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“He’s not the charitable type,” Asher said.
“No. He most definitely isn’t. I discovered that he had intentions to turn the backrooms of her establishments into underground gambling facilities and, later, brothels. He wanted to use the lounges as a front.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “I had no idea Mom was doing any of that.”
“I didn’t want you to. You just knew she was in business, I kept the rest out of it. Because she did work with him. I didn’t find out until later. Other things… distracted me. Well, they were used to distract me. Back when I was young and stupid and all about the thrill, lest the potential consequences.” I winced as he pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly distressed, before he revealed. “Carson and I were involved… with Isobel.”
“Involved? You were fucking?” Jonah asked in his usual blunt way.
My dad grimaced. “We had a connection, yes.” He looked at Killian. “Valerie was a part of it as well. Before she became involved with your father.”
“Oh God,” I choked.
“Jesus,” Killian groused.
“He tried to own you, didn’t he?” Asher spoke. “That’s what dissolved this… connection?”
“Yes. If I hadn’t agreed to go there with him and allowed Isobel to, things wouldn’t have ended up as they have.” He looked at me. “You wouldn’t have been without a mother, she wouldn’t have run from Carson’s obsession.”
I shook my head and walked to him. “Dad, she wasn’t much of a mother when she was around. She was always away and when you were deployed I spent more time with babysitters than her. Even when she was with me, she wasn’t attentive, I was just a chore to her, something keeping her from her work.”
“That’s not—”
“You don’t need to defend her for me. Especially when I know it’s not the truth. It’s okay.” I took his hand. “I’m not that little girl who needs shielding from things. I understand what a threat she is. I was there with the guys beating back that brutal attack from her people, remember? I’ve seen up close just how ruthless she can be.” I pulled away and gestured at Asher. “She tried to kill him. Tried to take him from me. She’s a power hungry monster. She’s the enemy.”
Killian sank onto the couch. “So, you and my mom?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. It was a long time ago, however.”
“Does Olivia know?”
“She knows everything.”
“That’s why she tried to help her? You asked her to?”
“I did.”
“My father was a consolation prize when she couldn’t have you? Is that it? Because you chose Isobel over her?”
“She was vulnerable when we broke it off. I couldn’t take her with me when I was deployed. I thought Isobel would be there for her, they’d grown close. And she was. But Carson used that connection to draw Isobel closer again while I was away. As they underwent an affair behind my back, Valerie was in Samuel’s orbit. He charmed her, and the rest is the disturbing history we know today.”
“Fuck,” Killian muttered. “And, wait, all these years, Isobel never tried to reach out to Aurora, her own daughter?”
“I hid Aurora for years under Blackthorn to protect her from Carson and Isobel. For Isobel, it’s a case of out-of-sight-out-of-mind. She doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body. She’s focused only on amassing power. She’s not right in the head. Carson saw to that. He took the slither of ambition she had back then and twisted it into this version of her now. And she let him. She wanted that from him. But once she got it, she left to break out on her own without any of his strings.”
“And you’ve been keeping her off his radar to avoid two dangerous and twisted beings like them from colliding?” Aaron asked.
“Correct.”
Caleb chimed in, “From what you’ve been amassing here in these files that you’ve allowed us to access, it appears you’re looking to do the opposite now?”
“You want to use them against one another,” Asher realized.
“Draw Carson and the Infidels to her and have them destroy each other,” Jonah mused. “I like it.”
“Just one snag. I don’t know where she is. It’s impossible to pinpoint her whereabouts at any given time, because she’s always on the move and she uses the Heretics to throw up a smokescreen even when she stays in one place for a forty-eight-hour period,” my dad said. “So we need to draw her to him.”
Jonah moved to the edge of the armchair he was lounging in and told us, “When my father tried to subdue me so he could take me with him, he told me that the Infidels are trying to break into the arms trade. It’s their Hail Mary now the dollhouse network is destroyed. We can use that.”
