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“Aren’t related whatsoever. Pilar Mallick, who goes by the name of Noa Sloane, was simply my ward and a bad decision made by a man I called a friend.” Grandpa paused. “A man who’s now dead after we pursued him.”
Mom looked at my father. We all did.
“His name was Godfrey Sloane. His wife Marilyn. Godfrey used to work for me—”
“We know,” Dad said. “We know all about that. The kids told us who Sloane’s alleged parents were, and it wasn’t hard to figure out the connection to you. He used to work at one of our plants, work for you.”
“Yes, but I’m sure your team also knows he left the company shortly after the initial kidnapping when the child went missing. My people looked into this too. Godfrey and his wife had issues having children. The pair lived not far from Maywood Heights. I’m sure Sloane was the perfect opportunity for them. They skipped town not long after, went off the grid.”
“And the man just so happened to give the baby to you after his demise, which was apparently false?” Dad eyed the room. “Quite coincidental.”
“I’m sure you know it’s not.”
I blinked, my dad and more than one person in the room twitching too.
Grandpa’s sigh was once again heavy. “You know my history. It’s the same reason I’ve given your family space, something I’ve been doing for over a decade and at your request despite you sending people to watch me over the years.”
Dad frowned, and it was news to me he’d asked Grandpa to stay back. He hated his dad.
I suppose it shouldn’t have been news then.
Even still, it was, and my father cleared his throat.
“I’ve been doing everything you’ve asked of me with the exception of most recently when your son came to me, son,” Grandpa said. “But even still, that doesn’t excuse my history and who my old friend Godfrey believed I was.”
“Which is?” Dad asked, and there was silence on the phone again, rustling. Someone’s voice came in, hushed, hurried. I heard mention of the words must hurry and others, which had the people in the room jotting things down, police, detectives. I couldn’t hear much clearly, but what had been said definitely made people uneasy. There was lots of shifting, and my mother touched my dad.
“Someone who did something terrible in the past,” Grandpa said, surprising me. “And I don’t expect retribution, nor your forgiveness. I’m just saying that’s who Godfrey believed I was. He trusted me to take care of someone who clearly wasn’t his own, and when I found that out, one thing he probably didn’t expect was for me to try to reunite the girl he and his wife had taken with her real family. In fact, I’m sure that was the opposite of what he believed because not only did he come back, come back to kill her and cover up what he’d done…”
My mom gasped, and Dad froze. My stomach twisted the fuck up too, and my god dad noticed.
Jax’s hands tightened on my arms in a firm grip. It wasn’t unknown my relationship with the girl we were all speaking about. I introduced her to Brielle as my girl that day at school, so of course, the other parents knew that detail too now. Sloane was my girl.
And I loved her.
I think sharing that with her might have pushed her further away in the end. She hadn’t been shy about letting me know she hadn’t trusted me in the past.
A sharp chill racked my fucking body, my grandpa speaking again.
“He would have had it not been for Lucas, my head of security. We found Sloane and Godfrey in a warehouse in the end. The man had been about to blow the place to kingdom come. He faked his own death and, after he took care of Sloane, planned to take his actual son away. Bruno Sloane, Noa’s kid brother, is actually biologically his.”
“And how do you know all this?” Dad shot, his teeth bared again. “How could you possibly know all this?”
“The man detailed it, son. All of it.” Hushed voices occurred in the background once more, and I was sure I wasn’t the only one straining to hear them. Someone was trying to get word in to my grandfather about something. “He’d been staying in a motel. The motel called the hospital after seeing Sloane’s story on the news, a story I leaked to help find Godfrey in the first place.”
That sharp chill cut across me again, my parents exchanging the same look. Dad covered the phone, and with the way they weren’t speaking to each other, they clearly were at a loss for words. Before I knew it, my mom of all people was taking the phone.
“You really were trying to get her back?” she asked, and no one attempted to keep her from doing this. Not even my dad. Though, his jaw had clearly tightened. He didn’t want this, this exchange.
But hell if anyone could stop my mother from doing anything she wanted to do.
“And speak quickly, Callum,” she said, her voice rough, low. “You talk now because I swear to God, if you’re lying, I’ll come for you myself.”
“Em.” Dad took Mom’s hand, but even still he waited patiently. Perhaps he wanted to know the answer too.
“I’ve been a lot of things. I have done and was a lot of things, but I am not this man my old friend believed,” Grandpa said, and I noticed he didn’t acknowledge the change of voices. He had to have an indicator this was my mom though. He had to know. “I’m not, and I truly have been trying to get Noa back to her family. Back to your friends. I only apologize for how long the process was taking. We were still trying to collect evidence and unearth a lot of things Godfrey attempted to cover up. It was a tedious process, and one I thought best to keep quiet until at least we’d concluded and had all the evidence. We were reaching the end of that process when Sloane was taken.”
Which explained why he lied to me about knowing who she truly was… I guess. He told me none of this in Sloane’s kitchen that day when I ran into him.
