“Tsk, tsk, Cian. I bet you didn’t know I’ve been watching you for years. Poor little Tabitha, who couldn’t get pregnant.”
“Don’t talk about my mother,” I snarled.
Sylvia lifted an eyebrow. “And what will you do about it tied to the chair?” she sneered. “Mr. Fitzpatrick.”
Ty hit me again, this time in the stomach. I bent over as much as I could, but the urge to wrap my arms around my waist to hold my ribs was derailed by the rope tied to my wrists. Ty was a big motherfucker, and he hit with the force of a sledgehammer.
“Had you been a girl, I might have kept you. Henry already had four girls; he’d have no use for another one. But a son. Oh, he would have made my life hell to get his hands on you.”
“Why? Women ran theSociety. Why would he want a son?”
Sylvia cackled at what she assumed was my ignorance. She didn’t know I knew everything about theSociety.How it started, when it turned. She was right though; Henry Craven never would have let her keep me. He would have forced his wife to raise his bastard child, the same way he did with Jane.
That was something I’d discovered as I dug deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. Jane Craven wasn’t the daughter of Sarah Williams, Henry’s wife. Jane’s mother was Dorothy Brown.
A nobody.
Dorothy Brown was one of Henry Craven’s many mistresses. Her mistake was trying to blackmail Henry. Instead of hitting a payday, he killed her after she gave birth and made his wife raise the child.
“Henry was desperate for a son. He and his brother Frederick were always in competition. And when Abigail Baudelaire couldn’t have more children after Julia, well, Henry was more determined than ever to have a son. You see, my dear boy,” Sylvia droned on.
I snorted at the use of the word boy. I was over fifty years old.
“TheSocietywasn’t always run by women. It was a man’s world and we stormed the castle. When I met your niece Sienna, she told us everything she had learned about William Dohertyand what he’d done to her mother Elizabeth. She was your oldest sister. Henry’s first child. William Doherty raped her, more than once, resulting in James and Sienna.
“It was Angela and Sienna who came up with the idea to take over. And of course, after what Henry had done to me, I gladly helped them. After I took care of him of course. The girls never knew I was the one who killed their father. It might have put a damper on our working relationship. Then again, after what they did to young Maxwell, maybe they would have thanked me.”
Sylvia walked around to the other side of Ty, running a finger over his chest as she went. He looked at her with lust in his eyes, and I gagged. Sylvia St. James may have been beautiful in her younger days, but now in her seventies, after being hidden for years, her gray hair was dull and lifeless. Her skin sagged at the chin. Medical procedures would have left a trail, I guess.
Someone always talked.
“So, to keep you away from Henry, I went to O’Malley. He was friends with Tabitha’s husband; in fact, Daniel worked for Eamon. This way I would always know where you were. I waited a long time for you to have children, Cian. When Donna ran away, I was angry. Then Gideon turned out to be a boy. I knew he couldn’t be trusted. Then he got himself killed.
“But you, my son. You were protected. O’Malley knew I’d come after him if anything happened to you.”
“That’s why he hated me,” I muttered.
“Oh, Cian. He didn’t hate you. He loathed you. Eamon was nothing more than a soldier in my army. He thought he was important, holding all the information.” Sylvia shook her head, a sly grin spreading across her face.
“He was a plant. We’d never entrust all our secrets to a man. Men couldn’t be trusted.”
“Then why the fuck am I here, now?” I spat.
“Mr. Fitzpatrick.”
Tyran punched me in the chin, my head spinning to the side. The chair rocked again but quickly righted itself.
“Speak to me that way again, son, and I’ll let the dog off his leash.” Her voice was cold. The termson,the only indication she had any feeling toward me. Though, if I asked, I would guess that feeling was resentment.
“As I said, I’ve been watching you your whole life. Waiting for you to settle down. Waiting for you to have children. For a long time, I thought you were a dud, the same as Gideon. Donna was the only child of mine to produce an heir, and she’s now protected by those thugs.”
It was my turn to laugh. “You mean the Soulless Sinners?”
Her eyes widened a fraction.
“Did you think I wouldn’t look you up? That with the files unleashed, I wouldn’t find out who you were? Newsflash, Mommy dearest, I knew I was adopted. I never came looking for you because I didn’t fuckin’ care who you were. I only found out because of those files. I could have gone my whole life not knowing about you, and I would have been happy.”
Tyran hit me again. And this time, I grinned. Blood filled my mouth, and I spat it on the concrete floor, hitting Sylvia’s expensive shoes. That earned me another punch to the gut, but I didn’t care.
