No. I’ll tell her. I’m not sure I can trust any of you to be completely honest at this point.”
She nodded, her hand toying with the charm of her necklace.
Before Franklin continued, I pointed out, “An entire life based on lies and secrets. And for what? Vanity? To protect the reputation of a family that has no right to consider themselves better than the lives destroyed in the process?”
Throat moving to swallow that truth, Franklin asked, “Shall I continue?”
I nodded my head, staring at my shoes again while I processed every word.
“When Lisbeth was older, your mother and you arrived. As you well know, you were assigned as a servant for Lisbeth.”
“A whipping boy,” I corrected him.
He grew quiet, nodded his head.
“Yes. What was done to you should never have been allowed. And as the years rolled on, Marcus devolved into something none of us recognized. He began tearing the family apart, driving us to financial ruin. Since I was the person managing everything, I knew that something drastic needed to happen before we all were destroyed in the process.”
My mother spoke up, a soft voice that was a razor against my nerve endings.
“We wanted what was best for both Lisbeth and you. You have to understand that.”
“What was best?”
My eyes shot to her, my body moving forward as I slammed my hands down on the table.
“I tortured her when she first came back here because I thought she was the reason you were dead. I could have killed her.”
“But you didn’t,” she answered, her resolve unwavering. “I knew you wouldn’t. You loved her too much.”
Franklin cleared his throat, the sound drawing my attention. Despite the rage sparking around me with electric fury, he met my stare.
“I asked your mother to slip drugs into the champagne the night of Lisbeth’s ball. Not enough to kill, just enough so everybody who drank it would pass out. We never thought you’d drink it as well.”
My thoughts raced back to the night this all started, to the first time I challenged the rules by staring Lisbeth in the face and finishing her glass of champagne. That’s how I ended up asleep among the slaughter.
I should have demanded to see my mother’s body. Shouldn’t have been so willing to believe she was actually dead unless I saw it for myself.
“Anyway, your mother, worried for what would become of you, and she only agreed to help me if I promised to adopt you and make you a Rose. She wanted you to have the resources, the power. Lisbeth...”
My shoulders flexed at her name, at the memory of what I’d done to her when she returned.
“We didn’t know Katrina found out Lisbeth was being given to Sergio Moritze. She was never supposed to take off with her that night. She slipped out while we were preparing to-“
“Systematically execute every person in that room,” I said, lifting my eyes to him.
“It was the only way to protect Lisbeth and to protect you. If your mother were alive, I couldn’t have adopted you without questions being asked. So, we staged her death.”
Gaze snapping to my mother, I said, “And you ran off to hunt for Lisbeth. Did Katrina scream much when you killed her?”
Her lips pulled into a thin line.
“It looked like an accident. I knew Lisbeth would return here, and it was only fair that Gretchen have the chance to know her daughter. It was only fair that you have the