Page 79 of Ruse
Levi struggles away from her mother, once again nearly falling backwards, as Tate finally steps away. “What do you mean mom? No, I'm not leaving here.” Levi turns to me, a hidden message I can’t understand in the way she’s looking at me, like we share some secret I’m not aware of. “Not until I see him. Not until I ask him why he never came to see me.”
“Sweetie, I’ll explain everything to you but please we need to leave.” Chelsea’s desperate now, tugging on her daughter's arm, but Levi is relentless and frankly I’m fucking over it.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Levi, please,” Chelsea begs.
From the corner of my eye my father appears, Daphne following quickly behind him trying to catch up. “What is all this commotion about? What’s going on here?” He abruptly pauses the moment he sees Levi and her mother standing before the crowd that’s settled around to watch the fiasco. I swear all they’re missing is the buckets of popcorn and comfortable recliners to watch the drama series taking place in front of them.
My father’s gaze falls on Chelsea, his eyes widening the moment her eyes meet his. “Chelsea?” he asks bewildered yet looking at her like he’s just seen her for the first time in years. An almost yearning look mixed with a hint of apprehension when he catches Levi tucked in safely behind her. “What are you…”
Tate choses this precise moment to step forward, opening her nasty mouth to speak. “Well, isn’t this just wonderful, the whole family is back together again.”
Maverick steps forward and reaches for Tate but she’s quick to deflect him. “Tate don’t,” he warns.
Tate scoffs, shrugging away from Maverick and moving to stand directly between all of us. “Now that we’re all here, why don’t we get started on the introductions. I’m Tate,” she shifts toward Levi and her mother. “This is Levi and her mom Chelsea,” she says, turning back to me. “Phoenix, Brooklyn, Austin, oh and his wife Daphne who is also Maverick’s mom. Oh, you know Maverick, right?” she asks Levi, who looks up at Mav with wide, teary eyes. “Let me see, am I missing anyone?” Tate continues, sarcasm clear in her tone of voice.
To my right I watch as Maverick’s scowl turns furious. “Tate…”
But before he can finish what he’s saying, Tate lets out a high-pitched laugh. “Oh yeah duh, the reason we’re all here. Levi darling, this is Austin Bancroft, your father.”
Father.
One word, six letters, yet it’s capable of flipping my entire life off its axis. Again. I hear the gasps and snickers; I can feel the tension building up all around me, yet there’s nothing I can do. Frozen in place, paralyzed by what I just heard.
My vision blurs, my hearing falters, and inside I can feel my heart thundering fiercely in my chest. It’s a lie, it has to be. I want to believe that what the conniving bitch said is nothing but poison spewed straight from the snake's mouth, because she hates me.
I don’t understand how she can hate me enough to make up this horrific lie. Maybe it’s the fact that I am more popular than her, or she really loves Chad and saw me as a threat? I have to believe there is a very important reason she hates me enough to make this up because I don’t think I will truly be able to recover if what she says is true.
Though I’m not so lucky, because the unsurprised expressions, the guilt staining their faces - Maverick’s, Levi’s, Chelsea’s, my dad’s - they’re the only confirmation I need.
Levi is my father’s daughter, my sister. A sister I never knew about, a sister only a couple years younger than me.
The only thing out of all this that doesn’t shock me is the plausible assumption my slut of a father had another affair while still married to my mother. While Brooklyn and I were only babies.
The thought makes me fucking sick to my stomach.
Looking back at the crowd, the only people who look as distraught and disgusted as I must look right now, are Daphne and my brother, who obviously did not know Levi existed either.
“What the fuck are you talking about Tate?” Brooklyn snarls, grabbing her by the arm. My brother is livid, unrecognizable as his arm tightens around Tate’s arm, the fear in her eyes slowly making my stomach settle. “What the fuck kind of games are you playing?”
Tate winces, suddenly playing the helpless victim. “Let go of me you brute, you’re hurting me.”
“Oh, it’s a hell of a lot less than what I’m going to do to you,” Donovan sneers, stepping into her, and pushing her chest making her stumble back.
However, I don’t say a damn thing. I have nothing to say. Levi’s sorrowful, nearly broken gaze finds mine, and the genuine pain and hurt in her eyes mimics what I feel inside, but not what I’m showing to everyone around me. I can’t let them see how broken I currently feel inside. I refuse to give them the satisfaction of knowing they ruined me. I refuse to show them they’ve won.
Maverick takes a step toward me, looking like a man who’s just been outed, walking over with his tail tucked between his legs. I should be grateful the bitch revealed his betrayal and showed me the monster I was falling for, since it’s pretty damn obvious Maverick knew about this all along.
“Nyx,” he says, reaching for me, but I instinctively pull back before he can grab hold of my arm.
I shake my head walking backwards away from him. “No,” I mutter, under my breath. “Stay the hell away from me you lying bastard.”
Remorse flashes in his eyes, guilt, pain, fear. All things I had never seen when I looked at him. All things he hid from me in order to make me fall for him and his dirty games. “Baby, please listen, this isn’t…”
“This isn’t what, huh? The way you wanted me to find out. This isn’t how you were planning on outing my fucked-up family drama? Tell me Maverick, this just because Tate beat you to it right? That’s what this is really about? You were too chickenshit to do it yourself, so your accomplice did all the dirty work for you. Did you really think you were going to get out of it unscathed?”
Maverick continues toward me. “Don’t do this. You have no idea what’s going on here. You don’t know the full story. I swear to you this fucking bitch has nothing to do with me.”
