Chris ignores my pledge like he did the half dozen I issued during our five minute trip. He knows me well enough to know I am lying. It is what makes as brothers as much as it makes us friends. I should have told him what the coroner’s report said years ago. I wanted to, but ethically, I couldn’t. His father pled guilty, so the dispute in paternity was never made public. Neither Chris nor Michael are Trevor’s sons. They bear his last name, but only Noah carries his bloodline.
Usually, paternity doesn't rise in cases involving family, but something Regina heard in the seconds leading to me fleeing the hospital four years ago altered the perspective. The DA wondered if the accident was indeed an accident, or if Trevor was seeking revenge for the lies his wife had told.
One look into Trevor's devasted eyes answered the DA's questions without a word spilling from Regina's lips. He didn't kill Michael for revenge. He didn't even know he wasn't his son until Regina visited him the week after the accident. He was as blindsided by our findings as Chris is now.
My heart races at the same frantic pace Chris is charging through his childhood home, shouting his mother's name on repeat. My eyes go crazy as I chase after him. This is the first time I've been in his home. I wish it were under better circumstances.
I stop taking in the raked ceiling and polished marble floor when we enter a kitchen bigger than the lower level of my home. I thought Chris's family was as poor as mine. I had no clue he lived in such opulence. This house isn't as large as Savannah's family mansion, but it has a regal feel that makes it seem more like a castle than a residence.
“Is it true?” Chris asks, storming to his mother.
I linger to the side when I notice his mother’s face doesn’t hold the same disdain it did when she greeted Noah years ago. She has love in her eyes, not hate.
My gaze snaps up from the floor when Chris yells, “Are you abusing Noah?”
His mother startles, as shocked as me. I thought he was coming here to seek answers about his paternity. I had no clue he was here for Noah.
"You promised it was the only time! You said it was part of your grief!" Chris yells when she fails to answer his question promptly. "How many times do I have to tell you, Noah isn’t to blame for what happened to Michael, Mom. He was just a kid. He isstillakid.”
“He’shisson—”
“He’s your son too!” Chris interrupts, his anger growing. “You’re the one who had him when Grumpies raised suspicion on my birthright You wanted to sink your hooks into Trevor’s inheritance. Noah gave you a hook.” He waves his hands around the state of the art kitchen. “Noah gave you this. If Dad didn’t have atrueheir, you would have never inherited Grumpies’ house.”
“He took my son! He killed him,” Chris’s mother argues with tears streaming down her face.
“No, he didn’t,” Chris denies, shaking his head. “Yourhusband did that.Yourticket to easy street killed Michael. Noah didn’t do anything wrong.” He stares down at his mother, his head shaking as much as his body. “I’m telling Noah the truth. He deserves to know the truth.”
“No,” Chris’s mom fights back, grabbing his arm when he pivots away from her. “You said you’d take your secret to the grave. You promised to keep my secret—”
“I promised to protect a woman who lost her son. I didn’t agree to watch my brother suffer. This is wrong, Mom. What you are doing to Noah is wrong.”
Chris’s trek through his family home is faster than his first. The room he wants is only a few feet from the kitchen, the smallest room in the house. It appears to be an old maid’s sleeping quarters.
The color heating Chris’s cheeks drains to the sole of his shoes when he walks into the barren space. Other than a dirty mattress sitting in one corner, the room is completely bare.
His mother blubbers out a string of incoherent words, no doubt a lengthy plea about the reason her teenage son’s room resembles one you’d expect to see in a crack house despite the rest of the house being furnished with priceless antiques and modern appliances. Nothing she is saying makes any sense, but Chris doesn’t need to hear her words for the truth to smack him in the face.
“Chris!” I shout when his open hand connects harshly with his mother’s right cheek.
Anger reddens Chris’s face as he tries to articulate the million thoughts running through his eyes, but not a word seeps from his lips.
“You’re a liar and a cheat, and I’m ashamed to call you my mother,” he eventually settles on.
When he exits Noah’s bedroom, it takes me a few seconds to follow after him. I’m too stunned to force my legs to move. He hit a woman right in front of me, but instead of arresting him as I had warned, I nearly cheered him on.
Fuck. Am I becoming my father?
Chapter 5
Ryan
“He’s not here,” I assure Chris when his manic search of his family home fails to find Noah. “He rarely stays here anymore.”
Chris’s chest reveals his exhaustion, rising and falling at double the rate of mine. I want to pretend his fatigue is merely from scanning every room in his massive home, but the width of his pupils reveals that isn’t the case. He is gasping in breaths with the hope it will ease the guilt sitting heavy on his chest.
How do I know this?
He has the same look on his face I did when I searched Savannah's family mansion four years ago. First, he was panicked. Then, he was angry. Now, he is confused. I tackled every emotion you could imagine the day Savannah left. I was so confident foul play was involved, I called Regina the instant I entered Thorn's empty room.
