“Because of our father.”
“Who is he? Is he trying to find me? I did one of those ancestry things, but nothing came up.”
“How long have you known you were adopted?”
“I’ve always known.” She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “I don’t even know why they adopted me; they never really wanted me.”
“Scoot over, kid.”
When Sully moved to the middle of the bed, I sat against the headboard and put my arm around her. I held her against me and wished Justin were still here.
“Justin should be telling you this; he’s better at the emotional shit.”
“Morgan told me why you aren’t together.”
I rubbed a hand over my face and sighed. “I fucked up, but I had my reasons. As for you, let me tell you about who your parents were. We never knew much about your mom. Her name was Margaret Nichols. She died giving birth to you.”
I looked down at her. “Sully, I want you to know, if Justin or I had known anything about you, we would have come for you a long time ago. We’d been searching for you when Pardon showed up on our doorstep with you in tow.”
“Really?” she asked, and the hesitation in her voice, the distrust I heard, broke my heart.
“Really. Family is the most important thing to me and Justin.”
“Are there others?” she asked.
“There is a sister we know about. She’s older than Justin. But I won’t let her anywhere near you. There’s something wrong with her. Something evil she got from our father.”
“He was evil?”
“I think he might have been Satan himself, kid. Samuel Peterson was the leader of a cult called The Disciples of the Word. He worked with an organization called theSociety, providing them with women and children.”
“Providing them for what?”
This was where I needed Justin. He was a hell of a lot more diplomatic than I was. I was too fucking blunt, too fucking honest, which was ironic considering how lying was how I’d fucked things up so badly with Morgan.
“Human trafficking,” I said.
Sully sat up and pulled away from me. “Like selling people for sex?
I nodded, unable to voice that shit out loud to my little sister. Knowing what my father was capable of, what he’d done to so many, I wondered how she’d been spared.
“He sold children?” she whispered. “How can someone do that?” She turned her eyes toward me.
“Some people are just born evil.” I shrugged, wishing I had an answer better than that, but it was true. There was no gene to blame it on, despite doctors believing there was. It all came down to the nurture vs. nature debate.
“Does she have kids?” Sully asked.
“She does. A son and a daughter.”
“And are they…?”
“They are fucked up, but not in the same way. For the most part, they’re good people. I don’t know them well, but maybe someday I’ll let you meet them. But you have a cousin on your mom’s side that I could introduce you to when all this is over.”
“What is she like?”
“Ari is... sweet. Innocent, despite being raised in the cult. She’s married to a Golden Skull, a brother to my nephew Ink.”
“That’s your sister’s son?”
