Fortune, page 20
“She’s in the library, I believe.”
“And my father?”
“With her.”
“Why are they— Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’ll find out myself.” I whisk past her.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Yeah. Some lunch would be great.”
“What—”
“Anything.”
I promised Brendan, Brock—and myself—that I’d eat. So I’ll eat whatever Michaela makes…while I listen to my mother’s secrets.
And hope that I don’t upchuck it all.
I tear open the door to the library.
“Ava!” Mom looks up from some documents laid out on the wooden table.
Dad sits beside her. “Sweet pea? What are you doing here?”
“I’m ready to hear the rest of our sordid family history,” I say. “I’ve heard Dad’s side, Mom. Now I want yours.”
“Ava…”
“No excuses. I’ve been pulling my hair out, starving myself, over all this. I’m done. The tower is falling, and if I’m going to escape the rubble, I need to know the truth.”
“The tower?” Dad asks.
“Her tarot card,” Mom says.
“Yes. The fucking tower. I’m actually taking a break from the tarot, and do you want to know why?” I don’t wait for an answer. “Because I’m tired of the negativity. I’m tired of questioning who I am. I’m just fucking tired, Mom, Dad. So get on with it. I’m descended from not one but two psychopaths. I want to know about my Greek side, Mom. I want to know about Theodore Mathias.”
Dad clears his throat. “Ava, I thought long and hard before I told you about my birth mother. I decided it was time. But your mom—”
“It’s okay, Ryan.” Mom pats his hand. “She deserves to know the truth from both of us.”
“Damned right I do, and so does Gina.”
“Dad and I have decided not to tell Gina until after graduation. Let her finish her college career, Ava.”
I draw in a breath. “All right. Why mess up the awesome foursome?”
“Ava…”
“I get it, Dad. We leave her in the dark for now. But after she graduates…”
“We’ll tell her,” Mom says.
“Good.”
Mom clears her throat. “There’s no easy way to start.”
“Try the beginning, sweetie,” Dad says.
“I’ve put a lot of it out of my mind,” Mom says. “But I suppose it all begins with Gina.”
“What’s Gina got to do with this?”
“Not your sister,” Mom says. “My cousin. Gina Cates.”
“Right. You named Gina after her.”
“I did. She meant a lot to me.”
“I was your firstborn. Why didn’t you name me after her?”
Mom sighs. “I thought about it, but it was all too fresh in my mind back then. I didn’t want to be reminded of it every single day. By the time your sister came along, we had done a lot of healing, and I wanted to pay homage to my cousin.”
I breathe in, confused. And hungry. “What does your cousin Gina have to do with all of this?”
“Gina was a patient of Aunt Melanie’s,” Mom goes on, “but now that I think about it, it actually began long before Gina. I didn’t even know about Gina until I met my birth father. It began with your Grandma Didi.”
“When you were born.”
“Yes. My father, Theo Mathias, was a terrible man. Of course I didn’t know any of this. Not until I was fifteen years old.”
“But you lived with Grandma, right? They weren’t married.”
“No, they weren’t. Grandma and I lived modestly, but we were happy. At least I thought we were. Then…” Mom’s voice begins to shake. “God, it’s all so buried beneath everything horrible.”
“Easy, baby,” Dad says. “We’re not in any hurry.”
I’m in a hurry, but I don’t say anything. Mom opens her mouth again, but she’s interrupted by a knock on the library door.
“Yes?” Dad says.
The door opens and Michaela enters. “I have Miss Ava’s lunch.”
“Thank you, Michaela.” I take the tray from her and set it on the table. Then I close the door.
Funny. How can I be hungry and nauseated at the same time? But I am. I take the cover off the plate. A green salad with vinaigrette and a roast beef sandwich on my own sourdough bread. A plate of fruit and cheese plus a peanut-butter cookie rounds out the meal.
I don’t have a sweet tooth by any means, but I grab the cookie first and take a bite. I’ve got to get something down before my mother continues her story.
“Grandma Didi was beautiful in her day,” Mom says wistfully. “Her hair was brown but lighter than mine, fair skin, blue eyes. I look a lot like her.”
I remember my grandmother’s blue eyes. They were just like Mom’s and mine. Though she was old and worn, I always considered her beautiful. She and I understood each other.
“I never looked anything like my father,” Mom continues.
“Are you sure he was your father?” I can’t help asking.
Mom widens her eyes.
“I mean…you know. Because Dad found out the woman he thought was his mother wasn’t…and all.”
“Believe me, Ava, I wish I didn’t have to claim him, but he was my father. He had olive skin from his Mediterranean roots, and his eyes and hair were dark.”
I take another bite of the cookie. This one is drier.
A sigh whooshes out of Mom’s mouth. “Anyway…my mother died when I was fourteen.”
“What?” I drop the cookie back onto the plate.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. Resurrection from the dead seems to happen a lot in this family.
Mom continues, “She didn’t, as I found out later, but that’s what I was told. I never saw a body. Who would show a fourteen-year-old girl her dead mother’s body? She didn’t have any family that I knew of or that anyone could find, so the court sent me to the man whose name was on my birth certificate. My father. Theodore Mathias.”
