Page 15 of The Sound of Secrets

My mind was racing a million miles a minute, and I felt like I was on the brink of having a heart attack. Winnie told me that Ky was a couple years ahead of her in school, which would make him fifteen or sixteen. Before realizing he resembled my ex-husband, his age was irrelevant. Now, it was the sweet spot that might mean he was a huge problem for me. A problem that was linked to my absolute worst moments.

Win’s reflection scowled harder as he spit out his toothpaste and said, “He was adopted as a baby. Julie and Jordan Kent. The dad took off when he was a toddler. Rocco couldn’t get any information on the biological parents. Are you really this worked up over the thought of your ex having a kid with someone else and putting it up for adoption?”

I put my hands on the edge of the vanity to keep myself standing as my knees liquified. A buzzing sound filled my head.

“Him. Not it. He puthimup for adoption.” A choking laugh escaped my throat. Our gazes locked in the mirror. Win looked puzzled and understandably annoyed. I looked like I was on the verge of hysteria. I’d never seen myself look so much like my mother and it was terrifying. “I couldn’t care less about kids he may have had with someone else — but Ky might be the kid I had when he and I were still together.”

Win’s head jerked around fast enough to give him whiplash. “What?” His shock echoed off the walls. It was like I dropped a bomb in the middle of the ornate bathroom. The resonance was deafening as it vibrated all the way down to my bones.

I just laid bare my deepest, darkest, most painful secret and I would never forget the hollow, empty way it sounded or the way it made my heart shake.

Win

“I can still remember all my friends in high school thought it was so cool that an older guy was paying so much attention to me. They said they were jealous and convinced me there wasn’t anything wrong with a man in his twenties pursuing a sixteen-year-old.” Channing snorted and looked into the glass of red wine she was holding like it was a crystal ball. She’d already finished one bottle and was well on her way to knocking out a second.

I took her outside to the small patio after her alarming revelation in the bathroom. Obviously, I had a lot of questions I needed her to answer, but she was so upset she was practically incoherent. I’d never seen her lose control like this before. Letting her get wasted so she could pour her heart out seemed like an effortless way to get the full story in her own words. I stayed silent and listened to her talk while making sure she didn’t do anything to hurt herself. I dug up all the dirt on everyone involved in Winnie’s life. I thought it was impossiblefor Channing to keep secrets from me. The fact she was pregnant and had a baby, and there were no records of any sort to indicate such, let me know someone put in the effort to keep her situation buried. The prime suspect was my mother.

I don’t know why she would benefit from hiding the fact Channing had a baby, but I knew she wouldn’t cover it up without a malicious reason.

“Nowadays, I know that’s called grooming. Parker was a predator and should’ve been locked up for statutory rape. I didn’t understand what he was doing was wrong until much later on in our relationship. When I was sixteen and seventeen, he kept things mostly platonic and innocent. He spent all his time making me feel special and important. My mom was sick, and Willow only showed up at home when she had the chance. I think he knew no one was around to see that he was brainwashing me into thinking he was the love of my life. He didn’t want to risk them ruining all his hard work.” She barked out an ugly laugh, and her fingers tightened on the thin stem of the wine glass until her knuckles turned white. I was worried it would shatter under the pressure, just like Channing seemed close to doing.

“The closer I got to being a legal adult, the more he started to isolate me and control my every move. He claimed his actions were out of love and concern, wanting to give me a safe haven from my family. He knew I had a hard time at home and was forced to grow up much faster than my peers. I was mature, but not in a way that would’ve protected me from him. He was already talking about getting married, and I couldn’t wait.I thought marrying him meant I would have help with the very adult decisions I was having to make at home. But I actually spent more time taking care of him, and catering to his needs, than I spent at school. I barely graduated, and nothing changed with my mom or me being her sole caretaker. I’ll never know what it was like to be a normal teenager. Which is why I fight so hard for Winnie to have that experience. I regret giving my youth away. My entire life revolved around Parker and making sure he was happy. He was a lousy musician. His dream had always been to be a rockstar. I was supposed to be his number one fan, even if it meant skipping school and sneaking into bars underage.” She choked and reached up to rub her bright red eyes. “Even if it meant entertaining his friends and other shady people if he thought it would help his career.”

