I never expected him to reply…
“Everything.”
Chapter 32
Caleb
Our stares locked.
“I need you to know that no one has to find out what I’m about to tell you.”
“Joseph, what’s going on? What kind of trouble are you in now?”
“I’m not the one who’s in trouble.” He opened his suit jacket, grabbing what looked like a photo. “This time it’s you.”
Before I could reply, he handed the photo to me. Almost instantly I tried controlling my temper. However, I failed miserably as I stared at a photo of him kissing the woman I least expected.
Tessa.
“When was this taken?”
Feeling the shift in my demeanor, he coaxed, “Caleb, what I’m about to divulge will make you hate me, but I need you to know I was beyond fucked up back then. Drinking, drugs, gambling. You name it, and I was doing it. I…” He shook his head, stumbling over his words. “If I could change what I did, I would.”
“Enough with the pep talk.” I glared at him, holding up the picture. “When the fuck was this taken?”
“A year before she got pregnant.”
My heart began beating at a rapid pace, a mile a minute with each word that drew me closer to what he had to confess.
“After Grandfather didn’t even consider me for the business, I was lost, blaming all my fuck ups on you. You were always the good son. All my life I’ve felt as if I’m walking through your shadow. Nothing I did was ever good enough, compared to what you could accomplish.”
My hand fisted at my side while anger coursed through my veins. The audacity of this piece of shit to blame me for his insecurities.
“I owed a lot of people money, and I didn’t know what else to do but con you.”
I jerked back. “Con me?”
“Yeah. We came up with a plan.”
“A plan for what?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, anxiety radiating off of him.
“To take your money.”
Our chests heaved in sync with one another, our heated emotions running wild. I could feel his remorse surrounding every last part of me. Just like a ticking time bomb, I waited for it to explode in my face.
“How did you know Tessa?”
“We randomly met at a bar one night. I thought I loved her.”
“So what? That makes it okay?”
“No. I’m sorry, Caleb. I wasn’t thinking. I would never—”
“I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses! Now fucking tell me what else you need to say!”
He hesitated for a moment. “The plan was to get you to marry her, but we didn’t know how until she ran into you and Evie at a pool party. For years she thought something was going on between you two, but as you know, Evie was your best kept secret. One night when she was in the shower, Tessa snuck into her bedroom and looked at her phone. After months of trying to figure out her password, she finally nailed it. It was your birthday.”
The realization hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. “That’s how she knew Jax was Evie’s brother.”
He nodded. “She found their text messages when she was looking for yours. I followed you around for weeks, trying to figure out how we could get you to marry her. We needed more ammunition other than blackmailing you with Jax, in case it wasn’t enough to convince you to marry her. It was the only way, Caleb.”
“What was?”
“You’ve always done the right thing. It’s who you are. It’s how you’re made.”
I was aware of where he was going with this. “You knew I’d marry her if she was carrying my baby.”
“Yeah.”
I tugged my hair away from my face, wanting to tear it the fuck out. “So you waited until I was shitfaced to make your plan go into effect. That’s why Tessa was in Evie’s bed that night.”
He nodded again. “Except we couldn’t risk her not getting pregnant.”
I grimaced, hanging on by a thread. “No … please don’t tell me…”
I thought I could handle anything the world threw at me. Especially when it came to my brother. However, nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.
Not his lies.
Not his truths.
Not. One. Damn. Thing.
The atomic bomb didn’t just explode in my face. It erupted throughout my entire body, leaving very little in its place as he declared, “Ethan’s my son.”
BOOM.
It was loud.
Tragic.
Triggering me to see nothing but fucking red.
Bright. Bold. Red.
I reacted.
Forcefully gripping onto his collared shirt, I slammed his back against the cement wall behind him, ready to fucking kill him.
He loudly gasped, sucking in the air I was taking from him.
“He’s not your son! He will never be your son!”
“I know he’s yours, Caleb. I swear to you.” He shook uncontrollably in my grasp. “I don’t want them, I swear … but I had to tell you. These lies are eating me alive!”