Page 83 of Unfulfilled Promises
“Regan, why don’t you fill them in?” James suggested as he sat back with a smile on his face.
“Umm,” she began and stopped, unable to form her thoughts.
I took her hand in mine as Rhys walked up to the table and looked at Regan. She couldn’t articulate what we just uncovered, so I did. “This morning, Regan remembered something, and when she asked James to investigate it, well,” I spun thecomputer so Rhys could see it, “it looks like she was right all along.”
Rhys leaned over and read the screen before lifting his head in shock. His eyes were wide, his mouth was open, and he, like the rest, seemed to have trouble saying what it was.
“What?” Hawk asked.
Stella was the one to explain. “Sergey used to drill numbers into Regan’s head, and when she remembered one, it turns out he had almost thirty million dollars hidden.”
“Damn,” Hawk replied.
“That’s not the interesting part.” Stella reasoned, “Sergey put the account into Regan’s name and the passcode was his nickname for her.”
“Why?” Hawk asked as Regan shrugged.
“When I was with them, I thought they were a secret, and I refused to tell anyone what he made me remember. After, I thought it was some kind of twisted joke he’d played on me. And now, I . . . I don’t know what to believe,” Regan said.
“I believe Sergey put the money in your name for a reason,” Lucian began, “but I have no idea what his plan was.”
Regan looked across the table at Stella and asked, “Why do you think he did it?”
“You’re what, twenty-seven?” Regan nodded, so Stella continued. “And your mother never told you who your father was?” She shook her head, and I was starting to see where Stella was going with this.
“Before you say what I think you’re going to say, we need to be sure. Dropping that kind of news could be detrimental to her,” I reasoned.
Regan grew silent for a moment before she lifted her head and asked in a small voice, “Do you think Sergey was my father?”
“There’s a possibility,” Stella remarked. “I think before we jump to conclusions, a DNA test needs to be run.”
“We can use the same test we used on Waylon and Dick Pickens,” Rhys replied and reached his hand out to his sister.
“How . . . how could our mother have crossed paths with Sergey?” Regan asked Rhys.
It was James who offered an answer. “If, and it’s a big if, Sergey is your father, then my guess would be the house in the Flats. Whorehouses were the bread and butter of the Syndicate, and if he was sampling the goods, then there is a chance. That would put had your conception around the time Devlin was sent to Marco.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him to visit one of the whorehouses while he was on the road,” Devlin remarked.
“How do we find out?” Regan asked.
James stood and remarked, “I’ll be right back.”
He left the room, and Regan began to ponder. “Do you think that’s why he wasn’t cruel to me? Or do you think he just saw me as someone who could keep his secrets?”
“You can go round and round in your mind, but until the test is run, I’d say try not to dwell on it. And if you are, you’ve got some pretty amazing siblings,” Devlin explained with a chuckle.
“If you are, that would make you and Hannah actual blood sisters,” Rhys added, and I offered him a small smile.
James returned with something inside a paper sleeve, and when he stopped next to me, he handed it to me. I turned it to see a long cotton swab inside with a small vile. The vile had liquid in it and I looked at James for instructions.
“Swab the inside of your cheek for one minute, put the tip into the vile, break the stick, and seal the vile. I’ll have it expedited, and we should have the results in two days,” James said.
Regan opened the package and began to rub the cotton stick inside her cheek. I looked at the group, specifically Stella, andasked, “Where was the house you went to when you handled Sergey?”
“I’ve got the address, but from what I saw online, the house burned down last year, so if you’re looking for the book Regan said she wrote everything down in, I don’t know if it’s still there.”
Regan removed the swab from her mouth and followed James’s instructions before handing the completed test back to him. She turned and looked at the group as she explained, “The book wasn’t inside the house. I knew it would be difficult to get inside the house after we left, so I triple bagged it and buried it in the back yard.”
