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Bryan whispers, “The computer is over there.” He points a remote at the far wall and the wainscoting slides away to reveal a long granite countertop with twin computers. The screensaver on both sleeping computers is a picture of Constance seated in an antique chair wearing a red ballgown by the fireplace. That white bear is at her side with a scarlet collar. It’s formal. It’s beautiful. It’s terrifying. And it’s trying to domesticate Constance and her pet like it’s a normal picture of Grandma and her pet.
I start giggling. I can’t help it. One of the babies rouses and Bryan ushers me into another room off the nursery.
Chapter 8
Bryan flicks on the lights and deposits me at the table. Ah, the kitchen. When the door closes, he asks, “What would you like? I’ll make it for you?”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to. Listen, you want to know what happened and I’m here. Egg sandwich? Bacon?” Bryan holds a frying pan in his left hand. His green gaze is earnest.
“Okay. Thanks.” I’ll take someone cooking me food. I think I forgot to eat today. I’m ravenous. I move our conversation back to the taboo. “So what happened to you? Zombie? Lazarus complex? Because I remember you getting super shot and being very dead.”
He shrugs as he cracks eggs directly into the pan. “Something like that. I walked in front of the bullet. I did that part.”
“It didn’t kill you?”
“Unfortunately, no.” He doesn’t offer anything else, but there’s more to the story or he wouldn’t be standing here. I want all of it. It involved my crazy family, so I need to know.
There’s a span of silence so I press, “So what happened?”
Bryan busies himself so he doesn’t have to look at me during this conversation. After a moment, he opens his mouth, closes it again. Nods like he’s listening to music, and then shakes his head. “There’s no good way to say it, Avery. First, you must understand that life is weird. I realized that when I woke up in the body bag on the way to the morgue. Aunt Connie found out—like she does—and rerouted them to a private residence that had a state-of-the-art medical facility. When it comes to Aunt Connie and why she has anything, I don’t ask. It’s better that way.”
“Agreed. Go on.” I lift my hand as he glances over his shoulder at me before reaching for the basket of eggs. They look like they came from a farmer. He cracks a few and whips in some cream.
Bryan continues, “They stabilized me and then I was taken to Aunt Connie’s childhood home in the middle of the ocean until I healed.”
“But—?”
He holds up a finger without looking at me. “That’s not the weird part. Hold on a sec.”
“Waking up in a body bag wasn’t the weird part?” That’s shocking.
Bryan shakes his head as he shifts the eggs around in the hot pan. “Not by a long shot. So, when I finally realize I’m not dead, that I’m at Aunt Connie’s childhood home, there’s only one woman there. The caretaker—Gina. She obviously had some crazy story I was never told, but she helped me get better, heal from the shot. As that was going on, a wealthy American based medical company bought this tiny island nearby. Mind you, I had no idea where I was. I’m still not entirely sure.”
For a moment all I can do is blink. I don’t know which question to ask first. So I just take a stab. “Why would they buy an island?”
“Ha. One of the questions I can actually answer for you. They do it to get beyond the reach of U.S. law. To run their medicine the way they wanted. It was a cancer treatment facility that recently came into enough funding to move their entire lab and all its employees to this tiny island outside the United States.”
“Hmm.” My voice drips with sarcasm. “I wonder who paid for that?”
“Constance. No doubt.” Bryan lifts the lid on a box and pulls out a fresh loaf of bread. It looks homemade. He slices off two pieces and places them into a toaster and presses the button. Then stirs the eggs.
“None at all.” I agree. “The walls are gold. Go on. State of the art medicine with no oversight. Did they have any monkey outbreaks?”
“No. They were able to do things that they could not do here. It’s not uncommon for a company to have its main research facility in a country that allows for better research. And I’m not talking animal hosts versus human. I mean treatments that are so off label here that doctors can’t mention them. Long story short, I received a few controversial treatments. Then some of the normal chemo crap, and here I am.”
“And the cancer?”
“Still there, but dormant. Gives me a bitching headache at times, but I’m alive.” He hands me a plate with eggs, toast, and bacon. Then sits across from me and folds his arms over the tabletop. “I just wish I didn’t miss all that time with Hallie.”
I nod slowly as I make my eggs, toast, and bacon into a sandwich. There’s something he either just found out or doesn’t yet know. “Have you spoken to Hallie?”
His lips part and there’s such a sadness there, that I know he hasn’t. “What am I supposed to say?”
I poke around, hoping he’ll say something if he knows he has a son. “I suggest ‘Honey, don’t freak out.’”
