“My whole life was a lie…” I murmur as if in a trance. This has to be a dream, a sick and twisted dream. I’m just waiting for someone to come and wake me up.
“Don’t look at it like that,” Jared pleads. Lifting my gaze, I stare off into the distance. John wasn’t my father, but my uncle and Jared–Lorenzo’s right-hand man or driver, or whatever the fuck he was, is my brother.
“Did Enzo know?” It wouldn’t surprise me if he did. He knows everything. Secrets are kept deep in his mind, behind tightly closed lips.
Shaking his head, he says, “No. He didn’t. There’s more though. Just know none of us knew anything about this. I mean, hell, I didn’t even know, Amara. Believe me when I say I’m truly sorry. I never meant for any of this to take place, and I know you have already had so much heartache this year, but know you’re not alone.”
“Alone,” I huff out, almost wanting to laugh a hysterical laugh—not out of laughter but craziness, because honestly, I feel like I’m losing my mind.
“I mean, I know you lost John and your mother, but you have me now and our biological father. He wants to meet you.” The way he says it makes it seem like I should be happy. I should understand and accept it. To be grateful to have lost so much because I’ve gained two people.
Taking a few deep breaths, I rein in my anger, knowing it’s misplaced with Jared. It’s not his fault my parents are dead. He has been nothing but kind to me.
“How? How did this happen? What the fuck took place for this lie to spiral years and years out of control?”
Smiling, Jared stands. Where the fuck is he going? “Tell me everything,” I cry out as he walks into the open kitchen and grabs a bottle of something with brown contents. My guess is whiskey.
“I think we need this,” he says, walking back into the room to hand me the bottle. He has no fucking clue. Unscrewing the bottle cap, I tip the bottle back and take a huge swig.
The sweet whiskey hits my senses, and instead of a burn, I feel a deep warmth radiate through my insides, settling deep in my belly. The drink calms me slightly, so I decide to take another swig.
“Let me start at the beginning…” Jared says, watching me wipe away the excess whiskey. I sit the bottle on the table as Enzo emerges from the bedroom, coming to a stand behind Jared.
“John and James–our biological father–are estranged brothers, but it wasn’t always like that. Your mother married John when they were young, and they were happy at first, but John’s job as a police officer changed him. James was always on the wrong side of the law while John took his job a little too close to heart, and I think that’s what broke him at the end. I think he realized that nothing is as simple as good and bad, black and white. He ended up with a case involving the King Family.” Jared pauses, looking between Enzo and me. Have we been connected to one another since before our own births?
“Many of his own men, people he considered to be his best friends, were dying left and right. Killed mostly in the line of duty, but because there were many problems in the family back then, most died trying to take down The King Empire. During that time, John started working with the FBI, and that’s when John and your mother’s marriage turned dark. As he became more and more consumed with finding out what he could with the King family, his mind turned dark. Verbal abuse turned into physical abuse, and eventually, your mom was running. Running from a life she felt she had caused.”
“Wait. My mom felt she caused all these problems?” I can’t even wrap my head around this. My mother couldn’t be to blame. Then again, I thought John was a perfect angel. It was all a lie.
“Just listen,” Jared continues. “Then your mom fell pregnant with you. Now, I say fell because it wasn’t a planned pregnancy. Your mother had been seeing James behind John’s back. Most of the time, it was just out of comfort but eventually, it morphed into so much more. Anyway, John came home and found out about your mother’s affair. She had to tell him she was pregnant. He would have found out anyway. And thus, this started the long war of hate between the two brothers.
“Now, I’m not sure if the abuse stopped, but your mother broke off all contact with James. Told him to leave her alone. Maybe John simply made her keep it secret, or he actually changed. I do know that he did threaten to take you away if she ever told him. John later discovered our father was working for the King family. This only fueled his rage more. So, when your mother died, he used you. He made an agreement with Lorenzo putting you in the line of fire. He knew what he was doing. He just wasn’t seeing it for all it was… His need for vengeance and revenge was more important than his love for a child who was never his,” Jared finishes, and I can’t help but grab the bottle of whiskey again. This is too much.
Are there even words to describe how I’m feeling? Enzo killed John—someone I considered to be my father, but had he deserved it all along? Had he really beat my mother? Had he hurt the person I loved most and then used me for revenge?
The whiskey warmed me all over again as my insides burned like fire. “This is so fucked up,” I whisper into the air. Sitting the whiskey back down on the table, I look over at both of them.
“How did you find all this out?”
Jared smirks. “Well, asshole over here couldn’t handle losing you. He needed something to hold onto. I went to my father to do a little digging, and he told me. Turns out, on your mother’s death bed, she let our father know. She told him everything.”
I stare deeply into Enzo’s eyes. In them, I can see the flames of fire flickering back and forth. He did come for me. He wanted to save me. He may have been a man of death who held pain and heartache, but he knew love. After all, his vengeance was fueled by his love for his mother.
I take a deep breath, trying to digest all of it. It felt like one of those huge pills you had to take when you were sick. The bigger the pill, the harder it is to swallow.
“Let me recap, John and James are brothers. My mom married John, cheated on him with James because John was abusive. She then ended up pregnant with me, but only managed to stay with John because he said he would take me away. John’s anger stemmed from his brother working for Enzo’s family, who had killed numerous colleagues of his who had tried to bring them down. My mom never told James until she was dying. John took my mom’s death as a perfect chance to get revenge and made a deal with the new king of the family, knowing if his life were on the line, I would step in?” My mind is reeling. I feel like my life has been a complete lie, nothing but a charade.
All of this explains a lot but not soon enough. I should’ve known these things all along. I should’ve been told these things from the start. Times like now made me wish my mother was still here. Tears threaten to escape my eyes, but I force them back. I’ve been strong this far, I could go the extra mile, right?
“It’s okay to be frustrated and angry about it. I know I was, our father was, Enzo was.” Is he trying to justify the lies?
“It’s not okay. It’s not okay I was fed lies from the start, and it’s not okay I missed out on nearly twenty years of my life.” My words twist the knife in my chest. Saying them out loud makes it more real, more painful.