I leaned forward and tried to reach for her hand. She didn’t need to lay out the details for me. It was easy enough to connect the dots. She was young and naïve, and her ex abused her in horrific ways. When Channing was a teenager, I was just finishing up college and had already started working at Halliday Inc. My youth ended as soon as I started following in my father’s footsteps. But I realized what I thought I lost couldn’t compare to what had been stolen from Channing.

“We had a courthouse wedding the day I turned eighteen. None of my family or any of the few friends I had left were there. Parker’s drummer and his coke dealer were our witnesses. It was pathetic. I cried about it for days. I think that was the moment I started to understand there was something wrong with our relationship.Even though my parents’ marriage was mostly for show, they still had a real wedding. There were pictures of them all over the house. And even though Willow and Archie eloped, they had a wedding, be it an unconventional one. Willow looked over the moon in love in the pictures she sent. There are no pictures from my first wedding because I had a black eye. Parker punched me in the face the night before when I demanded he let my mother come. He didn’t want my family to have any evidence that he put his hands on me, and while a seasoned judge might overlook a black eye covered in makeup, my mother and sister would not. To this day it doesn’t feel real. More like a nightmare that took too long to wake up from.”

My stiff fingers curled into a fist on top of the glass table. I reached for the tumbler of brandy I’d yet to taste. I constantly felt sorry for myself when I thought about my cruel and regimented youth. Self-loathing came swiftly when I started to realize it was incomparable to the things Channing survived.

She finally loosened her fingers on the wineglass. She chugged back what was left, then reached for the rest of the bottle. She must’ve decided that pouring another glass took too much work because she started to drink straight from the bottle.

I blew out my breath and felt the center of my chest burn. “I’m sorry I forced you to go through another courthouse wedding. I had no idea you were previously traumatized by a similar situation.”

She snorted and pushed back the long part of her hair that blew into her eyes with the evening breeze. “Would you do things differently if you’d known?”

I shrugged. “I like to think I would.” But I was backed into a corner, and she was my only way out. I kept telling her I wasn’t a good man, and I meant it. If dragging her to the courthouse was the only way to reach my goal, I probably would’ve ignored her feelings lingering from the past and pushed her to do what I wanted anyway. “At the very least, I would’ve put more effort to try to exchange that awful memory for a better one with me.” I thought I knew Channing. I convinced myself I understood her. It was a big smack in the face to learn I barely scratched the surface of what made her quirky mind tick.

In the past, I accused her of not wanting to grow up and take responsibility because of how she lived. Now, I could see she’d been forced to grow up too fast and her lifestyle now was her way of experiencing the carefree days she’d had ripped away. She wasn’t irresponsible and immature.

She was simply doing her best to heal old wounds the only way she knew how.

“It doesn’t matter, now. What’s done is done and we can’t go back.” She set the wine bottle down and licked her stained lips. She rested her cheek on her palm and stared at me with glassy eyes. “After we were married, Parker made it clear he wanted to get me pregnant as soon as possible. The idea terrified me because I was still a child myself, and he was the only person I’d ever had sex with. I was too inexperienced across the board. But I couldn’t say no to him. When I did, he hit me. He cursed at me. He isolated me in our shitty apartment for weeks on end, allowing my mother to spin deeper intoher psychosis since I wasn’t around to supervise her. He forced me to have sex with him. He brainwashed me into thinking all the above was normal. I got pregnant right away, and then almost immediately suffered a miscarriage.” She gulped, and a tear ran down her face. She breathed hard through her nose and whispered, “There’s no feasible way to maintain a pregnancy when you’re being physically and emotionally abused. It was a horrific cycle that happened twice more. He’d knock me up, then knock me around and I’d lose the baby. Every time it happened, I wanted to die. I thought it was all my fault. I genuinely believed I did something wrong, that my body was broken, and that’s why I couldn’t carry to term. It never occurred to me that he was the cause.”

