Page 92 of Hidden Chaos

“I loved your mother, Patrena and I had no doubt she felt the same way about me. You weren’t conceived behind any tricks or schemes.”

I didn’t know what to say. How was I supposed to respond?

“I know this is a lot to take in. I have a medical team on standby if you would like medical proof that I’m your father.”

I nodded. “Yes, I’d like confirmation,” I replied. I squeezed my hand around Tywin’s who appeared ready to leap across the table to choke Sophia to death.

“Will you consider staying for a few days?” he asked. “It will give the team here time to conduct the DNA test and await the results,” he explained.

“No. I will not stay here,” I told him and turned hateful eyes on his trifling sister. “Do you think I would be so insensitive that I’d stay in a place where Tywin was drugged, sexually abused, tortured, and kept prisoner?” Though I was responding to Gemini’s question, I was glaring at Sophia who smiled in my direction like my eyes weren’t stabbing holes in her demonic ass.

Gemini also glared at his sister with eyes so cold that it gave me a chill. Our reunion was being overshadowed by the evil troll sitting across the table from me.

Had Gemini truly been unaware of what his sister had done to Tywin this whole time?

Tywin

Now that I had seen this bitch again, the disjointed memories in my mind, the ones I could never clarify all of a sudden, made sense. It explained why Patrena’s tattoo was so familiar. I had seen the same image on Sophia’s back. Since I was drugged, it was like seeing the image through a dream, but it had always remained there, locked in my head.

Although being on an island had never registered when I was taken, the grounds and the house had caused alarm bells to go off in my head when we’d first arrived. The bitch was raising my son in the house she had raped and tortured his father in.

Now, I was sitting here using every mind meditation chant I remembered to keep from hopping across the table to choke out the mother of my son. One, this was not my time but Patrena’s. Two, I’d been taught never to put my hands on a woman. Three, my son was somewhere inside this house.

I eased up on the grip I had on Patrena’s hand and breathed through my anger. She needed me. The shock of being reunited with a father she’d known nothing about after all these years of thinking he was dead, was no doubt impacting her. She was also getting firsthand knowledge of what it meant to be a Bishop.

Her father was appeasing her by getting a DNA test done, but there was no need. Patrena looked just like the man. Everything from the nose, big wide brown eyes, to the freckles, and the curls on their heads matched. Also, her tattoo must have been the symbol for their family crest since Sophia had a matching one on her shoulder as well. There was also the fact that the house’s automation had recognized us when we entered.

The Bishop name was power personified. The kind of power that ran an empire so vast that it spanned countless countries and had more reach than many governments. All syndicate members knew was the name Bishop, never connecting that it was the family’s last name. Gemini Bishop wasn’t at all like I had pictured him.

Whenever someone had mentioned the name Bishop, an older Caucasian man had always popped into my head. Gemini was a Bishop III, so it was safe to assume he had taken up the reins from his father. The fact that he was my son’s uncle and that Sophia was his sister explained how she’d been able to get away with my abduction, sexual abuse, and keep so much hidden from me.

My father held a tremendous amount of power within the syndicate, but now I understood further why his hands were tied in my case and of how my son had entered this world.

Sophia had given Arlo my name, making him a Vallin. Therefore, I had never known her last name. This was why Arlo had the Vallin family crest on his back. It was safer for him, and it also kept her family identity a secret.

All I’d ever known was that she’d dated my father and her family held power. Was this why I’d received a pass to accompany Patrena on this trip? Had Sophia suggested it as some type of sick game? Or had Gemini Bishop seen me as the only way to get his daughter to see him of her own free will as Denise had suggested? Either way, this day was a day of discovery for each of us.

“So, where are we?” Patrena asked.

“Barbados,” he told her, smiling at whatever expression she was showing him.

“Your grandfather followed your grandmother from America to this island over seventy years ago. It’s the only place I call home,” he continued.

I sat and observed father and daughter ask and respond to each other with patience and a level of peaceful understanding that usually took time to build in new relationships. However, Patrena had that effect on people. She appeared disappointed to find out that she didn’t have any other siblings. Every time my mind drifted into the danger zone and my eyes wanted to stare across the table, I thought about my son.

“Daddy!” The sound of his voice snapped me out of the hot zone and instantly melted my sour mood. I stood and turned in time to see him running in my direction. I scooped him up into a tight hug despite sensing the cold eyes of his mother on my back.

It had only been a few days since I’d seen him last, but it had felt like a year. We hugged, laughed together, and took each other in. He was going a mile a minute, trying to update me on all he’d done in the past few days. Though I could sense all eyes on us, I didn’t disturb his telling. When I turned and took my seat with Arlo on my lap, Sophia sat frowning, and Gemini and Patrena were smiling at us.

It had just occurred to me that Arlo was Patrena’s cousin. She must have reached the same conclusion based on the knowing expression she gave me before putting her gaze back on him, who sat there grinning and unaware of the adult situation swirling in the air.

“You wanna see my room?” he asked.

“I’d love to see it,” I replied, sensing Sophia’s seething eyes on me and glimpsing her head shaking.

Gemini must have possessed a lot of power over her because it was evident she wanted to vocalize her protest of Arlo’s suggestion. I stood and placed him on the floor.

“Wait here,” he demanded. “I have to do something before you see it. I’ll be right back,” he said, buzzing with so much energy that it bounced off of him. He ran off, his tennis shoes smacking the patio floor. I retook my seat and my gaze landed on the devil’s side bitch sitting across the table from me.

---