Page 25 of Forsaken

Eli dropped his eyes and remained quiet for several seconds before finally speaking. “His name is Jack Cortano. Colonel Jack Cortano.”

“He’s in the military?” I asked, more to keep Eli talking than anything else since I already knew the basics about the man.

Eli nodded. “He used to be the base commander at JBLM before he took a job in DC.”

I knew that JBLM stood for Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a joint Army and Air Force base south of the city. “How did he and your mom meet?” I asked since Eli had fallen silent again.

“My mom worked in the accounting department at Dom’s company. He was meeting Dom for lunch one day when he met my mom.”

“He and Dom are friends?”

Another nod. “They were in the army together. He stayed in after Dom got out to start his business but they stayed friends.”

“How old were you when he and your mom started seeing each other?”

“Fifteen. He proposed to her a few months after they met.”

“Did you two get along?” I asked.

A pained expression crossed Eli’s features before it slipped away and he nodded. “I’d never had a dad before and he reminded me so much of Dom.” Eli rubbed at his eyes and although I didn’t see any tears falling, I had no doubt the move was meant to deter them. “Even though he had kids from a previous marriage, he treated me like his own, you know?” Eli whispered. “He took me to ball games, fishing trips, all of the same stuff he did with his real sons. I even started calling him Dad. And my mom…”

Eli shook his head.

“He made her so happy. He encouraged her to get her GED, helped her learn English. She got to quit her job so she could go to school full time and get a degree in psychology. She works with veterans and their families now.”

“In D.C.?” I asked.

“Yeah. She and my stepfather moved there after he got a job at the Department of Defense.”

“Was that when you were enrolled in Johns Hopkins?”

Eli nodded. “They moved down there my sophomore year.”

“You mentioned other kids?”

“I have two stepbrothers. Nick and Caleb.”

“Do they live with their mother?”

“No,” Eli said as he shook his head. “She died in a car accident about a year after Jack married my mom. Caleb and Nick came to live with us after that.”

“Did you get along with them?”

“They never seemed to like me much. I think they knew about my past because Nick used to call me a cocksucker whenever our parents weren’t around.”

I stemmed the anger that went through me. “Did your stepfather know about your childhood?”

Eli swallowed hard and nodded. “He used to always tell me it didn’t matter. That no one would ever touch me like that again. Dom…Dom used to say those exact words to me.”

I nodded in understanding. Jack Cortano had clearly become the father Eli had wanted Dom to be…had needed him to be. “Had your stepfather ever hurt you before?”

“No,” Eli whispered, his eyes downcast. “He never raised a hand against me, never yelled at me, nothing. What happened in the stairwell…”

Eli shook his head.

“What set him off? He said something about ‘staying away from him.’ Do you know who he was talking about?”

“Caleb.”

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