He slowly shook his head.“Nothing detailed.Just that he did like your dad but he wasn’t keen on that family at all.They weren’t to be trusted and he was more than relieved to have not seen them over the years.Said they were trouble.”
Charli sighed again and kept staring at the ceiling.“He never talked to me about it.But that was Ben.He would never badmouth them to me.He wasn’t built like that.But that’s only part of everything happening right now.”
Ace nodded.“Annabelle, Jack and Jade.Do you think this woman really is Collette Whittaker?”
Charli nodded.“Yeah, she really is Luna’s sister.She began to remember her life as soon as she saw Luna.And before you ask, yeah she’s Annabelle’s mom.”
Ace sat there for a long moment then he sighed heavily.“Does she want the baby back?”
“You’ll have to ask her,” Charli told him softly.
“This is gonna break Jade’s heart along with Jack’s.”Ace growled.
Charli nodded.“I know but in the end, someone isn’t going to be happy about it.”She opened her mouth to say something just as a frantic knock sounded on the door.
Ace got up, walked over to the door and opened it.
Deuce stood there, holding out his laptop.They both surveyed the camera feeds from the woods.
Ace turned his head and told Charli, “He spotted someone hanging around the tree line area.We have to check this out.”
Charli got up and turned the baby monitor on.Then she grabbed the small hand held receiver.She joined her husband and brother-in-law.
They all walked back to the kitchen.
Luna and Collette stepped out to the hallway and joined them as well.
Deuce set the laptop onto the kitchen table.
When she saw the laptop screen, Collette gasped and her knees buckled.It showed the face of the man standing there while glaring at the main house.
Luna steadied her.
Joker grabbed another chair and slid it over.
She sank into it and then she looked up at Ace and whispered, “I know this man.”
Ace growled and motioned to Deuce.“Get King and get after that asshole.”Then he looked over at Collette.“Do you recognize him?”
Collette nodded.“He came to Gauntlet’s house all the time.I never knew his name but every time he came, I would be locked into my room.”She shook her head.“No one ever talked about him, at least not to me.But I heard hushed and fearful whispers from the staff. They were all afraid of him.Gauntlet was always respectful to him but after he left, he was always pissed.It was almost as if he hated being respectful to a man he hated.He would rant and rave about how one day he would show him who was in charge and it wasn’t him.But he always talked the big talk like that and never had any real power.He would bitch and gripe but he wouldn’t admit he had no real power.”She looked over at Luna and added, “We both knew who really had the power and it wasn’t Carmen Vance.It was always Jedidiah Whittaker.”
Luna nodded.“But in the end, not even he had any real power, it was all illusion.The man who claimed to be our father never really had any real power either.He only had money that wasn’t even really his.He played a game of smoke and mirrors all his fucking life, but even those weren’t enough to hide behind for long.”
Collette grabbed Luna’s hand and asked, “At least tell me he lost in the end.Everything he stole, borrowed or tried to steal.Please tell me he lost it all and he died a broken man?”
Ace nodded.“Yeah, he lost it all, including his life.Our brother saw to that.He died in the same way he killed your real father.Shot all to hell with the same fireproof vests he sold to Uncle Sam and a slit throat.”
Collette nodded.“Good, I know it sounds horrible to say, but he deserved at least that much.And us, the ones he ruled...”
Luna nodded.“We’re picking up the pieces and pushing through.That's all we can do.”She smiled at her sister.“At least we found you again.”
Collette smiled faintly.“I can never get back the years I lost.Too much has happened, too much has been erased.”She looked from Luna to Ace.“But that doesn’t mean I won’t try.You see...Jedidiah never thought I was strong.He always labeled me as the weak one but he didn’t know the real me.I was always stronger than he thought.I survived Gauntlet and I will survive this too.”Lowering her head, she admitted, “Gauntlet used and abused me in ways no man should ever do, but when he started in I would go to a place in my mind where he couldn’t hurt me.When he figured that out he would do his worst and when I came back he never understood how I always healed so fast.But every time I did, I grew stronger than he thought I was capable of.Then the day he cut me open and took my baby, he was just going to let me die.But when I woke up in that damn hospital, my mind had shut down.It wouldn’t let me figure out what that man did to me.He wanted me to die but instead I became someone different.”
Luna took her hand in hers as she looked upset by all that had happened to her.
“I didn’t know what happened to the baby they said I had carried,” Collette went on.“And I learned to live under another name.Then Mario told me he was coming here and I knew what I had to do.I had to come back here and learn what my mind helped me to forget.I had to remember those secrets in my past.”She looked at Luna again.“But as soon as I saw your face, the past came back to me, all of it.I remembered every detail of the life we had and what happened when I was taken from you.”Her hand lowered to her belly.“I remembered the baby I was forced to have, the day Carmen came into my room and he screamed at me that the labor was taking too long.”Her eyes glazed over as if she were remembering everything from that day.“I remember him tying me up then taking a knife out and approaching the bed.I kept screaming when he cut me open and lifted the baby up from my womb.”
“Damn,” Ace muttered as he looked a bit ashen.
