“Not more heinous than that, but she made it very clear to me that she paid Mathias and Simpson off with that five million. She paid them with my own money to take my son!” He clenched his hands into fists. “Wendy would have been satisfied to hurt either one of you, but Talon was younger and easier prey. She paid Mathias and Simpson to take him and… Well, you all know what happened. I don’t want to repeat it.”

“No.” This time, Talon stood. “I’ll say it for you. Don’t think you shouldn’t have to hear what those bastards did to me. They starved me, beat me, raped me, inflicted such pain on me that I couldn’t have ever imagined. They told me I was worthless. An animal. They made me beg for food, for a blanket. They taunted me with ice water when I was so thirsty I couldn’t even make tears. They made me say that I liked being raped…that I liked their big cocks up my ass.”

Our father closed his eyes, cringing.

“A ten-year-old boy! Your son! I cried out for you that first time. I cried out for Mother. No one listened. No one came. My twisted half uncle finally let me go. He did more for me than you did.”

My father’s head sank into his hands.

“Easy, Tal,” I said.

“Oh, hell, no,” Joe said. “Our father needs to hear this.”

I looked to Marjorie, who was about to burst into tears. “I don’t disagree. But she doesn’t.”

Marjorie choked back sobs. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Joe and Talon both shifted their gazes to our little sister.

“God. You’re right. I’m sorry, Marj,” Joe said.

“Yeah, me too.” Talon sat back down.

She nodded. “I know. I’m okay.”

“And I know I was spared because I was Wendy’s son.” Acid burned my tongue. “Let’s get on with it.”

Our father lifted his head and nodded. “Daphne was pregnant, and due to the added stress of Talon’s kidnapping, she went into premature labor. You all know that Marjorie wasn’t expected to live. But our baby girl did.”

“And I came home to a new sister,” Talon said. This time he had a soft smile on his face. “A beautiful baby doll. The only thing that convinced me there was some good left in the world.”

Marj smiled through her tears.

“But Daphne was never the same after that. She did her best, but dealing with a newborn out of the NICU and then with a child who’d been through hell… She loved you both very much, but it was too much for her. She began to fade away, until the mother you knew and loved was no longer there. She couldn’t touch any of you anymore.”

“Why didn’t you get her help?” Talon asked.

“I did, of course. But then someone else got involved.”

“Let me guess,” I said sardonically. “My mother.” This had Wendy Madigan written all over it.

My father nodded. “She began to threaten your mother, and in her already precarious mental state, I couldn’t have that. After what had happened to Talon, I knew Wendy was capable of anything. The best way to deal with it was to fake your mother’s suicide. Even Wendy never knew.”

I couldn’t find fault with my father’s words. If Wendy had known Daphne was alive, she would have told me. No one knew. Not until we found her on the island.

“All this time, you were the only one who knew she was alive?” I said.

“Yes. Until now.”

“Do you think Mother is safe where she is?” Marj asked.

“As long as Wendy’s locked up in psych, yes.”

“You stayed with us then,” Marj said. “Why did you eventually leave us?”

“I stayed until you were of age, baby girl. That was the promise I made to you the day you were born, and I fulfilled it. After that, I knew your brothers would take care of you, and I needed to go to your mother.”

“Does she know you?”

“On her good days, she does. I visited her often before I left here. She was in a private compound in Florida.”

“How did she end up in a replica of our house on that godforsaken island?” Talon asked.

“Another long story.” He sighed. “By the time you all were adults, your mother had made a bit of progress—she remembered the three of you that she had borne, though she was convinced you were still young—and she kept asking to ‘go home.’ I couldn’t actually bring her here, because everyone thought she was dead. Plus, I couldn’t risk Wendy finding her. Wendy had uncovered almost everything about me, so I had to use kid gloves where your mother was concerned. So I did the next best thing. When I ‘died,’ I knew I couldn’t move assets around because you kids would go looking. So instead, I took the money earmarked for my bequest to the Fleming Corporation and used it to construct the replica. It calmed your mother to be ‘home,’ but sometimes she still needed an escape from the sensory disruption. So I built the guesthouse.”

