Isaiah
My mouth clamped shutwith horror.
Everything slowed.
The phone fell to the floor, and it felt like hours had passed before I heard the crashing of it hit the ground.
Gemma Richardson is your daughter.
Gemma Richardson is your daughter.
Gemma Richardson is your daughter.
I watched in absolute confusion as my uncle’s face morphed from shock into anguish. His clenched fist came up to his mouth.
Gemma Richardson is your daughter.
“No,” I said.
Sick. I was going to be sick. I shook my head. “No. No. No. She...she can’t be your fucking daughter. The test is wrong.” I pointed my finger in his face. “If you suspected she was your daughter…” My hand shook as I felt the blood seep from my fingers. “No. That means…” Have I been fucking my cousin? That couldn’t be true.
“Isaiah.” Uncle Tate’s hands came down on my shoulders, and I just stood there in unbelievable shock.
“Have I been fucking my cousin?!” I roared, whipping his hands off my body. Jesus Christ. The connection. Was it because we were fucking related? Why was this happening? Why did this feel like the walls were caving in? Why did I feel my heart had stopped beating but I was somehow still alive through it all? “There’s no fucking way, Uncle Tate. Are you fucking telling me that I am in love with my cousin?”
“Isaiah.” Cade’s face came in front of mine as the room flipped on its side. “Calm down right fucking now! Open your ears, and listen to what he’s saying!”
I reared back, ready to punch him so I could attack my uncle. How could he have kept this to himself? “My ears are fucking open! She’s his daughter, Cade!”
I shook my head, taking a step back until I reached the far wall, and I pushed myself up against it. My uncle rushed over to me and pushed his forearm to my throat so I was forced to look at him. “Goddammnit, get a grip! She isn’t your cousin, Isaiah!”
“What?” I yelled, gasping through uneven breaths. His forearm laid tightly on my throat as his green eyes drove into mine. They even had the same color eyes! Exact fucking shade of green.
“She isn’t your cousin, Isaiah. You are not related.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I just heard Beth!” My hand gestured toward the phone that was still laying on the floor. The room was quiet. So quiet you could hear a pin drop.
My uncle’s arm slowly fell from my throat, and oxygen swarmed my lungs. He walked away, placing his hands on his hips. “I’m going to make this as short as possible, because she’s missing, and every second that we stand here is another second that she is in trouble.”
Good. We’re on the same fucking page.
“I am not your uncle.” My teeth came down on one another as I stood ramrod straight. “And I didn't leave the family business because I wanted to, Isaiah. I was kicked out of it.”
I heard his words. I watched as his mouth moved. But I couldn’t comprehend it.
“What?”
He nodded. “I am not your father’s biological brother. Your grandmother took me in when I was left orphaned because of something your grandfather did to my parents.” He swallowed. “Your dad and I didn’t know we weren’t real brothers until we were around your age. That’s when your grandpa kicked me out of the family because I had the wrong blood running through my veins. He had always hated me, and I didn’t know why until then.” Uncle Tate kept his face even, but I detected the dip in his voice. The low tone of despair and guilt. “Long story short, he and I made a deal, with the convincing of your grandmother and father. He would spare me and do the one thing I asked, and then I would never ever speak of the family business, and I would change my name so I was no longer affiliated.” His lips formed a straight line, the light-pale color appearing white as he tensed. “If he helped my friend, Emily, get out of some trouble, then I would leave and burn all the incriminating shit I had on him. He wanted to kill me, but believe it or not, your father convinced him not to. Then, of course, once he died, your father and I connected again. Your father didn’t trust me. He’d changed over the years, but there was still a slight brotherly bond between us. Bain being here was a coincidence that ended in his favor, thus sending you here to do his dirty work.”
“Emily,” I whispered. “She was the friend you told me about. The girl that was sent to the group home by the hands of Judge Stallard instead of going to prison.”
He nodded solemnly. “I sent her to the fucking hands of a monster so she wouldn’t have to go to prison.”
Fuck.
“Emily is Gemma’s mother. I didn’t know she was pregnant. She didn’t tell me, and every time I tried to contact her in the group home, I was shut down. As soon as the five years was up and I contacted Judge Stallard, they had said she finished out her sentence early and had left without even a goodbye. I had private investigators. Everything. She had just disappeared.”
My fingers dug into my scalp as I pulled on the ends of my hair, remembering what Gemma had told me that night in the library when another memory stole her from me. “That’s because he threw her into the Covens.” I shook my head, pacing back and forth inside Gemma’s tiny fucking room with too many sets of eyes tracking me. “She watched that sick fuck throw her mother into a padded room all because she didn’t want to marry him. He raped her, and he all but told Gemma the same thing would happen to her if she didn’t follow his rules.” The pictures of her were surfacing in my mind, and I looked at Cade.
“Tell him, Isaiah. Tell him everything.”
“He’s doing the same to her.” I pulled back at the sound of Mrs. Fitz’s voice, stunned that she had stolen the words out of my mouth.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Mrs. Fitz stepped forward with tears gathering. The papers in her hands were thrust outward, and I rushed over and stood beside my uncle…my not uncle?...whose entire body tensed like a concrete pillar.
Sketch after sketch of the most horrific drawings shook within Mrs. Fitz’s fingers. “These are Gemma’s drawings. I saw them while moving some things around in the supply closet. They were hidden, Tate, as if she didn’t want anyone to see them.”
Cade stepped forward. “That’s what she’s been drawing in the mornings, Isaiah. I saw her dip into the closet a few days ago when you were in the pool. I assumed she was just putting supplies away.”
“What...” Uncle Tate’s words slowly evaporated into thin air as his face hardened with each sketch placed in front of him.