“Where are your baby brothers?” Jackson hinted at something the other day, and it got me thinking.
I was only seven when I attended Kai’s mom’s funeral, and I remember his baby brothers. They were only one and two, respectively. But I kinda got confused then, because when we were hanging out as kids, it was always the Anderson four. Rick, Kai, Joaquin, and Harley. It got muddled in my head, and I forgot about the other two because the only time I’d ever seen them was at the funeral. Emma had given birth to them after she fell out with my mother, so I never knew the two youngest. All this time, I’ve been thinking Kai had three brothers, but he hasfive.
Yet no one has mentioned them.
Not even once.
And that’s weird.
Sawyer and Jackson lock eyes on Kai. “Tell her, man,” Jackson says as Sawyer closes his laptop and stands. Together, they walk out of the room, leaving us alone.
Kai’s chest heaves up and down, and the urge to comfort him is riding me hard, but I resist.
“My father gave them up for adoption,” he admits after a few beats.
My jaw slackens. “What?!”
He rubs his hands up and down my legs as he stares off into space, looking deep in thought. “Dad was a mess after your mom died.” He looks over at me. “Rick and I thought it was a delayed reaction to our mom’s death, but as we got older, and we listened to his drunken ramblings, we realized Dad was mourning another woman.” His eyes bore into mine. “Your mother.” He shakes his head, averting his eyes again. “Anyway, Dad checked out, leaving Rick and me to look after our younger brothers, but we didn’t have a fucking clue how to look after babies, and Rogan and Spencer were always crying. Dad would shout at us to shut them up, and we tried, but—”
“But you were only kids yourselves, and it was unfair of him to burden you like that.”
He shrugs. “We came home one day from school, and they were gone. Just like that.” He lowers his head, and his chest shakes.
I crawl toward him, wrapping my arms around him in a temporary cease-fire. “I can’t believe he just gave up two of his kids. What kind of asshole does that?”
“The elite kind.” Kai hauls me into his lap, circling his arms around me and resting his chin atop my head. “I know you’ve had a shitty childhood too. Our fathers are made of the same stuff. They’re both narcissistic, arrogant, assholes who use their kids to further their aims.” His breath oozes out in spurts. “But my eyes were closed to it for too long. I allowed him to manipulate me. To buy into the notion you were partly to blame.” He tips my chin up. “It sounds ludicrous now, but years of living with someone spouting the same shit all the time starts to sound sane after a while.”
“And it wasn’t just that,” Rick says, sauntering into the room, and I wonder how long he’s been listening. “He was drunk all the fucking time, and he was obsessed. He talked about your mom incessantly. And he poured all his rage and frustration into hating on a little girl. He blamed you for her death, but we didn’t realize they had made plans to run away together until he admitted that in the ballroom.” His eyes are remorseful as he stares at me. “I hate that we bought into it for so long, but it’s hard to describe what we lived through, to explain how it became something we latched on to, to stay close to our father. A man who didn’t deserve our support or our loyalty.”
“Your father left us penniless,” Kai continues explaining. “We literally had nothing.”
“Uncle Wes gave us his apartment in New York, but that is all the help we got,” Rick says. “Because, until recent years, Wes blamed our father for his sister’s death. He knew about his affair with Olivia, and he always believed our mother was second best. He thought she committed suicide because she knew he was still in love with her best friend and she was unhappy. Dad was adamant that Hearst had murdered her, but Wes refused to believe it.”
“Until your aunt came forward and told them what she knew, and then things changed,” Kai adds.
“Dad got sober, and they patched up their differences and started plotting revenge,” Rick supplies.
“And the rest you know,” Kai murmurs.
I store it all away to process later. “Where are Rogan and Spencer now?”
Rick’s eyes well up. “We don’t know. We didn’t have money to find them, and we were only kids.”
“Uncle Wes was furious with Dad when he discovered he’d given them up. I know if Dad had asked him, he would’ve taken them in, but Dad’s a stubborn, proud old fucker, and once Wes cut him off, he refused to reach out to him,” Kai says.
“Wes is on the case now, and Hunt’s father is helping, but the adoption is sealed, and records aren’t public, and because parental neglect was a factor in the adoption decision, they won’t release any information to Dad,” Rick confirms. “So, we basically have no idea where they are.”
“We don’t even know if they are still going by the same first names,” Kai says, and I hug him closer.
“I didn’t think it was possible to detest your father anymore, but I do. How could he give up two of his kids?” I cry out.
“Because he’s a heartless bastard,” Kai says through gritted teeth.
“Why didn’t you hate him for this?” I ask, genuinely puzzled how they could support this man with anything.
“Because it felt like our fault,” Kai says, strain evident in his voice. “We’ve always believed we failed, because we didn’t look after them properly and they took them away.”
I cup his beautiful face. “Did you draw that conclusion, or was it put in your head?”