“The muted white,” I said, more to myself than to my father.

“Yes. Sometimes your mo— Daphne needs to be free from all stimulation, so I’d take her there.”

“Why that island?” I asked. “Adjacent to that awful place.”

He cleared his throat. “Because I own it.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Ruby

“If you think I’m helping you do anything, think again.”

“You’ll help me with this,” he said, his tone low, and…was that a touch of remorse?

I must have been imagining it.

“What makes you think I will?”

“Because I’m going to find Gina.”

Franticness clawed at my gut. “Gina? After what you did to her?”

“I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Good thing.”

“I can say only this. I was desperate.”

“Desperate enough to rape your niece for years?”

“Yes. I know this doesn’t make sense to you.”

“This wouldn’t make sense to anyone, Theo.”

“I wasn’t in my right mind. I’m still not, but I’m not where I was. Things were…done to me. Things you wouldn’t understand.”

He had no idea that Brad Steel had told us about the training the three of them had endured. Still, I didn’t buy this remorseful act. I knew better than to believe his bullshit. But he knew how to get to me. No way would I say no to finding Gina.

“How could you let them have your own niece?”

“We were short. We had a contract to fulfill.”

“God. Do you even listen to yourself?”

“Ruby…”

“Really, Theo. You didn’t have to ‘groom’ her by raping her for eight years. You could have just taken her when you needed her.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“You got that right. None of this is simple. It’s sick and twisted.”

“I was messed up.”

I scoffed. “You think?”

“There are things you don’t know, that you wouldn’t understand.”

“I know the whole story, Theo. You were tortured and raped for money, to learn how to do it to others. One thing was different. You consented to that vileness.”

“Actually…I didn’t. None of us did.”

A brick dropped into my stomach. I said nothing.

“Wendy blackmailed us. All three of us.”

I stayed silent a few more seconds until I snapped myself out of my stupor. “What the hell could she have had on you? You hadn’t even gotten into anything that bad yet.”

“Wendy always had the upper hand. I tried to figure her out over the years. I never could. She was always one step ahead of us.”

“What was her failsafe?” I asked, not sure that I actually wanted to know.

“Documents, mostly. They linked us to some bad shit. More than just narcotics dealing.”

“Were they forged?”

“Most likely some of them were.” He paused for a minute. Then, “She dropped bits of information into the laps of her fellow journalists. They’d come after us, and then they’d hit a dead end. Sometimes they got pretty close, and we had to sweat it out. It was enough that she could keep us doing what we were doing.”

“She had that kind of power?” I said the words, but I knew the fallacy within them. She did have that kind of power. I’d seen it.

“Finally, she found out about you, Ruby.”

“So what?”

“She threatened you. That was enough to keep me in line.”

“Please spare me your father’s pride,” I said, trying to keep from gagging.

But he didn’t elaborate. “Ruby, listen to me. If you help me find Gina, I’ll make it worth your while.”

I would already do anything to help Gina. He didn’t have to bribe me. But what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. “You don’t have anything I want.”

“You’re wrong about that. I can take you to your mother.”

* * *

I sat immobile for what seemed like hours after the call from my father. I hadn’t looked for my mother. Never. I’d been told she was dead when the authorities took me and made me a ward of the state. Then, when they found my father, I’d gone to him. That had lasted about six months before he tried to rape me and I escaped at age fifteen.

He’d told me recently that my mother had voluntarily given me up because she couldn’t take care of me. I’d thought he was lying.

He still might be.

But if there was a chance…

If my mother was alive, I had to find her.

My phone buzzed. My contact at the FBI.

“Hey, Finley,” I said. “What’s the good news?”

“Hey, Lee. Mostly good,” he said. “We’ve found the parents of all the missing children except for young Dale and Don Robertson.”

My heart sank. “Oh?”