Preston looks like he might argue, but at last, he nods instead. “If you change your mind, let me know. We can send away for it, make sure it’s not some local quack the Dolces put in place to do their bidding.”
I raise a brow, but I don’t tell him he’s being ridiculous. I know what they’ve done to his family. If they’d done the same to mine, I’d be paranoid, too.
“If you want one just to put your mind at ease, I’ll do it,” I say. “But I don’t need that. I don’t need anything more from your family. As long as I have my scholarship, I can get out of here on my own.”
He nods. “I get it. But I’d also like the chance to defend my family.”
“Fair enough.”
“We would have taken care of you,” he says. “I would have. And there are others with the same mindset. Family is family. If you have Darling blood, you’re a Darling. In my eyes, it’s that simple.”
I shiver despite the damp heat, remembering Baron saying something similar when we were in the Midnight Swans’ basement. Now it all makes sense, why they did what they did to me, why they targeted me at all, why they went to such lengths. But understanding the mind of a psychopath doesn’t change the crime he commits. It doesn’t matter if they had a reason for ruining my life or Mabel’s, or Preston’s, or Colt’s. They did it. That’s what matters.
Still, some part of me is reassured by the fact that they did it all for a reason, that they thought I was the enemy. It feels less personal, what Royal did to me. Why he turned his back on me. I didn’t just feed information to his enemy. I was one of them. I’m surprised he let me in at all, that he told me all those things under the bridge, that he spent any time with me at all. Part of me wants to question whether it was a lie, whether he made me fall for him on purpose just to break me worse. But even if that was the goal, if we were both lying and using each other, each plotting against each other… What we felt was real. That part can’t be faked.
“The last thing I need is one more powerful man trying to control me,” I say to Preston after a pause. “No offense.”
He runs a hand over his face, freezing when his fingers meet his burned skin, as if he’d forgotten for a moment that he isn’t just Preston Darling, heir to this grand estate. He’s not just a rich benefactor offering to take care of me. He’s a victim, a phantom hiding away from the world because he’s hunted like prey and hideous to look at. At least, he thinks he is. To me, the scars remind me that he’s a survivor, too.
“He doesn’t control everything,” Preston says. “Not the way he used to, when my dad was here to help him. Now, there are plenty of us who are moving the family in a different direction. It doesn’t matter to me if your mom was married to a Darling any more than it matters when one of our women gets married and takes her husband’s name. Blood matters. Not all of us agree with what our grandfather did, disowning his own kin.”
“But it’s okay for him and, from what I’ve heard, several others to knock up women all over town and take no responsibility for that?”
Preston’s lips tighten. “You know I don’t agree with that, either.”
“You’re right,” I concede.
After all, he made sure I was on birth control before he stopped using condoms. He laid out my pill every morning like clockwork, as if to make extra sure it was effective. Now I shudder at the thought of what would have happened if I got pregnant, and if I really am related to him.
“We didn’t know you were out there,” he says. “It’s not really fair to act like we didn’t take care of you on purpose.”
I nod again, laying a hand on his arm. It’s the first time we’ve touched since Baron told me I was a Darling. “I know that,” I say. “You’ve taken care of me since the moment we met—hell, even before that. And you had no idea I might be a Darling. It just pisses me off that your family does that. I may not know what it’s like for a man to be all in for the sex and then want nothing to do with the consequences, but I know what it’s like tobethe consequence of a man like that.”
“You have every right to be pissed about that.” He shifts subtly so his arm moves out from under my hand. I realize then that he still thinks it might be true. He’s handling it with way more poise than I would if I believed it. “And if you want nothing to do with this family, I get that, too. You’ve already suffered plenty for us just because the Dolcesthinkyou’re a Darling. I’m going to look into it, though.”
“If it’ll put your mind at ease, get the DNA test,” I say again. “And I’ll ask my mom about the Darling she dated. She mentioned a JT. I’m assuming that’s John Jr?”
Preston nods. “I thought we’d wait until our granddad passed before we went looking for illegitimate Darlings, but if the Dolces are going after people who don’t even carry our name and those who never did…”
“Will he cut you out of the will if you do that?” I ask.
“Probably,” Preston admits. “But what choice do I have? I can’t let anyone else be targeted without warning like you were.”
“I don’t think it would have helped me to know they thought I was a Darling.”
Preston shrugs. “Maybe not. But it might have. You could have come to us, and we’d have at least tried to protect you. We got Sullivan out of town.”
My mind quickly runs over Baron’s recounting on the Darling family that night in the Swans’ lair. “Magnolia’s brother?” I guess.
“Yeah,” Preston says. “They’ll probably start going after the people who left once they’ve made every Darling in Faulkner pay. They’ll probably find Devlin then, too.”
“You really think he’s alive?”
“I know it,” Preston says with complete confidence. “If they find them, though…”
I rub the goosebumps on my arms. “They’ll make him pay,” I say, halfway to myself.
“We’ve all paid,” Preston says. “They’llkillhim.”