Page 82 of Ruse
“Enough with the bullshit Crew, I need you to take me to see my father.”
“No need,” a dark, daunting, and holier-than-thou voice sounds behind us, immediately making the air in the room turn grim. I look behind Crew and find I’m practically staring at my reflection. Twenty years older and dressed in an impeccable thousand-dollar suit, Mathieu Carter meets my eyes with a stern yet weirdly amicable smile. “Hello son.”
I swallow the lump in my throat caused from seeing my father for the first time in years. He’s older of course, though the stark black hair on his head would say otherwise, yet he cannot hide the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, nor the lines forming on his forehead when he smiles.
“Father,” I murmur, walking over to greet him.
Reluctantly he shakes my hand, an informal gesture I’ve grown accustomed to. “I hear you’re causing quite a ruckus back in California,” he says, weirdly sounding quite proud. “However, your mother doesn’t seem as amused with the little games you’ve been playing.”
And that’s it for the reunion, we’re getting straight to the point. “There isn’t anything that amuses Daphne Carter, or should I say Bancroft.” I answer him, watching how his lips twitch and his jaw ticks at the mention of her new husband.
“Yes, well, your mother was always a peculiar woman, never satisfied with the life I provided for her.”
My father takes a seat on the leather set of chairs across from the bed, Crew moving to stand behind the vacant one, while I stay exactly where I am across from him. “You knew.” I state more than ask, when the realization he was aware of her affair dawns on me.
The man who was in here earlier, certainly one of his bodyguards enters and hands him a cigar, lighting the end before once again exiting. My father unbuttons his suit jacket and crosses a leg over his knee, leaning back as he takes a puff of the cigar clenched in his tattooed and ring covered hand.
“They were never good at sneaking around, and frankly after the first two years, gave up altogether. That’s when I left and came to live in New York only going back home for weeks at a time.”
I’m appalled by his confession. “You let her cheat?”
He nods, blowing out another ring of smoke. Tobacco fills the air as he continues speaking. “If I had divorced her, I would owe her half of everything I’d built. Proving her infidelity would save me the trouble of giving her anything. However, I needed time to ensure that was the case, so when the affair finally came to light, that was my out. It’s also the reason she needed to marry Bancroft so quickly. Daphne was left penniless. I sold the house that same night, sent her the signed divorce papers, and the rest, well you were there.”
My hands fist at my side, my knuckles turning white as I dig my nails into my palm. “Why didn’t you ever come for me? If you knew about the affair, if you knew why they sent me away...”
He straightens in his seat at my demand for answers. “I could have never given you the life you had if you were with me. Traveling from country to country, spending only weeks at a time in different cities, that’s no life for a child. I agreed because I also knew I couldn’t leave you with her and risk Bancroft doing something to you or worse turning you into his mini me, since that son of his turned out to be a huge letdown. You, however, have what it takes to be someone of importance. A true king. You are my son after all.”
Unable to handle his confession any longer, I sit on the bed, my elbows resting on my knees, and my face cupped between my hands. I guess Bancroft wasn’t the only one with secrets. “He has another daughter,” I mumble, “But of course you know that. One who was born shortly after the twins, which is nowhere near the time he was with mom, but I know I planted the seed of doubt in her head. If he cheated on his wife and had a baby with another, he could do the same to her.”
Crew and my father both start laughing loudly, leaving me sitting there with a confused look on my face which surely makes them laugh harder. “Your mother is a lost cause, Maverick. She’d turn a blind eye to any indiscretions now as long as she could keep living the luxurious life she grew accustomed to.”
Beside me, my phone vibrates on the bed, but I don’t bother picking it up, not wanting to hear or talk to anyone. It’s probably Brooklyn calling to give me a piece of his mind, or one of her friends ready to give me hell for what I've done. Or worse, it’s Austin himself going on about how I ruined his life and am no longer welcome in his house. As if I’d go back.
One thing I know for sure, it isn’t my Nyx. She wouldn’t call me, and even if she did, I don’t think I could face her right now. Not with the amount of agonizing guilt I currently feel for what I did.
Crew looks over at me annoyed by the incessant ringing. “Mav, you should answer.”
“No,” I shout, throwing the phone further up the bed, but after it rings two more times, Crew walks over to pick it up, holding it out for me. “Someone named Donovan is calling. Is that her? Do you want me to answer it?” he jokes, raising a brow teasingly. The last thing I want is Crew talking to anyone I know.
I yank the phone out of his hand, about to give Donovan Kennedy hell for blowing up my phone surely to scold me for what I did to Phoenix. “What do you want, Kennedy?” I growl into the phone, but I’m met with an eerie silence, followed by hollowed breaths and shaky sobs.
“Maverick, oh god. Thank God you finally answered.”
Fear suddenly consumes me at the ominous sound of her voice stricken with grief and worry.
“Donovan what is it? Is Phoenix okay?”
“No Maverick oh god, you have to come back, it’s Brooklyn.” She sobs again, this time her breathing quickening. “He was in an accident. We don’t know how bad just that, well it’s bad. It happened last night after the party, but we just found out now. We’re all headed to the hospital, Cedars-Sinai, but Phoenix, she’s going to need you, Maverick. Please, you have to come back. I don't know what to do.”
ChapterTwenty-Six
PHOENIX
This morning I woke up feeling overly emotional and nauseatingly sentimental. It felt as if overnight, a floodgate was torn down and a raging wave of unrestrained emotion came crashing in, like an errant torrent threatening to drown me in its vastness if I didn’t give into the feeling. I gasped for air as I sat up, suffocating from how painfully my lungs were constricting, a harrowing tightness in my chest blinding me as I sat there in agony as grief, anger, and despair overwhelmed my senses, forcing me to relive the events of the past months, of last night, feeling every emotion I felt in high definition, seeing everything that occurred clear and in vivid colors, reliving it as if it was happening all over again.
Tears I no longer believed I had in me came rushing out as I rocked back and forth, my arms tightly wrapped around my knees bringing them against my chest, holding on to dear life as the threat of falling apart yet again was clear and present.
Not sure if it’s the newfound feelings Maverick had somehow awakened in me, stirring them up inside of me with his mixed signals and inconsistent messages, or if I’d finally snapped and this was the precipice of my psychotic breakdown.
