Page 54 of Hidden Chaos

19

Patrena

Tywin had lost that appearance of everlasting confidence he always presented, something I had rarely seen up to this point. The haunting glint in his eyes told me the story concerning his son and his son’s mother was no fairy tale. He swallowed hard and his throat bobbed in response to whatever was running through his mind.

“Arlo’s mother is at a level within the syndicate that required I sign an NDA to never reveal who she is, not even to my cousins. The hardest part of this situation is that I’ve never seen where my son goes when he leaves here, only that he boards a plane and he always calls me when he lands. To not know where my son is for long stretches of time is one of the heaviest stresses I’ve had to carry.”

My heart sank at the disclosure, and I brushed a tender palm against his chin. “Tywin, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine.”

The impact of his statement kept running through my head even as his sorrowful gaze remained locked on mine. This was why he and his father took their time with Arlo so seriously.

“My father is the only person in the Vallin family who knows her name because she and he had a brief fling. I believe my father knows more about her and her family than I do, but like me, he’s bound by a contract, so serious, that if breached it could mean never seeing Arlo again or even death.”

I touched my temple with my index finger and closed my eyes like that would help me think. “So, wait. I’m confused. How did you two meet? Does anyone outside this house know that you have a son?”

“Everyone knows that I have a son. They’ve all met him, but they don’t know who his mother is or that she and my father had a fling a long time ago. My father decided to move on, but she didn’t. When he married my mother, she stirred up a lot of trouble that nearly got him and my mother killed. If cancer hadn’t taken my mother’s life when I was ten, that crazy-ass woman would have tried.”

My gaze dropped to the pink breast cancer ribbon tattooed on his chest, right over his heart. It was the only tattoo on his upper front side, like he didn’t want anything else on the canvas with it. Although I couldn’t read the small scripture on the tattoo, the words were translated into understanding by the depth of the sadness reflected in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your mother,” I expressed sincerely. Losing your mother at that young an age involved a kind of torturous pain that I understood well. The long silence that followed and the way he had dropped eye contact told me I should put questions about his mother on hold.

“Your son’s mother sounds like she might be a real piece of work,” I stated, shaking my head with my face still pulled tight in confusion.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he replied. “I’m convinced the woman taught the devil his

tricks. She eventually accepted after years of obsessing over my father that she would never have him. So, she came up with another plan, one that guaranteed she would have a Vallin man and the child she always wanted with my father.”

My lips parted and my head shook absently in disbelief. I had a nosey streak in me about a mile long, but I had a sense that hearing the rest of this story would put an ache in my heart more than it would satisfy my curiosity. Was Tywin about to say what I think he was about to say?

“The crazy woman drugged and kidnapped me. She stashed me away in the basement of her mansion. I believe she was giving me Rohypnol among other drugs, because there were times when I couldn’t recall what was being done to me. I’d wake up sore, tired, and sick to my stomach. When I was lucid enough to think, she would torture me with whatever she got her hands own. She was taking the revenge she wanted on my father out on me. She told me so herself.”

“My God. Wasn’t there someone to stop this? Didn’t anybody come for you or bargain for her to let you go?”

He shook his head. “She took me and no one knew where I was and they certainly wouldn’t have suspected that it was a vengeful woman who had taken me. I didn’t even know where I was. There was no one to stop her, and she had enough money to pay to get away with anything she wanted. She didn’t stop drugging and visiting me until she was pregnant. After that, she kept me around until she knew she’d carry the baby to term.”

Not only had I lost my ability to speak, but my slackened mouth refused to shut. A slow blink was all I had to offer in response.

“S-she… she… raped you?” I asked, barely getting my words out while staring and fighting back tears. I gripped his hand, squeezing it and praying I was offering some kind of comfort.

He nodded at my question and though I sensed the deep level of hurt he carried, he maintained a calm demeanor.

“Back then, I was tall, skinny, geeky—easy prey. I didn’t know a thing about fighting, and it would take another incident that happened to me in college for me to finally decide that being the victim was no longer an option. Being the easy prey I was, she would taunt me and beat me, knowing I was too weak to do anything about it. I made attempts to fight her off, but whatever she was drugging me with was too strong. I even made several attempts to escape, but she had guards and watching eyes at her disposal.”

I shook my head because my brain had a hard time accepting the horrendous nature of his story. “No, Tywin. No. I’m sorry. This did not happen to you,” I mouthed. “How could someone get away with something like that? I don’t understand.”

Though I had trouble excepting it, the tense set of his shoulders and the haunted gleam that had taken up residence in his eyes confirmed that every word he’d spoken was the truth.

“She belongs to one of the most powerful families in the syndicate. She had money, power, and influence to do whatever she wanted to whoever she wanted to do it to.”

Who the hell were these people, this family, that they’d gotten away with this? No wonder Tywin was into one-night stands. The poor man probably saw us all as crazy chicks who only wanted to milk a Vallin baby out of him. Damn!

“Now, you’re forced to share custody of your son with this woman. Was she ever punished for what she did to you? And how did you convince someone like that to share custody?”

“Death is usually the only way to punish the truly wicked. Unfortunately, in this case, the wicked won. It wasn’t easy to get shared custody if you could call it that. Ultimately, it took her seeing my father again to finally agree to any type of arrangement, and I believe it was only out of spite. She wanted to rub it in his face that she did finally have the Vallin baby he had refused to give her.

“I don’t get very much time with my son so I don’t take his visits for granted. She knows that she runs the show. She’s even shown up a few times to drop him off. I know she only does it to see if she can see my father, but she’s been smart enough through the years not to come anywhere near me, making sure she stays behind the protection of whatever they drive up in to drop off Arlo. I haven’t seen her face in years.”

I brought his hand up to my lips and kissed the back so he’d know I was there, that I cared about how he felt. This was some crazy shit. “Is that why all the security’s here? For your son’s protection?”

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