My heartbeat stutters in my chest.
What did he just say?
Aunt Bess’s face falls. Once ready to go up against the storm of Clyde Lincoln, she recoils, a tiny gasp leaving her mouth as her hand comes up to cover it.
Gravel fills my throat. I’ve had the sneaking suspicion, but wondering about it is much different than finding out it’s the truth. “What is he talking about?”
“Yeah, I’m with him,” Finn speaks. I wish he didn’t open his mouth at all. “What the fuck is she talking about?”
Uncle Thad rubs at his temples. I stare blankly at my aunt. The woman who sat across from me and lied about it when I asked her what Mom was talking about that night. “Is what he’s saying true? Have you known all this time that he’s my…my father?”
“Colson, it’s not that simple,” she says.
“You’ve always had a way of making situations sound a whole lot less than they are,” Clyde comments with a smirk painting his lips before muttering, “Piece of fucking work.”
“Not that simple?” I’m reeling, losing grip on my emotions like a fishing line being yanked out farther and farther because a fish is hooked and taking it with them. “I asked you if you knew anything about my biological father. You looked me in my eye and lied after keeping it hidden foryears?”
“For your own good,” Aunt Bess responds, face stricken from Clyde airing out her dirty laundry.
I narrow my eyes on her. “Who are you to tell me what’s good for me?”
“You know the reputation the Lincoln name has across Harrison Heights. Did you want that imprinted on you?”
A laugh tumbles out of me. “Mom tainted my name the second she gave birth to me.”
“Your mother was agoodperson who got herself swept up in something that ruined her. He…” She points at Clyde, who’ssitting back with his arms crossed, a pleased expression on his aged face. “He’s rotten. He impregnated your mother and thenlefther. He had no intention of being there for you or raising you. Not like he did with that one.”
I ignore her comment about Finn. “Then why pay him off if he was never going to be around? Why stand there,” I point over to the door where we stood when I arrived, “and lie to me about not knowing about them being married.”
She shakes her head. Maybe it made more sense to her all those years ago. “Ididn’tknow they were married. That was as shocking to me as it was for you. I wanted to ensure he kept his distance.” Her eyes dart to Finn. “I didn’t want you to become some protégé to him. I didn’t want him to influence you into his way of life.”
Oh my God.
This is fucking rich.
She wanted to protect me from them, but Mom forced me into their lives, anyway.
When Clyde chuckles, I want to laugh right along with him until he stops and adds fuel to the fire. “Now might be a good time to mention that none of us here are really strangers. You might’ve paid me off to stay away from him, but your sister dragged him into this life right under your nose.”
“What are you talking about?” asks Uncle Thad. His stare is hard, a divot forming between his brows as his attention bounces between the man across from him and me.
I inwardly cringe. I was a fool to think that I’d be able to keep my involvement with the Lincolns hidden. That my family would never find out about me lying to them. Everything always comes back around and catches up with you.
It’s comical, knowing that we’veallbeen hiding our truths and burying them beneath the surface of day-to-day life. Deathhas forced our hands, our honesty. Now, we have no choice but to claw our way out of the dirt and rise above the truths.
Finn brings his hand up and runs it through his dark hair. He’s dressed in the same black attire as his replica next to him, but for the first time ever, I think he does it out of nervousness. His sleeve of tattoos slips out from the wrist of his long-sleeved shirt, and he shifts in his chair uncomfortably.
Aunt Bess’s gaze lands on me. It reminds me of times when Sebastian and I got into trouble as kids. When she’d try to get the truth out of us but we’d both just stand there, unwilling to rat the other out. She always found a way, though. Always figured out how to get into one of our heads to give the tiniest of details for her to put it together.
Now is no different, but rather than hiding behind my cousin, I have to step forward and take responsibility. Something I should’ve done a lot sooner.
“Colson? What is he referring to?” my uncle asks again.
I run the tip of my tongue over the inside of my bottom lip, hating the storm that beckons over us, threatening to destroy the little good that remains. Storm clouds so fucking dark they make day feel like night.
Weeks ago, we were as close to one big happy family as we could get. Now look at us.
As I meet Aunt Bess’s eyes across from me, I realize that we’re not very different from one another. She thought she was protecting me by paying Clyde to stay away. I thought I was helping Mom by paying off her debts. Neither did a goddamn thing to protect the woman who’s now gone.