I pick up the cookie, break off a piece, and hold it.
“I found out later that my father forced my mother to leave. He convinced her that he could give me a better life. She didn’t believe him, but then he threatened both of our lives, and, according to Grandma, he meant it. Knowing what I know about him now, yes, he meant it.”
I swallow. It doesn’t help the nausea.
“My mother felt she had no choice. She figured the best thing to do was disappear and make me a ward of the state. She thought that would protect me.” Mom shakes her head. “I never had the heart to tell her what actually happened. Not everything, anyway.”
“You okay, baby?” Dad squeezes Mom’s hand.
“I’m fine. I need to get this out as much as Ava needs to hear it.”
I don’t realize I’m squeezing what’s left of the cookie until I see the crumbs on top of my salad. Peanut-butter-cookie salad. Great.
“You’re aware of how your father and I met.”
I nod.
“If not for my father and his mother, we wouldn’t have met, and he and I have had a wonderful life together. We were blessed with you and Gina, and… That’s how I’ve come to think of all of this, Ava. As a blessing in disguise. But when I tell you…”
“When you tell me what?”
“She’s strong, Ruby,” Dad says. “She can handle it. She handled my story with the strength of a thousand warriors.”
I gulp. I’m not sure I do justice to Dad’s words, but I nod. “I’m okay, Mom.”
Mom nods and then meets my gaze, her blue eyes full of determination. “When I was fifteen, Ava, my father tried to rape me.”
Chapter Forty
Brendan
“What is that?” Lamone asks, eyeing the paper in my hand.
“It’s…” Am I at liberty to say? He certainly has the right to know his heritage, but Lauren and Jack seem like nice people, and we’re in their home.
Lauren takes the paper from me and hands it to Pat. “Here. This is your business. If you’re wondering, you are a Steel. And you are my son. I gave you up after I had you.”
Lamone’s eyes grow wide. “So it’s true. But who is William Steel?”
“As far as we know,” Dad says, “he was the half brother of Brad Steel. His father was George Steel, Brad’s father.”
“Who was his mother?” Lamone asks.
“Not Mackenzie Steel, who was his wife,” I say. “And we don’t know. William was apparently the result of an extramarital affair between George Steel and another woman. Mackenzie Steel only had one child. She wasn’t able to give George more children.”
“How do you know all this?” Dad asks me.
“Dale told me the whole story. He asked his dad and his uncle.”
“It’s…nice to meet you,” Pat says to Lauren. “I would have come sooner, but I had a hard time tracking you down.”
“My mother went out of her way to make sure you couldn’t find me when you were younger. I’m sorry about that.”
Pat nods. “Thank you…you know. For giving me life and all that.”
Lauren nods. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you.”
“I understand. I mean, I’m going to try to. But I need to know. Who is my father?”
I look to Dad.
He nods slightly and stands. “Brendan and I should be going.” He pulls out his wallet and hands Jack a card. “My cell phone number is on there. Call me when you want Brendan and me to do the DNA tests.”
Jack takes the card. “I will. Thanks. Both of you.”
Once we’re out of the house, I turn to Dad. “My God. I don’t like Lamone, but damn. He’s about to be told his father could be one of three men—and they’re all rapists. No one deserves that.”
Chapter Forty-One
Ava
God. Those two bites of cookie were a bad idea.
“Ava,” Dad says. “Are you okay?”
“How can you ask me that?” I gulp down the bile creeping up my throat as I push the plate of food across the table. “Mom…”
“It’s okay,” she says.
“Ruby…”
“Ryan, I’m fine. None of that is my life now, but she has to know. That’s the only way she’ll understand everything.”
“But—”
“I don’t know any other way to tell the story, Ryan.”
And then she begins, and I listen.
And I learn more about my mother than I ever wanted to know.
“See you later,” I said to my father, who was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. I’d left him a plate of dinner that was currently heating in the microwave.
“Where are you off to?” The harsh fluorescent lighting in the kitchen illuminated his features—was he angry, or simply mistrustful?—in an eerie way.
“Just meeting a friend for a milkshake. I’ll be home before dark.”
I’d had dinner alone. Theo was rarely home for dinner, and I had learned to fend for myself while living with my mother. She had worked three jobs to keep us afloat, and I’d been doing my own cooking since I was eight years old. Real cooking because the processed meals were more expensive than buying actual meat and vegetables. I’d been shopping and cooking for what seemed like most of my life.
Since I was only fifteen, it had been most of my life.
I walked toward the door, but his footsteps followed, and he overtook me. He stood against the door. “You’re not going anywhere tonight.”
I’d only lived with my father for a couple of months. So far, he’d given me an allowance. More money than I’d ever seen. He’d been good to me. He’d helped me get acclimated to my new home, the community, and had helped me make friends in the neighborhood. I was planning to meet one of those friends tonight for a shake.
“Dad.” The word fell from my lips in slow motion. It still didn’t feel right. The man was still a virtual stranger to me. But he’d been trying. At least up until now. “Dana’s expecting me. I won’t be late.” I reached for the doorknob.