My blood turned to ice and a killing intent the likes of which I’d never felt before welled inside of my chest. When I asked Rocco to run a background on Channing before extorting her into marriage, none of this popped up. Which meant that all the suffering and loss she described, she faced alone. Her ex never took her to the hospital or sought medical help for her. He ruined her repeatedly and left her to deal with the aftermath by herself. “Willow never noticed what was happening?”

I couldn’t imagine her sister ignoring such horrific treatment. They were very protective over one another.

Channing sniffled and wiped her nose with the sleeve of the vintage silk robe she was wrapped in. Normally, I’d cringe at the defacing of such a beautiful and expensive garment, but right now, she could destroy everything in this house, and I wouldn’t bat an eye.

“Willow and Archie were on the run from your mother. She tried to check in on me, but anytime she popped her head out of hiding, your mother would send henchmen after them and they’d have to move again. She had her own demons to deal with. Plus, I lied to everyone about what was happening. I’m supposed to be the levelheaded and rational Harvey. I’m the one who takes care of everyone else in the family. How was I supposed to admit how badly I failed when it came to taking care of myself? Back then, even if my sister or my mother knew what was going on, I would’ve played it off as a misunderstanding. I couldn’t grasp how wrong everything Parker did to me was until the final pregnancy.” She closed her eyes and put a hand to her chest like she was trying to hold her heart in place. I’d never seen her look so forlorn. “I got pregnant when I was nineteen. By then, I’d met Salome. Salome moved into the apartment across the hall from ours and heard every time Parker got physical. Slowly but surely, she started to intercept me whenever I was alone. In the laundry room. Taking out the trash. In the elevator. She told me she would help me. She repeated over and over that the way Parker treated me wasn’t right. She threatened to call the police if she heard him hit me ever again, so for a while, he left me alone. It was the only time during our marriage I felt somewhat safe. She saved my life. She’s also the reason I managed to carry the final pregnancy almost to term. She monitored me the entire time. Making sure I ate and saw a doctor for regular checkups whenever Parker was out of town for a gig. I swear Parker was scared to death of her.”

Channing trailed off and hesitated to continue her story. Seeing that she was clearly trapped inside a devastating memory, I got to my feet and walked around the table to where she was curling into herself like she was protecting her body from powerful blows. I picked her up and sat back down with her in my lap. I tucked her head under my chin and promised, “If you want to leave the past behind, I’ll make sure none of it ever touches you again. If you want to keep going, you don’t have to press on alone. Who you were, and who you are now, there is no difference to me, Channing. They’re both you, and you’re mine. I’ll fix whatever that bastard broke. Okay?”

Her shoulders started to shake, and I could hear her muffled cries. “I was very pregnant, and Parker demanded I go to a bar to watch his band perform. We’d been there a few times and that’s where I met Roan. I have no idea why. Maybe it was to humiliate me because he flirted around and kissed five different girls right in front of me throughout the night. He wanted me to drink and party with his band, but I refused. I stuck with water throughout the evening, but at some point, I started to feel really off. I know he slipped something in my drink when I went to the bathroom. Fortunately, Roan was the bartender. He could tell something was wrong. He wanted to rush me to the hospital, but Parker refused and threw a fit. The next thing I knew, my water broke, and I was going into labor. Nothing about it felt right. Roan and Parker got into an altercation which set off a brawl inside the bar. The cops were called. By the time I made it to labor and delivery, I was covered in blood and barely breathing. I don’t remember much after that, butI delivered the baby and didn’t die; both seemed to be a miracle.”

I held her tighter and remembered her asking me what I was going to do if she wanted to have kids in the future because our marriage contract initially lasted for five years. Channing was currently in her mid-thirties. If I hadn’t let her adjust the time limit, I very well could have stolen her last chance to start a family because I was clueless about her history and complications. No wonder she was so resentful I forced her into marriage despite all the benefits. I would hate me too if I was in her shoes.

“How come there are no records of this anywhere? Rocco dug through your background, including your medical history, with a fine-tooth comb. There are no red flags.”

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