“Wakefield?” Maverick asks.
My stomach twists into knots, and I look at the ground as I nod. “You know about that place?” I mumble, hoping they don’t know everything.
“We found out a few hours ago.” Kaiden explains how they spoke to Francesca at Techxet after getting a lead that Vincent Becker might have been our adoptive dad. He says she knew we’d been at the home for a couple of years, but she didn’t know where we were living now. Apparently, they found an ex-employee of the group home, and he called someone who knew our address.
Maverick leans forward, clasping his hands on his knees. “Roman, we know you’re skeptical, and we’d be the same in your shoes, but I swear we have tried to find you and Zayn from the minute we came home from school and discovered our father had given you to the elite for adoption.”
“That part is true?”
Kaiden’s face contorts in a flash of anger as he nods. “Tell us what you know.”
“Zayn said our bio mom died when we were babies, and our bio dad, Atticus, didn’t want us anymore so he handed us off to the elite. He said you were looking after us with a nanny at first, but then you ditched us too.”
Maverick shakes his head, wearing the saddest face.
“You’re family, Roman.” Kaiden’s tone is choked. “Family is everything. We would never have abandoned you. It’s true we were taking care of you because Atticus was drunk and self-absorbed and of no use to any of us kids. It’s a long story, but the summary is the elite ran us out of Rydeville shortly after Mom died, and we had nothing. Our uncle Wes, Mom’s brother, gave us an apartment in Manhattan to live in, but we were broke. There wasn’t money for a nanny. We took care of you as best we could. We came home from school one day, and Atticus said he’d given you up for adoption because he couldn’t afford to feed you.” A muscle clenches in his jaw, and I rub at a sharp pain spreading across my chest.
“No one would tell us anything,” Maverick says with tears in his eyes. “We asked everyone we could think of, but we were little kids, and you don’t mess with the elite.”
“We never stopped looking for you, but it was like you vanished into thin air.” Kaiden scrubs his hands down his face, and I wrap my arms around my torso. “Later, when Atticusrepaired his relationship with Uncle Wes, Wes was helping us try to discover what happened to you and Ro—Zayn. But there was no paper trail, and no one would tell us fucking anything.”
“Then shit went down with the elite,” Maverick adds.
“Parkhurst,” I surmise, and they both nod. “I read about it. It’s how I discovered your names.”
“I was wondering how long you’d known.”
“I always knew we were adopted. Our parents didn’t hide it, but I didn’t know anything about our bio parents or that we had older brothers until last year when Zayn told me.”
“How long has Zayn known?” Kaiden asks.
“I think Denton told him when he found us, but you’ll have to ask Zayn for sure.” My knee bounces on the floor, and I could really use a drink or a blunt to take the edge off right now.
“There is so much we have to tell you,” Kaiden continues. “But we need to get to the station and free Zayn first.”
“Why did you kill Denton?”
“The answer is complicated,” Kaiden says.
I sit up straighter as an icy chill tiptoes up my spine. “So, you admit it? You murdered him?”
“Denton was a piece-of-shit murdering rapist bastard, and it was kill him or die at his hands,” Kaiden hisses.
“No.” I vigorously shake my head. “Denton was a good man.”
Kaiden shakes his head. “Mathers was evil to his core, Roman. He raped my friend’s wife when she was only a kid, and he tried to rape my wife too.”
I turn pale at his words, and I think I might puke.
“He was involved in all kinds of criminal activities,” Maverick continues explaining, “and he had so much blood on his hands. Those crimes are only the tip of the iceberg.”
I gulp over the lump in my throat. “It can’t be true,” I whisper, struggling to believe what they’re saying even if they seem sincere. “Denton came for us. He got us out of the home,hooked us up with this apartment, gave us money, and made sure we had everything we needed. He told us how the elite scammed us out of our inheritance, and when he found out, he came to make it right. He was the only one who cared what happened to us.”
“He wasn’t,” Maverick says. “We cared.We care.”
“We have friends with incredible tech skills,” Kaiden says, “and they couldn’t find a trace of you two. We thought your brother was responsible for hiding you, and maybe it was all Zayn, but it’s possible Mathers or Hamilton or both were responsible. They didn’t want us to find you. They were purposely keeping us apart.”
“Why? I don’t understand.” None of this makes any sense.