“Not tonight, Ruby.” He brushed my hand from the knob.
I looked up at him. His eyes were so dark, almost black. He was a handsome man, olive complexion and dark hair, but something sinister lurked in his gaze tonight.
Something I hadn’t seen before.
Maybe I hadn’t been looking.
I was in danger.
I turned to run back into the kitchen and toward the back door, but he grabbed me by the arm and yanked me against his chest. Hard.
“What do you want? Why can’t I go meet Dana?”
“Because I need you here tonight.”
My heart thumped wildly. “Okay. What do you need?”
He yanked me over to the couch in the living room. “Take off your clothes.”
“No, Mom. Stop. Please.”
“I was wrong. She can’t take this, Ruby,” Dad soothes, “and neither can you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Ryan.” My mom inhales, steeling herself. “Have you forgotten how I grew up after that? How I was on my own for three years? Living on the streets and using a fake ID to get work?”
I drop my jaw. Mom lived on the streets? Did her father kick her out? Did—
“Ava has lived a sheltered life,” Dad says.
This time anger pulses through me, and I pound my fist on the table, nearly sending the plates flying. “Because you sheltered me! You sheltered all of us! You didn’t trust us with the truth of our history!”
“Put yourself in our shoes for a moment,” Dad says. “Would you want to tell a child of yours—an innocent child—about the horrific past of our family?”
I swallow, regard my father.
His brown eyes are sunken and sad, but then—
I look at my mother.
Her blue eyes are on fire.
“Speak for yourself, Ryan,” she chides. “Not everyone agreed it was best to stifle our past. Melanie and I wanted to tell them. Just bits and pieces as they could handle it. But no. You and Marjorie and your brothers wanted to bury it all. You thought it would all magically disappear. Life isn’t like that. Life isn’t one big Steel party!”
“Ruby, baby…”
Mom chokes back what may be a sob. Or it may just be anger. “I’m all in now. And my daughter is as strong as I was at that age, perhaps even stronger. I went out on my own because I had no choice. Ava had every resource available to her, and she went out and made a life for herself anyway. That’s strength, Ryan.” She turns to me. “Can you take it, Ava? The rest of my story?”
I see my mother’s strength, then. Truly see it. I never doubted it. Always knew, as a cop, she had to be strong. But I never actually saw it in action—not with the defiant look she’s giving Dad now.
And I know. I know I’m more like her than I ever realized.
“Yes, Mom. Yes. I can take it. Tell me your story. I want to know where I came from.”
“Are you sure? Because I haven’t told this story in nearly three decades, and I’m not about to mince words.”
I nod, swallowing back the last of my nausea. No more. No more getting sick over the past. It’s time to face it, deal with it, and learn from it.
“I’m sure.”
I jolted backward. “What?”
“You heard me. Take off your clothes. You’re beautiful. Let me see that body of yours.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “No. I won’t.”
I scrambled away, but he caught me again and then dragged me into his bedroom. I wrenched away, but he grabbed me and turned me around to face him.
“Come here. Show Daddy how much you love him.” His grasp was firm. “Now take off those clothes.”
“I won’t!”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“Are you crazy? I’m your daughter!”
“Makes no difference. Let me see that body.”
I gathered every ounce of strength and ran toward the door, but again he caught me.
“You asked for it now.” He punched me in the cheek, and a dull thud echoed in the room.
For a second, nothing happened, and then the pain hit. I cried out.
“Scream. Go ahead and scream. It’s better that way,” he said, an evil gleam in his eye.
I made a deal with myself at that moment. I would not scream again, no matter what he did to me.
“You’re a slut, just like your slut mother. She wasn’t good for anything but a fuck. A one-nighter that went wrong, and now I’m saddled with you.”
My heart thrummed wildly as fear overtook me and self-preservation kicked in. “You don’t have to be. I’ll leave. I’ll never bother you again.” And I meant those words, for now I knew who and what my father truly was.
“Not yet. Not until I see what you have to offer. You’re a pretty thing, with your mother’s fair skin. My dark hair. And you don’t mind showing off that tight little body in those belly tops and tight jeans you wear. What do you expect?”
“I don’t expect my own father to rape me!”
He grabbed me and tossed me onto the bed. “Well, little daughter, rarely in this life do we get what we expect.”
Acid bubbled in my stomach and meandered up my throat. I turned my head and retched, but nothing came up.
He punched me again.
“You throw up, and I’ll make this worse.”
As if in answer, I heaved again and vomited onto his bed.
“Bitch!” He punched me again and then shook me. Then he ripped my shirt off me.
I closed my eyes. Maybe I could escape into my mind. Think of something else.
But instead, without looking, I raised both my legs and pushed outward, kicking.
He flew across the room.
I opened my eyes in time to see him land with an oof.
I got up and ran for the door, but again he caught me, turning me.
I scrunched my eyes closed again and kneed him between his legs, hoping I had the strength I needed to incapacitate him.
“Auugh!” This time he yelled and crumpled to the floor. “Bitch. You fucking little slut!”
