Page 152 of Cruel Legacy

It makes no sense, and yet it does. Because that’s just how fucked my life has been up to this point. “If that’s true, then how did I wind up with mom?”

Moira wrings her hands. “We asked her to take you away. And she agreed, because she’s my sister.”

Hersister. Moira’s. “You’re telling me my whole life, everything I knew, everything I went through, was built on a lie? I’ve had no one for years, because you gave me away to yoursister,and then you brought me here and still perpetuated the lie!”

“We did what we thought was best for you. You have to understand, we never intended for you to grow up the way you did. We were trying to protect you.”

“Newsflash,AuntMoira. You failed.”

I run through the house and out the back door, taking the steps down to the beach. I don’t know where I’m going. I just need to get away from here.

Chapter64

Holden

Iclose my eyes and take a deep breath, letting the soft hum from my computers wash over me.

The search I’m conducting has been running for two weeks. I finally got a hit on it, and I know whatever results came back will either be garbage or life changing.

I unlock my computer and go through the process of searching through the syntax code until I see what I’m looking for.

Three possible matches returned. The first is hospital records from a town in Greece. It’s looking like it’s a garbage result, but my brain won’t let me ignore it. I have to review everything. I click on the file.

I’ve seen a lot of documents from different places all over the world. There’s no mistaking the one page medical record I’m looking at.

I don’t speak Greek, so I run it through a translation program. When the words reconstitute it says Moira was admitted for removal of a fibrous cyst.

I pull up the second link. It’s a flight manifest for a private jet, with two passengers flying from Greece to New York. The passengers are listed as Hailee and Moira. It’s dated the day after the note in the medical records.

I’m no doctor, but I imagine it’s not likely that Moira was on an eleven hour flight after having a cyst removed from her uterus. And why was Thea’s mother in Greece when she had a one-year-old at home? Was this before Thea’s dad took off?

I scan the medical records one more time to make sure the dates are the same. Maybe there was a planned flight, and they had to cancel because of Moira’s operation. I click the last document and wish I hadn’t.

The record of live birth changes everything. No wonder we couldn’t find anything about Thea’s family; the history she’s concocted is complete bullshit. But this birth certificate I’m looking at, I’m sure it’s real.

This has to be the most elaborate scheme I’ve ever seen. Moira and Scott had a child, but there’s no record of it anywhere. Hailee LaReaux’s name is on a birth certificate for Theona LaReaux, but there are no hospital records of her ever giving birth in any of the places Thea supposedly lived. If I were planning to infiltrate The League. This is how I’d do it.

The question is, are the Hughes’s in on it, or were they the original victims of whatever the hell is going on here? And where is Thea’s mother? The part where she fell off the face of the earth, that part’s real. I send Pax and Finn a text. Neither of them waste time coming over. I’ve just finished printing the birth certificate when they come through the door.

“You’ve got something?”

I hand off the printout, too furious to speak. She’s been playing us. Playing Finn this whole time. Likely targeting us just to tear us down and make us look like fools. I know better than to let my guard down around poisonous women.

For weeks now, I’ve been going into her room. Working up the nerve to finally let her know what I want, and none of it is real. It can never be real.

Finn looks at the document and says, “I don’t know what you guys think this means.”

Pax answers, a satisfied smirk on his face. “It means your little pet has been lying to us from the start. Just like I said she was.”

Finn frowns. “Because she changed her name and pretended to be older than she is?”

“Read it again.” Pax urges, knowing Finn only skimmed the document.

“Wait. Why does this list Scott and Moira as the parents?” He looks up at me. “Where did you get this?”

“Dark web.” Which is why I wasn't expecting to get any decent search results. Why would a pair of snowflakes like Moira and Scott Hughes have documents buried so deep we can only find them on the dark net?

“Holy shit.” He gives me a look. Almost pleading. “She didn’t do this herself. Right?”

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