Page 23 of Vengeful Reign

When I stand, I find her eyes on me and try to ignore the sensual desire that runs through me. My family has always been a priority for me, and I would never deny my feelings for them. Everyone knows what they mean to me, and anyone that harms them learns that I’m serious.

“I watch you with him and I see your sincerity, but it still doesn’t explain why you didn’t know he was autistic. Your suits are expensive. The clothes he came with cost more than I make in a year.”

I nod. To her it screams of neglect, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. “My mother’s birth was difficult. We were told that his birth was complicated, and he suffered braindamage during the process.” Nora gasps. The sound causes John to move slightly in his bed, and we both look at him. Giving each other a knowing look, I take her by the forearm and lead her out of the bedroom.

We go into the hallway, and I continue. “My mother died less than a week later. My father never grew attached to my brother because of it, but my other brothers and I did. However, when it came to getting more treatment for him, that was my father’s choice, and his doctors all agreed with my father that it was the brain damage he received at birth.”

“Couldn’t you have fought for custody?”

“Sweetheart, do I look like I go through legal channels? The only way things happen in my world are through force. Now, things have changed,” I say, growling out that last bit. My father isn’t getting an opportunity to choose. John is mine now.

“So is your father…”

“No, he’s very much alive, but I’m curious what John’s nanny told you.”

“Nothing, really.” Nora shakes her head.

I wrap my hand around her throat, knowing it turns both of us on. Fuck, my dick is hard as I watch the way her eyes brighten up and her pulse races. “What did I tell you about lying to me?”

“Look, it was over a year ago, so it isn’t all that damn clear. All I know is that I’ve been afraid to take him out except for school because she said that his family would be willing to kill him and that his parents were killed….and he was her godson.”

Chapter Nine

Nora

He frees me with a smirk. “And you just fucking believed that shit? How fucking gullible are you?”

I chuckle hard and shake my head, wanting to kick him in the shins. “What’s your proof he’s your brother? Just because he knows your name doesn’t mean anything.”

“You know that’s a lie. He’s not like a regular six-year-old boy, so don’t bullshit me. John doesn’t even speak, or at least he didn’t.” He has a point, but I just want to be a bitch right back.

“Hold on a second, you jerk.” I walk into my bedroom, and thankfully he doesn’t go past the doorframe. Something about him following me in would be a little too intimate. I was able to put a small desk in here to do some work where John couldn’t touch. Opening a locked drawer, I pull out a folder.

I walk over to him and push the file folder against his chest. “These are filed with the court, so trying to shred them won’t do anything. I wasn’t being naïve. She provided me with these.”

He takes a few steps back into the hallway and I close the door, locking it. “You lock the door?”

“Yes. I try to keep John from getting into things.” Why am I afraid of his opinion? Not like he’s going to be angry, but like he’s going to judge me negatively.

“Smart,” he answers with a nod. It makes me smile, but I quickly mask it and hide my face by tucking my chin and crossing my arms. It doesn’t matter because Jack busies himselfby leaning against the wall with the papers in his hand, reading them with a scowl on his face.

It takes a few minutes, but he reads the documents and with each page his face grows darker and darker. “These may be legal in a sense, but they’re all fake papers.”

“What do you mean?” I question. I didn’t have any rights to John this entire time.

“First off, his name isn’t John Ingram. His name is John MacNamara. The Ingram family,” he says with a scoff of disgust. “Hell, that’s about the only thing on here that’s accurate, except that my mother is dead.”

“Okay. So, she pretty much lied about everything.” MacNamara… Could he really be Jack MacNamara of the MacNamara family of Chicago? She lied about everything, then; they weren’t from New Jersey. I knew he felt familiar. We never met, but I knew of him and his name. I knew of his father—the reason I ran away.

“I don’t know who orchestrated the kidnapping of my brother or why. To this day, everything is a mess. I would have gotten answers if my father hadn’t killed her in a fit of rage.”

I press my hand on his forearm, trying to calm him down. “If it was all a lie, why did she kidnap him in the first place?” I question.

“It could have been a ransom gone wrong,” he mutters, thinking out loud.

“Since she escaped with him, the kidnappers failed, and it never worked.”

“Yes, or maybe she was the kidnapper, and her cohorts lost their guts and bailed.”

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