Page 119 of Speak No Claim

I watched him carefully as he slid his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

“Their affair started before we got married. I met her when she turned twenty-one, and I was twenty-five. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was the daughter of another Brotherhood member, not a legacy child, but a higher elder. They started their affair shortly after we met. The council, of course, found out, and they were warned that she was already promised to me.” He paused, allowing his words to sink in. “Your father vowed to stay away from her. We were due to marry that summer, and your father fled to the Peruvian Amazon to forget. It’s where he met your mother. He stayed at your lodge for the next year and a half, and when he returned home, Onyx had just been born.” He paused again. This time, it was from the pain he was obviously feeling.

I stood, making my way over to him.

“I think you know what happened next…”

I gripped his shoulder, trying to give him any strength I could muster.

“Less than a year later, I thought I was the father of a beautiful baby girl, and for the next five years, I raised her as such. It wasn’t until the council needed her blood work for her arranged marriage that we found out her DNA didn’t match mine, but your father's instead.” He bowed his head, shaking off the emotions. “I plead mercy for my family, but it didn’t matter… your mother showed up shortly after and…”

Her uncle took over. “The council had already made their decision. Eye for an eye. They wanted you, Hennessy. Your life for his sins, but your father sacrificed himself, and since he was a legacy child, they allowed it. With the exception that your mother would take you away from the Graves Academy and you’d never find out the truth of your legacy.”

She stood, walking over to him. “Then how am I here now?”

“Because this is your home, mi niña.”

“So you went against my father’s wishes?”

“Not without your mother’s consent.”

She jerked back. “What do you mean?”

“Your mother always knew about Mrs. Devereaux. Your father never hid the fact that he was in Peru with a broken heart. That he was there to try to forget her. After Deja was conceived, your mother had just given birth to you. Your father flew back to be with her, but he wasn’t made for that world. He constantly traveled back and forth between Peru and here, never stopping his affair with Mrs. Devereaux. They were able to get away with it until it came down to Deja’s paternity. That was when all hell broke loose.”

“Is this how you met Elizabeth?”

“Your father knew I was unhappy with having the burden of our family’s business. He helped me get a job at the Graves, and I chose freedom over the purgatory I’d been feeling. With that, your mother thought I was abandoning her with all the responsibility, and she hated that I’d be working at the Academy where his lover’s mistress lived.”

“Does that mean she knew about them?”

He nodded. “And she put up with it until she couldn’t anymore. She wanted to give you a better example of love and in finding a husband. She never imagined they’d kill him for it. The choice was between the man who’d taken her for a fool or her daughter, so you can imagine that the choice was simple for her. She got on that plane and never looked back until she called me about three years ago.”

She listened intently to everything he was sharing.

“She was crying, saying she messed everything up for you. That she’d never be able to give you the life you deserved, the one you wanted. She said you were unhappy like I was, that she could see it on your face every single day. It didn’t matter how much you hid it from her. You yearned for freedom in the same way I did. She wanted you to attend the Graves Academy to receive the best education for your future, and she knew it’d open doors for you to build connections and make all your dreams come true.”

Her eyes welled up with tears, and I hated seeing her so upset.

“She begged me to help her, to make the council understand that you were meant to be here. I spent the next three years doing exactly that until finally, they agreed, but only if Onyx would watch you and make sure you didn’t remember or find out the truth.”

“Why couldn’t Mrs. Devereaux and my father be together if they were so in love?”

“Because she was already promised to another man.”

“But it would have spared them their lives.”

He caressed the side of her face, looking deep into her eyes before adding…

* * *

“Because in this world, mi niña, the council is your God.”

Chapter

Thirty-Nine

Hennessy: Love is messy, but beautiful.