“I can’t.” His voice is clipped, like he wants to say more but has no words.
I stand, grab a glass, and open the fridge to grab some juice. As I pour the orange liquid in the tumbler, I offer, “If this scenario happened to Sean, I would want to know.”
When I sit back down, he asks, “But what if she’s moved on?”
“What if she hasn’t? It’s only been a few years.”
His heart is on his face at that moment and it’s broken. Pain is etched in his featured, in the dullness of his eyes and the way his lips sag from hopelessness. “Even if I wanted to tell her, I don’t know where she’s gone.”
“Constance knows.” I eye him, wondering if I should tell him that my babies have a cousin. But then Sean and his mother will have another falling. “Ask your aunt. But don’t say anything about me.”
I take a few bites of my sandwich. It tastes amazing. A moment later, Bryan shakes his head and places his hands down on the table. “Nah. Too much time has passed. I left things very poorly with her. I can’t do that to her again.”
“So, don’t.” There’s food in my mouth, but I don’t care. He needs to hear it. “She was the love of your life. I’m pretty sure you only get one of those.”
He points to his head, to the cancer. “This could come back.”
“And I could get blown up in another mansion this week. So? Life’s a risk. You can’t hide from it. Besides, you should really talk to her.” Super hint. Take the freaking hint. Our gazes are locked in a challenge.
“You know something about her. Tell me.” There’s the Ferro cockiness. The demand. I’ve got him and I know it.
Without looking away, I lie to his face. I shake my head. “I don’t know a thing. Except that love is rare and you shouldn’t waste your chance.”
“I broke her heart. More than once.”
“So mend it.”
“I abandoned her.”
“No, you died. And some chick named Gina—that Constance probably kidnapped—brought you back to life. When did you get back anyway?” A private island home that no one knows about. Secret medical facilities that put his cancer into remission. I want to ask what they did. If they removed the tumor. Shrunk it or what. There’s no scar on his head, but he has very, very short hair.
“Yesterday. I finished the chemo a couple of weeks ago. Left the island on a staff jet, and headed back here to find Aunt Connie. My mother thinks I’m dead. They all do.”
“Right. Well, everyone except the asshole who sent that letter.”
“Yeah. Him. I’ve been thinking about that. That was a Ferro funded cancer facility, so I doubt they said anything unless there’s a mole. And Gina is still on the island and has an obvious loyalty to the Ferro family—no idea why. I can’t see who knows about me to even suggest it. Years passed, Avery.
The only reason I walked into the hospital was to convince you to leave. Aunt Connie thought you’d refuse.”
“I would have.” I polish my plate before we continue speaking. “So, the letter—the threat to my boy—is either fake or we’re missing someone. Where’s Jos?” His twin disappeared a while back and no one has heard from her.
He shrugs. “Off the grid. Aunt Connie can’t find her.”
I nod slowly, then pick up my plate and walk it over to the sink. As I put down my dishes, my back is to him. I repeat, “You need to talk to Hallie.” But the way the words hang in the air, I know he won’t.
Chapter 9
The next few days pass in a blur. My circadian rhythm has gone insane and sleep comes at weird times and I find myself falling asleep on the soft chaise in the new solarium—which is totally a Turkish bath—with an unnamed baby in my arms. I look down at his face and see a tiny version of Sean. He has the Ferro chin that emanates pride. When he’s awake, those intense blue eyes lock on mine. It feels like he has the answers to millions of questions that I never thought to ask. He’s a little sage, all saddled in blue, and snuggled up against my aching breasts, listening to the sound of water slip over the stone and splash in the pool beneath. Each rock was hand carved so the water sounds more like music than the heavy weight of smashing waterfalls.
“What are we going to name you?” I unwrap him from his blanket as he wakes up, sapphire eyes locked on mine. He’s wearing a cornflower blue onesie that says BIG BROTHER. By less than two minutes. And this is the child that was threatened. The one nowhere near having a name. Sean won’t hear of having a namesake. Constance practically demanded variations of her name for both children, which isn’t happening. I finally said I wanted to get to know them first, before naming them. A name is a big deal. It sticks with you your entire life. It dictates what others think of you and eventually what you become. Avery reeked of stubbornness, intellect, and more stubbornness. My parents could have named me Wise Ass and I’d have grown into the same person.
I hold baby no-name up in my arms and do a baby bench press, lowering his tiny nose to mine. “Alexander?” His nose crinkles. “No, I didn’t like that one either. What about Arthur?”
