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Just like her, Gideon wants me to see for myself, to remember who he is. WhoIam.
He undoes the rope from around my wrists and throws it on the table. For a long while, however, I remain in that position, staring stupidly ahead, reeling from his revelation.
It can’t be true, and yet when he sits once again beside me, his face as serious as mine, I can’t help but see myself in it. There’s simply no denying it.
“How?” I ask the only question I’m capable of.
“You’re the son of Stephen Black and Shannon McKenzie,” he replies.
Subconsciously, I’m already denying it all. “Impossible.”
“Finnegan Kane was not your biological father,” he continues. “He wasn’t even in the picture.”
“Of course he was.”
He shakes his head. “Tell me what you remember of him.”
“He worked at a brewery when he and my mother left Boston. Then he—”
Gideon raises a hand to stop me. “Not what you were told. What do you actually remember about your father? Think hard.”
“I was too young when he died to remember him.”
“You weren’t too young, Rowan,” he spits out with frustration. “You’re afraid of what you’ll see if you try.”
“All right then. You tell me what I’m supposed to know.”
Observing me for a moment as he decides whether or not to fill me in on what supposedly happened, he taps his fingers against the glass again. A nervous habit.
“Ourfather was working on expanding his shipping business, offering his services to a more…distinct kind of customer.”
“You mean criminals,” I correct.
He grins and takes a sip of his drink. “It’s where the money was. And Father followed the money. This was before he knew the way of criminals, however. He didn’t realize that a contract could only be held with one family at a time.”
“So this was before he got stuck working with Tadesco in Chicago.” I’m following the story but taking it all with a grain of salt. I don’t trust this piece of shit as far as I can throw him.
“It was. He came to Boston in an effort to make a deal with the McKenzies. Obviously, he was turned down. They had no reason to trust him. But he got something out of that trip anyway. Your mother.”
“Liar!” I slam my palm against the table. I’m shaking, my face so tense I can practically feel the veins at my temples bulge. “Finnegan Kane was my father.”
“Finnegan Kane was part of the McKenzie’s security detail. When Shannon called Father to tell him about the baby, he sent for her. But she was smart and knew what Bryan and James would do to him when they found out. So she paid Finnegan for his name. Once they were married and he delivered her safely, he fled to Costa Rica with a lot of money.”
“Lies.”
As if he doesn’t hear me, he continues, “I was five years old, Rowan, and I remember most of it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I was there! I fucking carried you in my arms where you were born, Rowan. I was there when you got your first tooth, your first steps. You lived with us untilyouwere five and your mother wanted to leave, soyoumust remember something.”
We stare at each other for several moments, him wanting me into believing his story, me refusing to.
But against my will, I do remember something. Not an event that ever happened, but a recurring dream I had as a child when we first moved into the McKenzie house.
I was in the backseat of car at night, holding a blanket tightly. My mother glanced at me through the rearview mirror with terror, and it made me so afraid, even though I had no idea of what.
Then I remember something else, something that happened before that. A fall from a tree in the back yard, and a boy older than me rushing to pick me up. A dark-haired boy with blue eyes.
