Chapter 201: My Father Is Lucas Brown?
Chapter 201: My Father Is Lucas Brown?
Camilla
The man named Festus Davis looked similar enough to be my brother, older by two years, the son of my father's but not from my own mother.
The question is why did Gregorio have this and why didn't I know? Shakily putting the image down and forcing myself to breathe, it was the passports and IDs I found next, simply dumping all of them onto the desk to save time. A frown marred my face as I picked the closest one to me, my father's face connected to the name Johnson Mark, only seeing more confusion than the last time I saw it.
Sure, it is not a huge surprise to learn he led secret lives but were children really a part of it? I jumped at the sound of the front entrance door opening and closing, likely Adriano coming home but I was too transfixed in everything else to care. Picking up the next passport, my head tilted at the name Lucas Brown appearing in a bold front across the top but instead of pausing in thought like last time, I froze in horror.
Before me was the alias that felt familiar when I first read it and had my heart sinking in recognition now that I have seen it before. My hand shot out to grip the desk when I felt myself fall forward a little bit but not even that could ground me at the fact I had heard this name before and not in a good way.
'My mother was murdered shortly after I turned seventeen. The man we have spent years hunting will die by my hand one day. Lucas Brown will know what true pain feels like, just like I did thanks to him.'
No this can't be. There were exactly Adriano's words a few days before I found his room destroyed, before we kissed for the first time. Before he held me, before he told me he loves me and nothing would ever change that.
But there was no way he saw the background on my phone and didn't know, no matter how different my father has changed his appearance to remain hidden. My entire body shook, unsure what to do but it soon didn't matter when I felt the eyes of others on me.
"Camilla?" Gregorio called me from the door of his office but it was not the same way he said it when he was reading only a minute ago.
It wasn't until I turned I realized I was crying but seeing Adriano there too made it worse. Domenico came next and when he tried to move towards me, he quickly stopped when I took two steps back. I thought I knew what betrayal felt like in my village when I told my mother l didn't want her in my life anymore. But this, this hurt so much fucking worse.
"You knew?" I said, my voice breaking on the last words as I barely manage to keep myself standing upright.
I hated the feeling of my tears wetting my cheeks and the way each inhale became harder to take but it was the guilt, the confirmation in their eyes that I hated the most.
"My goddess, you knew?" I said again, this time not as a question but as a painful accusation.
Everyone knows the idiom of being stabbed in the back but I never actually expected to feel the physical impact of it in my heart.
"I know this looks bad, I know it does but please put down the scissors, Camilla." Adriano said, panic clear in his eyes where my fingers were gripping at the blade. I hadn't even realized I had picked them up.
I knew what he was thinking and it hurt as I listened, dropping them to the desk along with the sheets of secrets that had just been uncovered.
"You need to explain what the fuck this is right now or I am leaving and I won't be coming back." I demanded, my voice surprisingly steady despite what my actions are showing on the exterior.
I doubt I could actually follow through on that last part but I couldn't tell what I needed most right now. Answers were the most obvious thing I just wanted to be held by the only people I can't have near me right now.
"Okay," Domenico said, his hands shaking as he raised them slightly.
"Let's go into the living room and we will tell you everything."
I knew he meant it but I shook my head anyway. My grip on this desk was the only thing keeping me from collapsing and I wasn't about to get one of them to pick me up.
"No, you will tell me everything here. Start with how you know my father."
All it took was a single glance to see they didn't want to have this conversation but that is tough shit. I wasn't about to give them an opportunity to hold me or make me feel better because I am not sure I am capable of getting the answers I need otherwise.
"You should sit down, princess." Adriano said with genuine concern but I didn't want to hear it.
"You are not in a place where you have the right to tell me what to do." I shoot back, though I do learn against the office chair slightly from the overwhelming waves of dizziness and nausea.
My expression hardened despite my tears still flowing. To be honest, it didn't even matter. I waited in a tense silence for the explanation I was owed and I forced myself not to feel sad at the fact Gregorio's entire body was nearly shaking where he too leaned against the door frame for support.
"You want to know everything?" Adriano asked, tipping his head down slightly in acknowledgement that this was what I wanted even though it is a discussion that never should have needed to be had.
My silence was my answer and it was one that was going to change everything.
****
My father is Lucas Brown? The father of myself and my half-brother Festus Davis. Raphael killed my uncle, Luca's brother and in revenge their mother was murdered when they were only seventeen by strychnine, a poison that is more than lethal in even the smallest amount. He did this as Vincent Ranger and when they entirely of the Jaxon sought out retribution, my father became Robert Aific, Thomas Davis and then Lucas Brown.
For years, he has hidden under an umbrella of false identities, meeting Festus's mother two years before meeting my mother and having me. They don't know anything more than that but they know where my father is going to be. The three of them had been ordered to kidnap and make a statement out of the man who raised me and they have known who I was ever since I met Raphael for the first time by the elevator.
"You held me." I shook my head, my fist balled and rested against my chest as though it could make the ache go away.
"You held me when u cried, worrying my father might be dead or hurt or alone when you knew this whole time he wasn't."
I may have just been stating facts but it was the only thing I could do from breaking. Losing them was a loss I wouldn't be able to recover from yet how am I supposed to continue on when they plotted my father's murder while telling me they love me.
"Is this why you haven't killed Raphael?" I asked, my words direct to each one of them, especially Adriano. He killed those women but not the man who sent them there, why?
"Because you need him to get to my father?" It was the only explanation I could think of but I feared the truth would be so much worse.
"If Raphael dies, I am going to caged into a life I never wanted." Adriano said and while my heart aches for him too, that doesn't erase everything else.
"But you admit it? You have been trying to kill my father even after all we have shared? After I told you how much he means to me? That he is the only family I have left?"
A lone tear falls down his cheek but I am too fucking tired to care.
"No," he took a step towards me, physically flinching when I moved away. I knew it was too good to be true.
"Fuck, yes but that plan stopped after I realized what you were to me."
"And you think Raphael would just let my father live after everything? All of you seriously believe he won't do everything in his power to ensure his death with or without you."
There was no way in hell they could think that was a possibility and even if they weren't the ones to pull the trigger. They would be the ones handing over the firing gun either way. Hearing all of this was a kind of pain I didn't know I could experience but my vision started to switch between being in and out of focus after enough time had passed.
My body felt like a dam very quickly being rushed in in surges and I was no longer sure how much longer I could last before breaking.
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