Page 135 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

“That’s insane,” I muttered in shock.

Certainly, I’ve always thought Chadwick’s relationship with Doe was inappropriate on many levels. He wasn’t supposed to be this close to the students—his patients, at this school. And while he always treated everyone with kindness, he was so much different with her.

But it was obvious that Doe didn’t mind that. She was starving for some kind of loving solace her entire life. Chadwick caught her in the warmth of his arms when she was at her lowest, expecting more and more pain to eat away at her heart. Starving people would eat anything, and he used that to his advantage.

“These are notes about how he found Doe. How he made sure she was the right De Loughrey and not her cousin,” Jesse whispered, shock lacing his voice as he stared at the notes we uncovered. “There are some about you too, but he wrote them differently in contrast to Doe’s.”

“What do you mean by that?” I took the stack with his notes about me from the table and skimmed them over.

Jesse held out a sheet from Chadwick’s notes about Doe, pointing at the neat handwriting. “He wrote hers in a soft, elegant style, while everything he wrote about you was written in anger. Look at the letters, you can see the mine of the pencil he used breaking by how intense he pressed the tip on the paper.Besides, it’s all messy. He was writing yours filled with rage or perhaps jealousy…”

He was right. Every paper mentioning my name was messily written, and the papers had dog ears, crumbled as if he didn’t care about them—me, as much as he cared about her.

“He hates me, why?” Sure, plenty of people hated me, but what did I do to him?

Better question, why was he so obsessed with my girl?

“Chadwick told us that he’s been watching us to stop Kane and the prophecy from being fulfilled, but that’s beyond madness. He stalked Doe the moment he graduated from Aquila,” Naomi said, glancing over at Kane.

“Anwir is the epitome of madness,” Kane added in a dangerous tone. “He hated you, Archer, Gods, he hated you.”

“Why?” So, suddenly, he could talk.

“You’re the Kingstone heir.”

Jesse cringed his face in disgust. “What is this pedophile lore? Was he jealous because Archer is Doe’s destined love and he’s not? That’s beyond disturbing.”

Kane mirrored our disgusted expression. “Anwir might be a lot, but certainly not a pedophile. He’s jealous because— because—”

“Because he’s not the heir of the Kingstone house,” Mai finished for him. Her eyes widened in horror as she stared down at the open file in her hand. She slowly lowered the file on the desk, and my heart skipped a beat while the blood in my veins froze.

It was a birth certificate.

“Chadwick was born a Kingstone,” I gaped.

His birth name was Anwir Kingstone.

He’s the son of my deceased aunt and a man named Oliver Dickey.

“By the time he was born, my aunt must have been around sixteen,” I whispered. My aunt died before I was even born. She drowned in her own bathtub after overdosing on sleeping pills. If I remembered right, she must have committed suicide not soon after his birth.

My father always said that Kingstone’s either died young or became successful, it’s our family curse.

I moved the certificate to the side, finding adoption papers underneath it, declaring him Anwir Chadwick.

Legal son of Jenna and Rubin Chadwick.

“Anwir is my cousin. He’s a Kingstone.” The shock almost paralysed me if the realisation of what that meant didn’t dominate.

I spun around to face Kane, who gave me a knowing look.

No. No. No.

Kane couldn’t speak about it. As couldn’t the spirits. Doe had told us how Dottie wasn’t able to speak to her becausehemade sure she couldn’t.

They were cursed to keep the secrets of the traitor.

My heart shattered.

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