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“No. But we have assisted in removing the officials who were involved in the human trafficking. Most have been brought to justice, while others ran and are being searched for,” Bennett said.
I closed my eyes and tried to gather my thoughts. My brain wasn’t processing this information as fast as I wanted it to – perhaps because I refused to believe I’d been born in such a cruel way.
Turning to Logan I asked, “You’re a year older than I am, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You said he’d send the mothers back to Tabiq after the baby was born. How is it thatweshare the same mother?” I asked. Either I’d missed a detail, or there was something they hadn’t yet told me.
Brice said, “When Logan was born, he and his mother had…complications. Our father kept her for a few months at the house. When she wasn’t needed any longer, he sent her away. Your mother must’ve been pregnant and not told our father. Evidently, at a stop light, she rushed out of the limo and disappeared into an alley, never to be seen again.”
So my mother reallywason the run all those years, hiding from my father.This is not at all what I thought I’d find when I decided to search for my birth parents.
My brothers were right. Knowing what our father had done didn’t make it any better.
As I sat there, the image of Annabella holding that tiny defenseless mouse in her hands popped into my mind. She wasn’t responsible for it, wasn’t the one who had put it in a box in the closet, yet she’d done everything she could to make its life better.
“We have to fix this,” I said.
“You mean what happened in Tabiq?” Logan asked.
I nodded.
“We have been actively doing so for several years now,” Logan continued. “But the damage that was done cannot be fixed overnight. It affected more than one generation and people don’t forget.”
“What have you been doing?” I questioned.
“To build something stable, we needed to stimulate the economy,” Brice said. “So first, we built a resort to provide jobs to the locals and bring tourism. Then we updated their hospital and school systems. Provided security for the citizens and the candidates while they held elections for an uncorrupt government. Those are just a few of the things we’ve been doing. For the record, the world knows none of this and we want to keep it that way.”
I know I had never heard about it and I follow the news. But I’m not just anyone. I’m a Henderson. I need to know every detail.
“I want to go there,” I said.
“To Tabiq?” Logan asked.
“Yes. I want to see for myself what it’s like. I want to know what he’s done to those people.”
“Our people,” Brice said. “We might have been born here, but the one thing we all share is that our mothers were from Tabiq. That means we are half Tabiqian.”
And all this time I thought I was Italian.
The need to go and see - to go and help - was even more intense now.
Bennett looked at Brice, who nodded. Then Bennett said, “We can fly out tomorrow if you want. But you must know that if you go, you go on my terms. You stay where I tell you and you go nowhere without an escort. Understand?”
I would promise just about anything right now. “Sure. I’ll be ready. Should I book a flight?”
“No. We’ll be taking the Henderson jet. And as Brice said before, you really should keep this information to yourself. Otherwise, everything your family has done to right James’s wrongs might unravel,” Bennett stated.
“I’ll keep quiet as long as what I see matches what you’ve told me. I do have one question.”Actually a million of them, but we’ll start with this one.“What does any of this have to do with Greg Montgomery?”
Brice shrugged. “That might be something that only Greg can answer.”
“Would you like me to see if I can get him to open up?” Bennett asked.
“No. Maybe after I return from Tabiq. And if I decide I still need the answers, I’ll confront him myself,” I said.
If I find that I’m anything like my father, it won’t matter why Greg forbade me to be around Annabella. I’ll distance myself willingly.
I had learned one thing: that loving a person means putting their needs and safety above your own. I knew now that that’s what my mother had done in putting me up for adoption. And saying goodbye to the one woman I’ve ever loved might be what I need to do to keep Annabella safe as well.
I do love you, Annabella. Sorry I’m not the man I thought I was. Not the man you deserve.
