“I have a son?”
“You have two.”
Two? Had she gone back further in time to when Ryan hadn’t yet been born? “What is my other son’s name?” I asked.
“You know your son’s name, silly.” She smiled and batted her eyes.
“Humor me.” I stood over her, letting the gun sag a bit in my hand. “Tell me my son’s name, damn it.”
“Some weird name your slut wife picked out. Talmud or something.”
“Talon.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
I stood over her, rage pouring out of me. “If you refer to my wife as a slut again, Wendy, I’ll rip your throat right out of your neck.”
“I’m sorry. Please. Don’t leave me, Brad. I need you. Our child needs you.”
“Wendy, you know I’m married. Only Daphne is having my children.”
“I am. I am. I swear. I went to the doctor just the other day. He confirmed that I’m pregnant. It’s going to be a boy, Brad. A boy just like you. More beautiful than your two sons with Daphne, with a shining smile and eyes that laugh. Our son will be a god.”
Her words niggled at me. A boy. A Steel son that was considered the best looking and most jovial of the three.
Ryan.
No. Ryan truly was the most handsome of all of us, so he must have come from our mother. Daphne Steel was more beautiful than Wendy Madigan could ever hope to be.
Oh, God…
“Fast forward, Wendy. Tell me about our son.”
“He’s beautiful, just like I knew he would be. Dark eyes and hair like yours, Brad. But his eyes have a brightness that your other sons’ lack. I wanted to name him. I wanted to name him, but you wouldn’t let me.”
“Why?”
“You had a name in mind. But you let me give him his middle name. Warren, after my father.”
Warren? Ryan’s middle name was Warren, but it had been our mother’s maiden—
No, it hadn’t. Our mother’s maiden name was Wade. We had always been told it was Warren, and in fact, Warren was listed as her maiden name on her birth certificate and her marriage certificate. But Jade had uncovered her original birth certificate. The one in the database had been altered. Her actual name was Daphne Kay Wade. That was how we had first found out she was the half sister of Larry Wade.
No.
This could not be happening.
Ryan was not the spawn of my father and this crazy woman.
He looked like us, for God’s sake.
But…we all looked like our father. Marjorie was the only one who looked even slightly like our mother.
No. No. No.
Our mother would never have stood for it. She never would have raised another woman’s child as her own.
But our mother did as she was told… Always…