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He knelt alongside the chair his mother sat in and covered her hand with his. “How’d it all spiral out of control?”
Hitching her chin, Karina said, “I refused to be victimized.” Then her gaze dropped, as did her tone. “At first.”
“You would have told Mitcham everything at that point—before Wyatt could do it,” Scarlet guessed.
“I figured that would neutralize the situation with Wyatt. And I believed enough in my relationship with my husband that I felt I could tell him about my past. More so than what I’d ever said, which was just that I’d met someone, we’d gotten carried away, and I had Sam.”
“But there was a game-changer,” Scarlet ventured.
“Yes.” Karina sighed. “Wyatt threatened Sam’s life. I’m a mother, Miss Drake,” she said as her gaze lifted to meet Scarlet’s. “I couldn’t have that. Wyatt wanted twenty million. I told him I could get him eighteen.”
Scarlet frowned. “Why didn’t you go to the police or the FBI with this from the onset?”
“I just couldn’t.”
“They would have provided protection,” Scarlet told her. “Mitcham would have—”
“It was more than that, Miss Drake.”
“You didn’t want any of your self-perceived dirty laun
dry aired,” Scarlet said. “I get that. But—”
“It wasn’t just about Sam,” Karina hissed out. “Or me.” Her gaze shifted. “Wyatt threatened Michael’s life, too.”
Scarlet shot him a look. He appeared on the verge of erupting with his own fury.
Karina continued. “He accused me of neglecting one son, not loving Dylan enough to keep him. And now I had a new son. One he was willing to take away from me—along with Sam.”
“Son of a bitch!” Sam jerked upward, towering over Scarlet and Karina.
“Jesus,” Scarlet mumbled. “Didn’t see that one coming.”
“Believe me, Miss Drake, if I’d really thought I could turn my back or go to the FBI and we would have all come out of this unscathed, that’s precisely what I would have done. But it all got so convoluted. And I couldn’t discount Wyatt’s threats. I’d witnessed his temper and his wrath before. I’ve been on the receiving end of it, as a matter of fact.”
More shame visibly tormented her. She couldn’t look at Sam. Or Michael. Her gaze remained on Scarlet.
Karina said, “It’s the reason my parents kicked me out of their house when they found out I was pregnant.”
“The ‘devil’s mistress’?” Sam offered.
“Yes,” his mother said, her focus still on Scarlet. “They didn’t call me that because of some religious affinity. They believed it because they knew the damage Wyatt was capable of and I kept going back to him. Refused to tell the police he’d beaten me. My parents had no choice but to shut the door on me. Tough love and all that. It was tearing them up to see me with Wyatt. I was eighteen and could do what I pleased. They were correct in their assessment that I was going to continually choose Wyatt over them. I was young and foolish, absurdly so. But I had this incredibly sunny disposition—it was all going to work out. It’d be all right.… I’d show them.… That sort of thing. Then Wyatt disappeared.”
Sam started to pace. Scarlet desperately wanted to comfort him, but she couldn’t make a move toward him or do anything that might derail Karina’s confession.
Karina told them, “My parents had given me some money when they’d thrown me out and I moved us to New York. I knew it’d be expensive, but I also knew there’d be more job opportunities here. Longer shifts I could work to earn extra money and accommodate a babysitter. I also had some theatrical aspirations and performed in small playhouses from time to time. Those stints came with paychecks. I got by. Not well, but we always had a roof over our heads and something on the table, even if it was just ramen and a couple slices of bread sometimes.”
Scarlet’s heart wrenched. She’d had no idea Sam’s upbringing had been quite so bleak. Apparently, Michael hadn’t either.
Across the room, he muttered, “Fuck.”
Sam said, “Get over it. I survived.”
“Yeah.” Michael is expression turned intense. Remorseful, even. “And I lived here, with limos and country club memberships and Sunday brunch.”
“And no college tuition or a trust fund until you’re forty,” Sam pointed out, “so you weren’t exactly Bill Gates from the get-go. You had to make that happen.”
The two men stared at each other. Scarlet sensed their camaraderie, their solid connection with each other that had nothing to do with blood and everything to do with the fact that they’d chosen to be friends when thrown together. That they’d bonded at a difficult time in their lives. And that bond clearly could not be broken.
