"You're the caretaker," King said.
"I am," I responded. I wondered exactly how much Lex had told him. I wanted to believe that Lex hadn't betrayed my confidence by telling his brother things that hadn't been meant for his ears, but the only way to know for sure was to ask the man across from me and I wasn't about to do that.
But the observant asshole seemed to pick up on it himself because he said, "Don't worry, he didn't tell me anything about you other than the fact that you were taking care of the place that he was staying in and that he was afraid he'd fucked things up with you."
I wasn't really sure what King was talking about, especially since I had no idea when Lex had talked to him. The reality was that Lex and I had hurt each other on more than one occasion before today.
"He thinks he pushed you too hard," King continued.
"He didn't," I said. It was all I was going to say to Lex's interfering brother. Three weeks ago, I had blamed Lex for pushing me too hard about needing to deal with what had happened to Bethie, but I wasn't angry about that anymore. I’d foolishly thought that I could somehow get away with not grieving for the child I'd buried as well as for the child who hated me. But all I’d done was bury that shit so deep inside me that all it could do was fester. The truth was that I’d been on the same road Lex had been on when he'd arrived in Fisher Cove. But while he'd instantly regretted his decision to pump too much insulin into his body in that one weak moment, I couldn't say that I would've had that same regret. I'd been doing exactly what Lex had begged me not to… I'd given up. Only, I’d done it three years ago when I'd learned what Serena had done to herself and our child.
"I heard him telling you to let him go," King said as he leaned forward in the chair and began rubbing his palms back and forth over each other. It was the only hint of tension in him.
"I didn't want him to hurt himself in his rush to get away from me. I would never hurt him. I'd never lay a hand on him in anger."
King was silent for a moment. "He never told any of us about Grady. I'm assuming he told you."
I nodded.
"Yeah, well, the first time I heard about the guy was when I walked in and saw him beating the shit out of Lex. I promised Lex when he was little that no one would ever lay a hand on him again."
"Again?" I asked. I found myself tightening my grip on Lex.
"He was always small for his age," King murmured. "Small kids can do okay in foster care if they're the right kind of strong."
"There's a right kind?"
"In there? Yeah, there’s a right kind." King's eyes shifted to Lex and I didn't miss the affection in them. It seemed out of place for such a cold, hard man.
"He had strength in spades. Had to, I guess. All those doctors poking and prodding him all the time. The needles, the tests… that shit would have killed a weaker kid. 'Specially one who had to do it all by himself."
I thought back to what Lex had told me about growing up in foster care… that he’d learned early on not to trust anyone, not even the adults. The only ones he’d ever trusted were his brothers. As I studied King, something clicked.
"You're not his real brother, are you?"
King shook his head. "No, none of us are." I assumed he was referring to the other three brothers, since Lex had mentioned having four brothers in all. As much as King pissed me off, the opportunity to learn more about Lex was something I couldn't pass up. Especially since King seemed to be so willing to share the information.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.
"Because you had the chance to keep walking in your bedroom, but you stopped when he asked you to. You stayed when he needed you to." King leaned back in the chair and scanned the living room. I wasn't sure if he was judging it or not, but I really didn't care.
"How did you meet him?"
"It was my sixth foster home and Con's fourth, I think," King said.
"Con? Another brother?"
King nodded. "Everyone knew the Bentleys were in it for the cash. They always had half a dozen kids under their roof at one time. The second Con and I saw the caseworker lead Lex into the house, we knew he'd never make it. The Bentleys would've just knocked him around a bit, but their real son—Con and I called him Pitts because he always had pit stains—anyway, he got off on messing with the younger kids… the younger boys to be exact. DCFS pretended not to know about it, but they conveniently only placed young girls with the Bentleys. Any boys who got placed there were Pitts’s age or older. They put Lex with the Bentleys because it was harder and harder to find a place that would take him because he was always so sick. Anyway, we knew Pitts would go after Lex."
"Did he?" I somehow managed to choke out. The mere thought of Lex being at the hands of someone who would hurt him like that made me violently ill.
King shook his head. "His two broken arms made it kind of tough," the man said easily.
I should've been horrified at the prospect that King or his brother had broken some kid's arms, but I wasn't. I didn't care what that said about me.
"So you protected him?" I offered.
King shrugged. "There were a few kinks in the system here and there that we had to work through, but we figured it out."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, with Pitts for example, Con and I each took an arm. But only one of us could take the blame or we both would've been moved out of the house and Lex would've been stuck there by himself. We were able to cover Lex most of the time. Even if we couldn't get ourselves into the same foster home as him, we were able to keep track of where he was and then it was just a matter of sitting on the house whenever we could. Most times, we just made sure to keep Lex with us during the day. That made things a lot easier. After a while, the social workers figured out that we were more trouble apart than together, so they didn't move us around so much. It meant that we spent more time in group homes because there weren't a lot of foster families that were willing to take in three boys all at once and also deal with a kid who had so many health problems, but that was fine by us. In the group homes, you knew what you were getting. You knew which guards liked roughing you up versus which ones went the other way."
Something about the way he said the last words had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. But I didn't ask him what he meant.
"He said he has four brothers. Who are the other two?"
"Luca and Vaughn. They’re actual brothers."
"Were they also foster kids?"
King shook his head. "No, but they probably would've been better off if they had been," was all he said.
I sighed because even though he’d shared a good deal of information with me, he really hadn't told me anything. I still didn't have a clue why Lex had reacted so strongly when I’d told him I loved him. But that wasn't something that King could've answered anyway.
"So that tells me who you are, but it doesn't tell me why you're here," I said.
"He hasn't told our brothers the truth," King said. "About his sight," he added. "He only told me because he knew I'd be able to keep our brothers, especially Con, from losing his shit about it. He and Con are particularly close."