Page 66 of Angel

Cage didn’t like having the camera on him, but he was willing to push through his discomfort if it helped get custody of Aaron. Danny, one of Carlos’s deputies, had already been by to take a cheek swab from both Aaron and Cage. They were sending it off to the lab with a rush order per the judge Carlos had been in contact with already that morning.

“When I was seventeen, I cheated on my girlfriend, Emily Santo, with her best friend, Veronica Milton. She’s married now and goes by Veronica Banks. Anyway, we did use protection. About four months later, Veronica suddenly moved out of our school.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Carlos said. “Where was this?”

“Watsonville, Illinois. It’s outside of Chicago. It was summer of 2007, I believe.”

“Thank you. Continue.”

“As I said, Veronica left school suddenly. I didn’t think anything of it. Emily and I had already broken up around that time and I had no reason to pay attention to Veronica. But there was this rumor going around school that Veronica left because she was pregnant. Since we’d slept together, I thought I should call to check, but I could only ever leave messages. She’d had a boyfriend around that time too, but I wanted to make sure. I even tried her parents’ home phone. No one ever answered.

“Then I saw a post on social media. Veronica was tagged in it, even though we weren’t friends online. I saw that she had a baby in her arms. Again, I tried to reach out. I didn’t know what to do, really. But then I landed myself in trouble and I was arrested.”

Carlos opened up a folder he had brought with him. “I see the charges were dismissed because you signed an eight-year contract with the Navy.”

Cage nodded. “The judge gave me a chance to make something of my life.”

“Did you ever try to reach Mrs. Banks again?”

“Several times. I came to the conclusion that she blocked my number.”

“Did you ever hire anyone to try to find her or the baby you suspected was your son?”

Cage shook his head. “I mailed money each month to her parents’ address. I knew from others around town that they still owned the house.”

“Why would you mail money if you didn’t know the baby was yours?”

Cage had to think about that answer for a moment. “I needed to do something. Maybe it was guilt over the original affair, I don’t know. I just knew that there was a chance that her baby was mine and I wanted to give him something.”

“Thank you, Mr. Georgiou. Is there anything else you would like to add?”

Cage shook his head, but then changed his mind. “Just that I regret missing out on the last sixteen years of my son’s life. I should have made more of an effort back then.” He looked at Aaron. “But I’m here now and I’m not giving up my son without a fight.”

“Thank you, Mr. Georgiou.” Carlos turned to Aaron. “Hi, Aaron. Can you please confirm for me your full name and date of birth?”

“Aaron Vincent Banks. My birthday is June 4, 2008.”

“You’re sixteen. Have you ever had contact with Mr. Georgiou before today?”

Aaron shook his head. “I didn’t even know Mr. Georgiou existed until about a year ago.”

“What did your mother tell you about your father?”

“I thought her husband, Garrett Banks, was my father. That’s what everyone’s always told me, anyway.”

“Can you tell me how you discovered otherwise?”

Aaron glanced at Cage and then back at Carlos. “My parents had been fighting a lot. Nothing physical, just a lot of yelling.”

“This was two years ago?” Carlos clarified.

“Always,” Aaron amended. “But it got really bad around my fourteenth birthday. I overheard my dad—I mean, Mr. Banks—shout at my mom that he was tired of raising her bastard son. That’s when I found out that my dad wasn’t my dad. I did some digging. I discovered that my mom had married the man I thought was my dad when I was three. When she took his name, she had my name changed too.

“I got really mad. I confronted my mom and demanded she tell me about my real dad. She refused to give me his name but told me that he didn’t want me, that he’d never wanted me. But she let it slip that he’d gone to the same high school as her. I knew she had some of her old high school memorabilia in her bedroom closet. I waited until she was out one day and then went to see what I could find.

“I got out her junior yearbook—she didn’t have a senior one that I could find—and an old photo album. I took it back to my room to look through. That’s when I found this.” Aaron reached into his back pocket. He opened his wallet and pulled a folded photo out.

Cage took the picture Aaron handed him. It was a picture of himself at sixteen. His arm was around Emily’s shoulders. Another kid—Cage couldn’t remember his name—had his arm around Veronica’s. They were at the beach. Cage and the other boy were in swim trunks while the girls were in bikinis. Looking at himself at sixteen and then Aaron now, there was no doubting his son’s lineage.

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