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Did Mom know? She must have. Maddoc is telling me that she raised another woman’s child. She may not have given birth to Chloe, but even if Chloe and I don’t share all our blood, don’t shareherblood, that doesn’t actually change anything. Blood does matter, but Frank selling us both out is living proof that sometimes it also doesn’t.
“You didn’t know,” Logan says, jerking my attention over to him.
I stare into his pale eyes and for no good reason at all, find myself fighting off tears.
I look away. “She’s my sister.”
It’s not really an answer, but then again, Logan didn’t exactly ask a question. Besides, it’s the one thing I do know, so I glare at Maddoc and say it again. “Chloe ismy sister.”
“She is, but she’s also more than that, and if Frank had known, then he could have done a lot worse than trade her to McKenna in lieu of his debts,” Maddoc says grimly.
I can’t think of anything worse, but then again, right now these fuckers have my head twisted around about this so much that I can’t think very clearly at all.
“What do you mean?” I demand. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“We think that the woman your father had an affair with was the estranged daughter of William Sutherland. Which makes Chloe William Sutherland’s granddaughter. And his heir,” Logan says flatly.
My brow furrows as I try to place the name, but it doesn’t ring any bells. “Who’s William Sutherland?”
“He was born into old family money that he increased by an obscene amount by buying up half the state,” Maddoc explains. “His wife died years ago in a boating accident, and he became a bit of a recluse after that. When he died last year at the age of seventy-three, leaving behind an incredibly wealthy estate and no living heirs, the vultures started circling.”
I frown. “But you just said—”
“Noknownliving heirs,” Maddoc interrupts, correcting himself with a faint smile. “Well, no publicly acknowledged ones. But when Logan was doing some research to help us get your sister back, he found out that part of the reason the Sutherland estate still hasn’t been settled is that William Sutherland’s will did identify an heir. A daughter.”
“Okay, so he had a daughter,” I say, my heart starting to pound. “What does that have to do with Chloe?”
“We believe that William Sutherland’s daughter is Chloe’s real mother. She was estranged from her family and went by a different name after the estrangement, so we don’t think Frank was ever aware of her true identity. She was just some woman he was fucking. And according to our research, that woman has died as well. Leaving only…”
“Chloe,” I whisper, the pieces clicking into place in my head. “You want her money. You fucking asshole. That’s what this is about? You want this inheritance of hers!”
Maddoc stares back at me calmly, not denying it.
“If West Point realizes she’s alive, they’re going to want to know why. And once they figure it out, once they realize she’s the key to an estate with a huge amount of money, they’re going to want her too.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees as those striking gray eyes of his bore into me. “And who do you think will treat her better? Us, or McKenna?”
“Fuck you,” I whisper, shaking my head. I can’t wrap my mind around what he’s saying. It’s like he’s pulled back the curtain and shown me a world I need to protect Chloe from that’s something totally different than I thought.
I keep trying to make sense of it all, running through the timeline in my head. My mom and dad split up a few times when I was younger, although he kept pulling her back into his orbit in the end. But one of their separations was in the time before Chloe was born, and I ended up having to stay at my dad’s place, although my mom called all the time to checked in on me.
After Chloe was born, they got back together and stayed together, which I always assumed was because of us. Mom had two kids to protect by then, and she didn’t want him to take both of us away from her, so she stuck around and did her best to shield us from the worst of his qualities.
But now I can’t help but wonder if their separation before Chloe’s birth was because she found out about his cheating. And even after all of that, even after his betrayal, she still agreed to raise Chloe as her own. She loved my sister like her own daughter.
“You can keep trying to run,” Maddoc goes on relentlessly, dragging me from my thoughts. “You can fight us. And at some point, you’ll either end up dead or actually manage to escape. But if you do, then what?”
“Then I find my sister,” I say angrily.
Maddoc nods. “You find her, and you try to protect her... and you fail, because you’re out there on your own.”
“I’ve always been on my own.”
“But now there will be too many other players involved,” Maddoc says. “Ruthless ones. Men like McKenna, who won’t give a shit about collateral damage to the two of you as long as he gets his hands on the money.”
“I won’t let him.”
“You won’t have a choice.”
He stares me down, and I hate myself a little for it, but I blink first.
