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"My father lied to me about her. She didn't die giving birth to me. She broke up with my father while she was pregnant with me." My eyes start to water. "Then he stole me from her while I was a baby. He kept harassing her after that, and I guess when he got tired of being an asshole he killed her."
Alexander swears under his breath. He leans forward, my knuckle brushing his forehead. He kneads his eyes with the other hand, releasing a heavy sigh.
It feels like I've just unstopped a well of emotions.
"He robbed me of her," I whisper. "I don't know anything about her. Only that she went to SFU too at some point and that her name was Lilou. Lilou Alarie." Tears stream down my face. "It feels stupid to be sad because I always knew she was dead, but this is so much worse."
"You're mourning what could have been," Alexander offers. "Jesus, your father is a sick fuck." His expression slowly goes from tinged with sadness to anger. I know that look well.
"I want him dead." I mean it.
Alexander considers me. "He is."
I scan his face, looking for any hint that he’s joking. But his expression is serious.
“You killed him?” I ask. My recollection of what happened after my father dragged me to the airport is spotty at best. I remember hearing gunshots and Alexander’s voice, but little else.
Alexander sucks in a breath. “He was killed in the standoff at the airport.”
There’s a blank space in my thoughts.
I’m not sure what to say, what to feel. My father has ruined so many lives, taken so much from so many people. Dying in a standoff at the airport seems too pleasant of an end for him.
I wanted him to suffer.
“Getting better is your priority right now,” he says, looking at the heart-rate monitor that’s started beeping more quickly since he’s told me the news. “I don’t want you to worry about anything.”
Who would've thought? If my father wasn't such a terrible person, I would have never met Alexander. Yet his very existence was enough to almost separate us forever.
Life is strange like that.
And as painful as this whole thing has been, I would choose Alexander again, knowing everything I know now. I want to be his, in every lifetime.
"Since we're on this topic, sweetheart," Alexander leans in a bit conspiratorially. "There's something I wanted you to tell me, if you can remember. I promise it’s the last difficult thing we’ll have to talk about today."
"What's that?"
He gives me a tight smile.
"What did my father say to you at the party?"
I'm a bit hesitant.
Alexander doesn’t know how loaded that question is. Especially when Laurent told me that Griffin Duke knew andhelpedorchestrate this whole thing.
"I saw the CCTV of what he did to you. How he took your gun." Alexander's doing a bad job of hiding how angry it makes him. "But I want to know what he said."
"Okay," I lick my lips. "I'll tell you. There’s something you don’t know.”
FORTY-ONE
ALEXANDER
The winter airtickles my face.
It's colder than I expected, so I double-check that all of Alize's limbs are covered by the thick knitted blanket I wrapped her in, while I push the wheelchair into the foyer of the estate.
The late afternoon sun streams through the open door behind us, painting the lavish interior of the house in a glittering golden haze. There's still a little bit of tightness in my chest whenever I enter this cursed house, but the way I feel now is the best I've felt about it in nearly a decade.
