He glanced at Don with a wicked grin.
“You had company that night, didn’t you, Dad? She wasn’t the usual woman you liked to invite over when Mum wasn’t around though. This one was older. Rougher. She swore like a sailor and didn’t give a fuck. She wasn’t scared of you either, but then I guess she held all the cards, didn’t she?”
Don sank heavily back down onto his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing, but the daggers he secretly shot Jensen’s way didn’t go unnoticed.
“I don’t know what you think you heard, son, but I can assure you whatever it is, you’re wrong.”
“Am I? Really? After all these years, you’re going to go with that? Do you think I didn’t do my homework? I know everything, Dad.” Jensen looked smug, but from the things that were whirling around in my head, he had no right to be.
“I’d suggest you stop right there if you know what’s good for you!” Don shouted.
We all stepped forward. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to let Don put a stop to this. I needed every gory detail.
“I want to hear this.” I glared at Jensen to continue.
Harper clung to my side protectively as the others stood firm beside me. I braced myself. I wasn’t stupid. I knew exactly what Jensen was getting at, but I needed to hear it from him. Don just grabbed a bottle of whiskey out of the bottom drawer of his desk, twisted the lid off, and knocked it back.
“She said she had files with a solicitor. Told you that if anything ever happened to her or her grandson that those documents would go public and you’d be ruined. Your family, your marriage, your business. The whole lot. She’d expose you for the liar and cheat you really are. You offered her money to keep quiet, and she took it. Said she needed to get clothes for the boy, and seeing as you’d been the sperm donor it was only right you donated some cash towards it.
“I watched you, Dad. I heard you sorting out the paperwork for some sort of trust fund. Not much, but enough so she could put food on the table. You called him the bastard, but she referred to him by his name. That’s how I knew it was him.” He nodded at me. “He was my bastard brother. And that’s why I chose him. That’s why I bullied him so hard in school. I wanted him to kill himself. That was if I didn’t kill him first. He was gonna ruin us. Break Mum’s heart and destroy us all if I didn’t get to him first.”
The fire that scorched inside of me suddenly engulfed my heart and I almost cried out in pain. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I didn’t want to believe it.
Don banged his bottle onto the desk, sending sloshes of whiskey tumbling onto the polished wood, but Jensen didn’t let him get a word in. He wasn’t finished yet.
“Don’t even try to deny it, Dad. I heard you talking about paternity tests. That woman had you nailed to the fucking cross and you knew it.”
My stomach dropped and the blood boiled in my veins. Harper wrapped her arms around me to hug me and buried her face into my chest, groaning out in her pain for me, but I couldn’t hug her back.
I was numb.
Paralysed.
Disgusted.
“My nan.” Was all I could manage to say through the spiked ball lodged in my throat.
“That woman will be the death of me,” Don hissed.
“That’s all you can say?” Jensen turned his fury on to his father. “I tell them he’s your son and all you care about is that woman draining you of your fucking money.”
“He didn’t give her shit.” I snapped, defending my nan. “And don’t worry. I don’t want a penny either. I’m ashamed to think I came from the same gene pool as you. You disgust me.” I glared at Don, but he couldn’t look at me. Instead, he addressed Jensen like I wasn’t in the fucking room.
“Your mother doesn’t know any of this. I’d prefer it if it stayed that way.”
Jensen gritted his teeth and looked at Chase. I didn’t know what he was waiting for. Permission to shred the pieces of my life a little more?
“Why would I want to rip her heart out? You’ll do a good enough job of that yourself. You’ve probably got half a dozen bastards out there walking the streets of Sandland.” He walked over to Chase and they hugged. I heard Jensen say sorry as he held his brother. They’d grown up in a fucked-up household, but at least they had each other. I’d had no one.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Don looked over at me now. Harper dropped her arms and turned to stand in front of me, like a lioness defending her pride.
“And you didn’t do anything to help him either. Have you any idea what he went through in school? What they did to him? They should be locked up for it.” She bristled with hate as she addressed Don and then the brothers. She was seconds away from launching her own counter attack, I could tell.
“Your brother would be in there too then, princess,” Jensen added, looking over at her with a sly, sadistic smile. I don’t know how he could be from the same flesh and blood as me. He was as far removed from my world and my morals as a slug was to a reptile.
“And he’d deserve to be,” she shot back, holding her head up defiantly. “Cruelty like that shouldn’t go unpunished.”
“Is that why you’re with him? To make up for what Brodie and I did?” I went to move towards him, but Harper stopped me.
“I’m with him because I love him. He has more compassion, more warmth in his little finger than you have in your whole body. He’s kind, caring, smart, funny. He puts others before himself and he treats his friends better than most families treat each other. He’s the first to stand up for others. He’s decent and honest and…” She took a breath to try and calm herself down. “And I’m so fucking glad he didn’t end up here with you. He might not have the money or the Lockwood name, but I’m thanking my lucky stars for that. He is everything and you are nothing. You’re the ones who missed out, not him.” She pointed at Don as he scowled back at her from behind his desk. “You don’t deserve a son like Brandon. And he doesn’t deserve to have a cold-hearted bastard of a father like you.”
I fucking loved her. And in that moment, I wanted to get her as far away from the vileness of the Lockwood family as I could.
“Yeah, he’s so great. That’s why he did that to my brother’s face.” Chase piped up like the little bitch he was.
Harper went to grab for my t-shirt, and I knew right away what she was doing. She wanted to expose my scars and justify why I’d acted the way I had. But I didn’t need to prove myself to anyone.
“It’s all right, babe.” I put my hand over hers to soothe her. It broke me to see how much sadness and love she held in her eyes. I took a breath to clear my fogging thoughts and stared at the streaks of piss stood behind us. “I don’t need to justify shit to you, Lockwood. Any man who puts his hands on a woman deserves everything he gets. And bullies? Let’s just say karma does have a name and its Brandon fucking Mathers. I’m proud of my name, of who I am. And if you ever come near us again, I won’t stop like I did tonight. I don’t want anything to do with either one of you.”
I turned to the sperm donor, sitting there like the fucking lord of the manor. The man had done nothing for me growing up. We’d lived in poverty; we’d had fuck all. My nan could’ve fed us for a week on what he spent on a single pair of shoes. Probably have some left over for a treat, an ice-cream, or something that the rest of the kids I knew growing up took for granted. He might’ve given her something to help pay the bills, but it wasn’t because he had a conscience, it was because my nan had an insurance policy against him, and he’d do anything to keep his nose clean.